At a time of record attrition across the U.S. workforce, many employers are scrambling to fill gaps on their teams. As they place new urgency on hiring, some employers have also started cutting corners and reverting to previous bad habits rampant with bias. The worry in this new hiring landscape is that meeting diversity goals will take a back seat to simply filling open positions.
Employers who want to fill gaps while advancing diversity will need to address bias in the daily actions and systems of their hiring process. An example of how to do that comes from Etsy, the e-commerce company focused on crafts and homemade goods.
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HR can help drive a culture of innovation through championing process improvement initiatives and by helping leadership engage in effective change management strategies. In the public sector, HR must lead the way by adapting policies and practices to keep pace with the evolving needs of the organization.
Years ago, Etsy took pride in its casual workplace culture with no dress code. This led to an unexpected snag in the company’s hiring process: Candidates who showed up to interviews in formal business attire stuck out. Not only were such candidates often visibly uncomfortable during interviews, but Etsy found that some interviewers were raising concerns that the formally attired people might not thrive or fit in at the company.
Recognizing potential selection bias in its hiring process, Etsy quickly devised a creative solution: Give every candidate coming in for an interview a lab coat. This provided an equalizing mechanism that enabled interviewers to focus on their conversations with candidates rather than getting distracted by what people were wearing. The lab coats also created a more comfortable, casual setting for candidates who might have otherwise feared they presented too formally. Etsy leadership also used this as an opportunity to raise awareness across the organization about the risks of selection bias.
Just as Etsy took an unconventional approach to addressing bias in its hiring process, so must all organizations operating in the new normal for work. Here are five unconventional ways to address bias in hiring.
Challenge Your Team to Think Beyond the Obvious Types of Selection Bias
It is a common misconception that for most teams, selection bias is limited to a candidate’s name and picture. A survey of recruiters my coauthor and I conducted for our new book, Hiring for Diversity, identified the following 10 most common reasons that candidates are disqualified at the onset of the hiring process:
- Age;
- Gender;
- Gaps in employment;
- Unimpressive LinkedIn profile;
- Education or institutions attended;
- Too much time at one employer;
- Too little time at any employer, “jumpy” record;
- Lack of industry experience;
- Not visibly diverse; and
- Need for visa sponsorship.
Reconsider Resume Submission Requirements to Level the Playing Field
Everyone agrees it would be nice to anonymize resumes and candidate profiles. The reality is that very few organizations will ever do that.
Because it can be difficult to anonymize or limit what a job seeker presents in their resume, and since such information can be viewed with bias, many organizations have stopped requesting resumes altogether. Instead, they ask an extremely specific set of questions pertaining to a role’s requirements and daily objectives. Doing this allows candidates to share only pertinent information in their applications, which helps level the field.
Support Candidates Being Off Camera During Initial Screenings
Working from home during the pandemic led to much of the hiring process being conducted via videoconference instead of over the phone. This has put pressure on many candidates and heightened the possibility of interviewers prematurely forming opinions based on visual cues. Giving candidates the option to be off camera for initial screenings can reduce those problems.
Ask Every Interviewer to Use the Same Scorecard and to Submit Scores Within 24 Hours of Conducting an Interview
So much bias influences decision making during the interview process just because the process is frequently unstructured and informal. The most-seasoned interviewers may be the most prone to acting on bias because they have stopped questioning the ways they conduct and assess interviews.
Asking every interviewer to fill out an interview scorecard within 24 hours of doing an interview and while adhering to an objective system for grading candidates imposes structure and standardizes assessments. This also ensures interviewers’ feedback on candidates will be delivered in a timely and consistent manner.
Establish a System for Independently Collecting Feedback From Your Team
Conformity bias—the natural tendency to follow the herd—can be a powerful force when it comes to acting as part of a group tasked with providing feedback on a candidate. Interviewers love to hear what their colleagues think and to base their input on what others have shared.
Requiring each reviewer to submit their own feedback about a candidate before they read or hear what the rest of the team has to say can do much to limit conformity bias. Many applicant tracking systems allow administrators to prevent reviewers from viewing others’ feedback. Taking advantage of that function is highly recommended.
While the hiring landscape is undoubtedly competitive, let’s not allow the new dynamic to become an excuse for biased decision making. There is no reason hiring cannot be equitable and efficient. Committing to both goals is best for your organization and for society.
01 November 2021
Category
HR News Article