General Motors has abandoned a four-year degree requirement for many of its jobs and will overhaul its hiring process to help those from underrepresented populations.
The car manufacturer wants to become the most inclusive company in the world and through this, has adopted a skills-based hiring process and identified three key pillars for its new workforce strategy, Auto News reports.
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The first pillar is DE&I consulting integration that will help GM develop inclusive leaders, the second pillar is focused on workforce innovation that aims to eliminate biases that could impact the employee experience, and the third revolves around workforce design, generating new pathways into the company that do not require employees to have a four-year degree.
“From a soft skills perspective, we really needed people who can connect with people,” GM’s executive director of diversity, equity and inclusion, Tammy Golden described. “When you focus on what’s required of the job versus, say, a four-year degree, as your ticket in, it allows you the opportunity to open the aperture to another pool of talent.”
The new strategy has seen almost half of the 500 group leaders hired by GM in recent months come from underrepresented categories, defined by GM as including women, people of color, and those with indigenous heritage.
Part of GM’s overhaul in its hiring has seen it establish a transition pathway scholarship with Udacity. The first of these scholarships focuses on works in the Detroit and Pontiac areas of Michigan, with 100 scholarships to be available to women and people of color. Students are eligible for the scholarship even if they don’t have a four-year degree, with many expected to come from high school.
Golden added that General Motors is looking to close the equity gaps in communities where it has offices and plants.
