Diversity: Attracting & Retaining Tax Professionals
Part 1 - How to Attract Minority Tax Professionals

by Shannon King Nash, Esq. & Wayne A. S. Hamilton, Esq.

It is no longer a secret.

Over the past few years, the push for "workplace diversity" has emerged as a business imperative. Business leaders have recognized that inclusion is not merely a moral issue, but is the "necessary thing to do", if they plan to maximize their potential (and successes) in an increasingly complex business environment.

Shannon King Nash is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law. She is a CPA and currently works as a senior tax attorney.

Wayne Hamilton graduated from North Carolina Central University School of Law and holds an LLM from the University of Florida. He is a corporate tax counsel.

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TaxTalent.com, with over 10,000 registered members, is the largest tax-oriented community on the internet.

TaxTalent.com provides career development tools to its members and consultation services to employers; including salary benchmarking and interim and temporary staffing."
Inclusion of diverse backgrounds and opinions provides companies with a broader set of opinions and experiences; thus allowing companies to get the right answers to tough, complex business questions in a rapidly changing business environment. More importantly, it allows each of us an opportunity to enrich our own lives.

Many organizations have taken concrete steps to ensure a diverse workplace. However, there still appears to be a lack of diversity among tax professionals and in many tax departments. To address this shortcoming, we would like to share with you our ideas on how to tackle this problem head-on.

This is the first of a three part series. In Part-1 we offer some practical suggestions on how to attract minority tax professionals. In Part-2 we will discuss how to develop minority tax professionals, and in Part-3 we will offer some steps you can take to retain minority tax professionals.¹

Attracting a Minority Tax Professional

Attracting minorities to your organization must start with a commitment from the top of the organization to modify the hiring process. Many organizations have implemented what would be considered "best practices" in recruiting and hiring qualified candidates. We have taken a number of the best practices and fine-tuned them with respect to hiring minority candidates. What follows is a non-exhaustive list of questions that every organization that is trying to really diversify their tax professionals (departments) must address.

1. Evaluate Our Demographics -- What are the current and historical demographics of our workforce and how has it changed over the last 10 years?

The commitment to diversity begins with taking a group "snapshot" of the people who work and have worked in your organization over the last 5-10 years. True change can only begin with accepting where you are and where you have been.

2. Evaluate Our Hiring Practices -- What have been our hiring practices with respect to minorities?

Before an organization can begin to develop a plan on how to attract minority tax professionals, it must address its past candidly.

Attracting minorities to your organization must start with a commitment from the top...
Many organizations publicly embrace a corporate commitment of a diverse workforce; but, the "numbers" simply don't bear this out. Behind the walls of the organization there are no minorities in key positions to be found or the numbers have not significantly changed over the past few years.

Minorities need to see the genuineness of your statements. If you haven't achieved your corporate objective or you are having problem achieving it, don't hide from it.

3. Identify Where Minorities Are in our Organization -- Where are they in the organization? Where did their career with the organization begin? And for those who are no longer with the organization, why did they leave?

You can learn a lot about what would attract minorities to your organization from those currently within your organization - and even from those who have left.

However, note that not all minorities in a particular group share the same values or have the same needs. To assume otherwise is a common stereotype that has it own implications.

Part-3 of this series will focus more on the retention issues, but it is important to realize if you have a retention problem on the front-end of your hiring efforts.

4. Assesses Our Attractiveness to Minorities -- How many minority candidates have submitted applications? How many have interviewed? To how many have extended offers and how many have accepted the offer?

By evaluating the number of minority candidates who have applied for positions, you will be able to see how many minorities have been attracted to your organization in the past.

High numbers may show that you have been very attractive to minority candidates, but for some reason they have not made it through your interview process.

Low numbers can be an indication that minorities are not aware of opportunities at your organization. (See points 7 and 8 below about locating and advertising to minority candidates.) It is important to evaluate how many minority candidates were extended offers and how many accepted. Again, these numbers may be able to shed light on how attractive your organization is to minorities.

5. Define Our Target "Pool" -- What minority pool are we targeting - gender, race, sexual orientation? Do we know what would and would not be attractive to that target pool?

Defining the pool is crucial before you can begin attracting minority tax professionals.

You may be targeting one pool - by gender, race and sexual orientation - or several pools at once. Once you have narrowed down your pool or pools, you will need to determine what is attractive to your target pool. A one size fits all approach will not work for these target pools. For example if you are targeting women, a position that requires a lot of travel and non-flexible work hours may not be attractive for a parent.

6. Identify the "Personality" -- What type of personality are we looking for? A trailblazer, builder or sustainer?

A "trailblazer" is someone who will break the ice and pave the way for other minorities. A "builder" is someone who can follow behind the trailblazer and raise the expectations even further as to what minority candidates can accomplish in your department. A "sustainer" is someone who keeps it together. Sustainers don't raise the bar but also they don't fall behind. They are very hard workers and they meet expectations (like 50% of your workforce).

If you hire a trailblazer and treat her like a "builder" (or even worse a "sustainer") she will leave very quickly.

7. Locate Sources for the Target "Pool" -- Have we identified sources of the target pool(s)?

There are professional organizations and publications that cater to specific minority groups.

If your target pool is African-American, for example, several organizations may be good sources - like the National Association of Black Accountants, the National Bar Association, Black Enterprise Magazine, and historically black colleges and universities like Howard University and North Carolina Central University.

Whatever your target pool, take the time and effort to identify the organizations and publications that members of the target pool may subscribe to. But be aware that not all individuals of a particular pool have a membership in organizations that serve their minority group or have attended certain schools.

In truth, locating a qualified applicant from a target group, may be simple as asking someone in that group, "Do you know someone who may be interested in...?"

8. Advertise to the Target Pool -- Will our advertisements and presentations highlight opportunities that would be attractive to your target pools?

This issue goes hand-in-hand with points 5-7 above.

After determining the source of the target pool, this is where "advertising" must take place, either through publications or networking at functions.

All advertisements should be tasteful and "politically correct". It may be helpful to include other minorities in your advertisements. Make sure that your advertisement clearly reflects the personality type that you are interested in recruiting. Doing this at the start can go a long way in helping with retention issues (which will be discussed in more detail in Part-3 of this series).

9. Establish Mentors Early On - Who will mentor the minority?

This will be a common theme throughout each part of this series.

Everyone needs a mentor, regardless of race, color or creed. This is a well-accepted notion. But for many minorities such mentor relationships are hard to find.

It is crucial that potential mentors be lined up as early as the attraction stage of the process. Mentors should be available to talk to candidates during the interview process. By having a solid mentorship base in place, minority candidates will more likely be drawn to your company.

Summary
Wanting to diversify and trying to diversify your organization are separate
If your organization is trying to diversify its tax department, "trying" must start at the top of the organization, and the message must be clearly communicated throughout on a consistent basis.

Organizations which have implemented best practices for finding and hiring qualified candidates can use these same practices (with some fine-tuning) to hire qualified minorities.

The preceding list of issues is designed to offer suggestions on how to adapt best practices to attract minorities to your organization. The basic attraction skills have not been changed, just slightly modified.

If you want to attract minorities you need to make it abundantly clear that you are willing to do the same for minorities as you are doing for non-minorities.


¹ Diversity differs in substance and form. For the purposes of this article, and for the sake of simplicity, the word "minority" includes gender, race, sexual orientation or any combination thereof.


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