DSP Executive Search Opens in Cambridge, MA
March 7, 2018 – Leaders at the best companies know that diversity matters. Not only are the companies that pay attention to such matters rewarded with better financial returns, but they gain perspectives and insights that would otherwise be lost to them. It is also an area that search firms have been highly focused on.
To that end, diversity-focused recruiting firm DSP Executive Search has recently opened for business. The Cambridge, MA-based recruiter is focused on helping organizations address talent-pool gaps and assisting them in building balanced workforces.
“Demand for diversity recruiting services has increased as research shows that an ethnically- and gender-diverse workforce results in a more effective, productive and higher-performing organization,” said Paul Foster, co-founder and president of DSP Executive Search. “According to worldwide management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, more diverse companies are better able to attract top talent; to improve their customer orientation, employee satisfaction, and decision-making; and to secure their license to operate.”
Kim Dukes, co-founder and managing director of DSP, said the firm is excited about the opening. “DSP Executive Search combines years of strategic talent acquisition consulting expertise with an extensive national network of diverse candidates to deliver high-performing candidates to our clients that seek to build more diverse, balanced workforces,” she said.
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Ms. Dukes has over 25 years of experience in business development and operations management, and more than 17 years of experience in recruiting, hiring and training diverse and non-diverse candidates. She is described as being passionate about helping clients develop customized recruitment strategies to address their diversity and inclusion needs. Ms. Dukes is a member of the Society for Human Resources Management and the New England Human Resources Association, where she is a member of the diversity advisory committee and previously served as co-chair of the diversity and inclusion community forum. Previously, she was SVP of diversity recruitment for KNF&T Staffing Resources.
DSP Executive Search offers diversity recruiting services through retained search agreements with its clients. The firm serves the financial services, life sciences, healthcare, marketing/communications, and insurance sectors. DSP also offers diversity recruitment training programs to help organizations by sharing best practices in diversity recruitment and retention and tips for building and keeping a diverse workforce.
Diversity Efforts Increasing
New efforts toward improving diversity are on their way in 2018, according to a new report by Glassdoor. One in three (35 percent) hiring decision-makers expect to increase investment in diversity and inclusion and only three percent expect it to decrease. The remainder said they have no plans to change.
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There is now broad consensus that having a diverse board, where directors are drawn from both genders and from an array of races and ethnicities, provides the breadth of perspective that is essential in today’s global dynamic environment.
The report, which involved 750 hiring decision-makers (those in recruitment, HR and responsible for hiring) in the U.S. and U.K., also found that hiring leaders consider job candidate demographics among the most important recruiting metrics.
“In today’s era of the informed candidate, job seekers are hungry for as much information about a company as possible before they take a job,” said Carmel Galvin, chief human resources officer (CHRO) of Glassdoor. “Job seekers want insights into what businesses are doing to build a workforce that is diverse in all aspects of the word – be it age, gender, ethnicity or thought.”
Driving toward greater diversity in the workplace, he added, “is a high priority effort for many businesses. With increased investment in diversity and inclusion programs, it signals that employers are recognizing the value these efforts are having on recruiting and on financial performance.”
When speaking on the challenges of creating a diverse workforce, Willie E. Carrington, founder of executive search firm Carrington & Carrington, said: “Diversity is not one of those things that’s going to be resolved in a few years’ time. We say, rather, that it’s a march of a thousand years.” He said diversity is one of those “nebulous areas” that changes with time and circumstance, and gets affected by so many things in the market.
“Diversity, in many respects, moves forward and then moves backwards and then moves forward again. It is just challenging and tough. Our collective senses get riled,” he said, “and then they settle down.” That pattern, he said, repeats itself over and over again across our lifetimes.
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor; and Will Schatz, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
