Robert Walters Group was announced as the winner of the 2023 edie Awards  ‘Product Innovation of the Year’ category for its Recruitment Inclusivity Audit, at the awards ceremony on Thursday 30 March. 

The edie Awards recognise excellence in sustainability. From the most ambitious net-zero carbon programmes through to cutting-edge green innovations, from impactful climate partnerships and social sustainability initiatives to the heroes on the ground who are driving positive change, the awards acknowledge and reward the people, projects and partnerships that are transforming business, for good. 

As winner of one of edie’s most coveted awards, the ‘Product Innovation of the Year’ category, Robert Walters Group and its Recruitment Inclusivity Audit is recognised for excellence in creating  sustainability products or solutions which promise to deliver significant environmental or social sustainability improvements. 

The Recruitment Inclusivity Audit analyses the impact of recruitment processes across seven different lenses to improve recruitment outcomes for underrepresented groups: age, disability and neurodiversity, ethnicity, gender, faith, LGBTQ+ and socio economic. Designing a product to address bias at the recruitment stage of employment, the Group is able to empower the world’s largest and most influential organisations with the knowledge they need to remove barriers and bias from their recruitment processes and thereby open the door for talent from diverse backgrounds. 

The edie Award judges commented that “The Recruitment Inclusivity Audit stood out in this category primarily for its clear purpose and its timeliness. The service, if scaled, could be a real gamechanger, helping to drive increased diversity and inclusion in the workplace – a worthy winner of a tough category.” 

The Robert Walters Group was also named a finalist for the ‘Social Sustainability, Diversity & Inclusion' award, a category recognising organisations that are putting social responsibility, equality, diversity and inclusion at the heart of what they do.  

“We’re honoured to have our Recruitment Inclusivity Audit announced winner of such a critical category in the edie awards,” Stephen Edwards, CMO of Robert Walters Group, said of the Group’s finalist's announcement. “To be recognised as winner and finalist of these two awards is a testament to our incredible teams who work to develop new services and make the world a more equitable place for all.” 

Blending academic research and best-in-class case studies from over 100 sources, the Recruitment Inclusivity Audit identifies 257 ways that bias enters the hiring process. We service  audit every single touch point that a person has in a hiring process from the moment they type ‘jobs’ into a search engine, to the images they see, through an application process, interviewing, selection, assessment to the way they are onboarded on day one.   

Find out more about our Recruitment Inclusivity Audit or browse the Group's Corporate Responsibility site to learn more about our diversity strategy.