It can be very easy to categorise others, frequently using what we mistakenly believe to be “intuition” rather than actual reasoning. Without us even realising it, our minds may push us to into making biased or irrational decisions. This is because we often use stereotypes, or groups, as mental shortcuts. This is why anonymising or blinding CVs to overcome unconscious bias is not enough.
While this practice aims to remove any details that could lead to discrimination when a candidate’s suitability is being reviewed, it still discloses key details regarding a candidate’s career history, level of experience, tenure in roles and key achievements. This in turn can still lead to discrimination because of unconscious bias. Here are some top tips, ideas, and suggestions we’ve captured from our conversations with HR and People teams on how to remove unconscious bias from the recruitment process.
1. Train your hiring team
First, remember that we’re only human and we only know what we know. To ensure we begin relying less on assumptions or stereotypes when making decisions on the suitability of a candidate, it’s crucial that hiring managers have received appropriate training on how to avoid unconscious bias when reviewing and assessing candidates during the recruitment process.
2. Awareness and knowledge start from the top!
To ensure best practices are being used consistently and effectively, you need to educate your managers. It’s vital that training and awareness is delivered not just to those that are making assessment and hiring decisions, but also the managers and leaders of those respective individuals. This allows for standards to be consistently monitored, maintained, and improved moving forward.
3. Your criteria
To remove bias from personnel choices, establish clear and explicit suitability criteria before starting the recruitment process, and ensure everyone responsible for making decisions are held accountable in accordance with the pre-determined criteria.
4. Challenge your team’s thinking
When identifying and agreeing on the assessment criteria for a role, make sure that requirements are not too restrictive and prevent suitable and qualified individuals from applying for jobs in the first place. Challenge your manager’s thinking on what they perceive is an ideal candidate and guide their thought process by suggesting alternative options and real-life case studies where others have thrived in roles, despite maybe not being regarded as a suitable fit initially.
5. Encouraging learning
Facilitate training for management and staff by encouraging conversation and openness to learn in settings outside of the workplace, such as identity groups, mentorship, and continuous benchmarking against standard practices. Fostering a culture of change and improvement can dramatically improve awareness and adaptation amongst teams.
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