NEW DELHI | KOLKATA: India Inc’s growing focus on diversity in the workplace is fuelling the rise of specialised recruiters such as Equiv.in, Vividhataa, PeriFerry and Pride Circle, which cater to leading companies and startups. Apart from more women, they are looking to recruit persons with disability (PwDs), LGBTQ candidates and army veterans. The reason — it makes good business sense.Those hiring include Tata Steel, Godrej Properties, Infosys , Accenture, IBM Goldman Sachs , Society Generale, Wells Fargo and even startups such as EarlySalary, said the recruitment firms. The market for diversity recruitment is close to $500 million in India alone — and growing rapidly — estimated Naren Krishna, CEO of Equiv.in, an exclusive portal for diversity talent.Signalling a shift from a few years ago when companies relied on NGOs for recruiting LGBT and PwDs, these recruitment startups make it clear they are not charities — there’s a clear business case for inclusion, they say. Diversity contributes to enhanced problem solving, greater innovation and a higher discretionary effort by all employees, said Saundarya Rajesh, founder president of Avtar. “There is greater awareness about diversity and business benefit accrued,” she said.Meanwhile, companies are willing to pay a 5% premium for hiring women at senior management levels, said Ratnaprabha Sable, founder of Vividhataa. As part of marketing efforts, these firms have been tying up with community influencers. Vividhataa has done so with Suresh Ramdas, Mr Gay India 2019, and Manvendra Singh Gohil, an openly gay member of the Gujarati Rajpipla royal family.Equiv.in has conducted events featuring LGBT hotelier Keshav Suri and visually impaired comedian Nidhi Goyal that tell companies why it makes good sense to tap a broader pool of candidates.The numbers are small, but interest is growing, despite the economic slowdown. Vividhataa has placed about 200 candidates so far, Equiv.in about 450 and Pride Circle, which serves the LGBTQ community, about 45.“Many organisations say they are not getting sufficient resumes when it comes to diversity. Under such circumstances, hiring firms focused on gender, LGBTQ, disability hiring, etc., become the go-to options,” said Shachi Irde, chief consulting partner at Interweave Consulting, a company that focuses on diversity management and workplace inclusion. The filtering of talent and skills along with the expertise required to work with candidates with say, a hearing disability, is why EarlySalary chose to work with a diversity recruitment firm, said the startup’s head of human resources Sandeep Raghunath.Tata Steel said it wants a diversity proportion of at least 25% by 2025. It has special hiring programmes for women and people with disabilities, said chief diversity officer Atrayee S Sanyal.Vividhataa said companies have begun reaching out in the past few months, rather than the other way round when it started operations last year. Avtar, which started in 2000 and is possibly the oldest diversity-focused firm in India, attributed about 70% of its hires to this pool.Some companies are widening the search for recruits from among those who have been marginalised. Lemon Tree Hotels , which has already hired domestic violence survivors and acid attack victims, will now seek out those with learning disabilities such as dysgraphia, dyslexia and dyspraxia. About 10-11% of its workforce is PwD.This had started out as an experiment but Lemon Tree found such employees to be high on energy and enthusiasm, said Aradhana Lal, vice president, brand, communications and sustainability initiatives. Also, their colleagues felt more engaged as they could both guide and learn from them. Employees also feel proud to work for an inclusive company, she said.It’s not just the big cities — companies say they are increasingly focusing on tier II and tier III areas, which they say have untapped potential. Equiv.in will increase its reach in these areas by using Facebook . Vividhataa also said it’s planning to broaden its searches in smaller towns.Avtar’s Rajesh said most employers in these cities are from the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector. “MSMEs being the second-largest sectoral employer in the country, the potential for job creation in them is huge,” she said.Business is booming. Equiv.in expects revenue to nearly double to ?3.5-4 crore in FY20 from ?2 crore in FY19. It has raised around ?1.5 crore in two rounds of funding so far and says it’s profitable. It’s also planning to double the number of job fairs it puts on next year.Pride Circle has three job fairs lined up next year, up from one this year. The firms earn from companies paying sponsorship or admission fees for job fairs besides commissions for direct recruitments. Candidates don’t pay anything.