As more and more companies focus and enhance their diversity recruiting efforts, some companies will inevitably choose to have their diversity recruiting efforts managed by human resources alone. But according to international recruiters who completed Korn/Ferry International’s Executive Recruiter Index, executive leadership should be the main driving force behind a company’s diversity recruiting efforts.

The importance of diversity hiring practices in today's competitive market for talent continues to grow, and in order for companies to win the best diversity candidates for top positions of responsibility within their companies, they must consistently hone and refine their diversity recruiting strategies.

Globalization continues to shape the workplace, and companies throughout the US need to recruit and retain diversity candidates with the potential for executive leadership who also understand the social and cultural nuances of today’s globally diverse markets.

As such, diversity efforts should start in the executive suite and trickle down through every level of an organization in order to be truly successful. Responses to the Executive Recruiter Index agree with this assertion. Among the key findings of the Index:

• Sixty-eight percent of executive recruiters who participated in the Executive Recruiter Index said that diversity hiring efforts should be spearheaded by top company leadership.

• Respondent recruiters believe that the company's board of directors (13 percent) and the human resources department (11 percent) should also be champions of workplace diversity.

• While 46 percent of recruiters said that minority candidates make up between 25-75 percent of their executive searches, only 21 percent said that diversity candidates had been included in 75 percent or more of their recent engagements.

Even though nearly 85 percent of participating recruiters agree with the notion that companies that have successful diversity programs in place enjoy a competitive advantage in the marketplace, diversity recruiting on a national level still has a long way to go. Companies have long known that effective diversity programs provide a more robust talent pool from which they can recruit qualified candidates, allowing them to attract and retain more top talent amidst today's shortage of skilled professionals. More employers need to correctly focus their diversity recruiting efforts from the top down, as this study suggests.