Winning with Underdogs: How Hiring the Least Likely Candidates Can Spark Creativity, Improve Service, and Boost Profits for Your Business, 1st Edition

Hiring the least likely candidates and turning them into high-potential employees is not only a winning business strategy but also a crucial step on the road to full inclusion and social justice. In today’s workplace, too many marginalized groups—people with disabilities, ex-convicts, senior citizens, the shy and anxious, various minorities—are underrepresented. And yet, workplaces often struggle to find enough employees to sustain their growing needs, putting massive pressure on HR hiring teams to fill the demand. Organizational psychologist Gil Winch argues that addressing our own biases and building organizations where everyone feels a profound sense of belonging is not only great for a company’s bottom line, it’s also good for employees, communities, and society as a whole. But where does a leader start? In Winning with Underdogs, Winch reveals: The current state of diversity, equity, and inclusion in business and the huge financial, social, and personal benefits that happen when full inclusion is a workplace norm Who comprises the pool of excellent potential candidates and where to find them How to screen, onboard, train, and manage candidates correctly for positions that match their skills How to care for employees’ needs in a way that empowers them to be highly productive and engaged in their work How to create a warm, welcoming corporate culture that prioritizes employees’ emotional health This strategy of full inclusion works. Winch has used it in his own business, and today, he offers a proven, systematic method to help leaders make the workplace not only more diverse and equitable but more productive and successful. Winning with Underdogs is the highly practical step-by-step guide you need to help build a more just society, while benefitting your business—and everyone in it. Gil Winch has served for 30+ years as an organizational consultant for many large companies and is an in-demand keynote speaker. His work creating a 100 percent underdog company composed mainly of people with disabilities has received international attention and led to an invitation to speak at conferences alongside Bill Clinton and other influential leaders. Winch is the founder of Call Yachol, an outsourcing call center that is a proving ground and showcase for his hiring and workforce-building model.