Unveiling Bias: How To Implement Inclusive Hiring Practices
This InsideHR session looked at how unconscious bias works, why progress on diversity in hiring has been slow, and the practical changes that reduce bias at each stage of recruitment. Host James Marsh of HRreview was joined by Clare Keniry of Morgan Hunt and Stephen Cuppello of Thomas.
Clare Keniry, Board Director, Morgan Hunt; Stephen Cuppello, Senior Manager of Psychology, Thomas. Hosted by James Marsh, HRreview.
Key takeaways
Change processes, not people
Cuppello said research has consistently found that training people out of their biases does not work. Awareness training still has value, but real objectivity comes from redesigning the decisions themselves. Cuppello's own implicit association test result showed that nobody is exempt.
Audit recruitment stage by stage to find where diverse candidates drop out
Keniry breaks recruitment into about ten stages, from preparing to recruit through to onboarding and review. Use your applicant tracking data to spot the blockers: a strong diverse response to an advert, for example, but none of those candidates reaching interview.
Blind the sift so managers see only skills, experience and qualifications
Keniry recommends removing name, sex, address, age and even university from applications. Cuppello added that the most biased decisions happen when information is most ambiguous, so pushing blindness further down the process means more reliance on evidence.
A lone woman on a shortlist is unlikely to be hired
Cuppello described one recruitment company's analysis of its own four-person shortlists. With two men and two women, a woman had roughly a 50-50 chance. With one woman and three men, the woman was never hired in any case it held.
Say the salary is negotiable, and offer what the candidate is worth
Cuppello said the same negotiating behaviour is read as assertive in men and pushy in women. When an advert states the salary is negotiable, men and women negotiate at equal rates. Keniry added that low-balling offers is a common way to lose good candidates at the final stage.
Senior leaders have to own it, not just HR
Keniry described a client whose executive team led its own line-by-line review of salaries, which exposed women returning from maternity leave who had not been considered for promotion or pay rises.
The snap poll that tricks a quarter of the audience, used to explain fast and slow thinking, and the Q&A on whether blind CVs still help once a biased manager meets the candidate.
Never miss the next one. Get InsideHR webinar alerts →