In the wake of the 2020 Movement for Black Lives, and continued attention in 2021, many companies and organizations are championing racial diversity. Those taking it seriously (and not just paying lip service) are evaluating diversity and inclusion within their employee base, and considering changes to recruitment and hiring.
Some background on me: I have a professional interest in hiring (20 years as Quality Engineer for a popular Hiring Software) and personal passion for empathy and diversity. Following the racially charged events of spring 2020, thousands of work colleagues (including me) became engaged with diversity/antiracism discussions and events at my very large company. At work, I co-facilitated an anti-racist book club (through 7 books) and was a panelist in several livestream events discussing race relations in America.
Therefore, I consider myself to have an elevated perception into diversity hiring. Following are 6 recommended areas for improving diversity throughput in your hiring process (see also references at the end):
Increase Outreach, Reform Background Check Process, Focus on Skills (Over Means or Fit), Limit Salary Consideration, Anonymize Candidate Data, Build Culture of Inclusion
1. Increase Outreach
Background: Traditional recruiting methods use a “colorblind” approach which tends to draw in the most mainstream, connected and usually white candidates. Also, a heavy reliance on referrals tends to recruit more people who match the ethnicity/culture of the existing employee base.
Recommendation: Partner with organizations (& attend job fairs) focused on under-represented communities. If advanced skills or college are relevant, you’ll want to look into schools or technical programs with highly diverse student populations (and may want to consider HBCUs – historically black colleges and universities). Also, reduce or pause reliance on referrals until after the existing employee base is sufficiently diverse.
Advantage: Receive more applications, résumés & CVs from diverse candidates.
2. Reform Background Check Process
Background: Ever since Black people were freed from slavery, criminalization has been used as a form of racial subjugation, which has continued and morphed in the ensuing 150+ years (and especially via “The War on Drugs”). Excessive and over-simplified criminal background check policies (along with unconscious bias) disproportionately remove people of color from consideration (or deter from applying), some of whom are well-qualified candidates who would be great hires.
Recommendations:
2a. Remove any mention of criminal record from job listings.
Language like “no felonies” can deter good candidates and also violates EEOC guidance.
2b. Move background check to end of hiring process.
Eliminating candidates up-front with background checks is both callous and expensive ($ per check). It’s better to move this check to the offer stage, which results in fewer checks run, and incentivizes a flexible/compassionate approach to the circumstances of conviction (since considerable time/effort was already invested).
2c. Disregard arrests (which did not result in conviction).
Baseless arrests can and do occur, especially for minorities. In addition, arrest records from background sources can be erroneous. Only “current” arrests where trial is pending should be considered (along with convictions or open warrants).
2d. Conviction findings should undergo “individualized assessments.”
Before blocking a hire, a human being should review and consider the circumstances of each conviction (nature, timeframe, severity, etc.), and potentially discuss with the candidate. This reviewer should also be aware of the racialized nature of “criminal justice” in this country, especially regarding drug crimes (see references at the end).
Advantage: Encourage more candidates to apply and enable diverse candidates to proceed through hiring process, including individuals with convictions where that conviction is irrelevant or extenuating circumstances exist. Also, EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) guidance requires a nuanced approach to considering criminal records. A blanket ban on convictions would be considered racial discrimination due to the disproportionate impact on certain minorities of color, and would open your company up to discrimination lawsuits.
3. Focus on Skills (Over Means Or Fit)
Background: Although job skills are the strongest predictor of success and can be acquired through a variety of means (e.g., experience, self-study, internship), common recruiting practices may consider college degree, culture fit or personality type as “required” for candidates. College degrees are often out of reach for ethnic/racial minorities who suffer disproportionately from poverty and other challenges. Culture and personality considerations are usually masks for unconscious bias (e.g., affinity bias) and tend to perpetuate a limited range of employee perspectives and experience.
Recommendations:
3a. Focus on Skills Over Degree.
Job postings and screening interviews should be carefully reviewed and reduced to the bare minimum “requirements” in the form of skills. If a job could theoretically be done by someone with appropriate knowledge/skills and without a degree, make it so. If there’s a strong preference to mention degree, then it should be “X degree or equivalent experience.”
3b. Focus on Skills Over Culture Fit.
Having a diverse employee base requires embracing a broad range of culture and perspectives. Use candidate’s skills and aptitude to make hiring decisions and avoid discounting candidates due to culture or personality (e.g., if candidate “wouldn’t fit in” ).
3c. Cease using Personality Tests / Assessments.
Many companies rely on “assessments” for new candidates or applications, which may include skills-based tests, as well as personality tests. While it’s desirable to assess skills and industry knowledge for potential hires, requiring personality tests is a diversity-killer. Do you really want a workforce of personality clones?
Advantage: Being clear and succinct about skills required in job postings (& avoiding degree requirement) will encourage more diverse candidates to apply, and avoiding screening for degree, personality or culture, will enable more diverse candidates to proceed to hire.
4. Limit Salary Consideration
Background: Pay inequity is a significant problem across gender and racial categories and tends to follow candidates throughout their employment history. Too much latitude in salary setting is a problem for diversity recruiting, since it tends to cause or reinforce pay inequities.
Recommendations:
4a. Institute Salary History Ban.
While it is currently against the law in certain states, territories or municipalities to ask former salaries (and studies have proven this is effective in increasing pay equity for new hires), your company can make the ban universal for all recruiting. In addition, you can instruct recruiters and hiring managers not to consider former salary when setting the hiring salary even if the candidate offers this information.
4b. Ensure Narrow Salary Ranges.
Each job should have a narrow salary range, based on market rate and company budget. Some HR experts even recommend publicizing these ranges in the job posting, to better attract candidates looking in the available range.
Advantages: Together, these ensure a basic pay equity for new hires based on qualifications, while minimizing the ability of over-confident (or over-paid) privileged candidates to negotiate a much higher starting salary than less privileged, minority candidates (who may have been underpaid in previous positions). This also limits the potential impact of unconscious bias on salary setting and can save the company money (by reducing instances of “overpaid” employees).
5. Anonymize Candidate Data
Background: Numerous studies have shown racial (and gender) bias in callbacks/interviews based on candidate name and other resume details.
Recommendations:
5a. Hide candidate name.
Sort/review candidates by number or other non-name value in early reviews and screening; instead focus on work experience and qualifications. If possible, select candidates for 1st interview without knowing names.
5b. Hide college names.
Although area of study (major) may be pertinent, along with experience and skills, the detail of which school was attended is not as relevant as people think (and is often subject to affinity bias or confirmation bias). Studies have shown that worker productivity / outcomes are not significantly impacted by school (i.e., those ivy league names are just “brands” – not better for work output).
5c. Hide dates.
Available dates (e.g., graduation date) create opportunity for unconscious age bias. Age bias can result in discrimination against both young adults and older adults.
5d. Hide residential address / zip code.
Due to historical housing inequities (e.g., redlining) and ongoing segregation by neighborhood, a person’s home address can often be used as proxy for race (or income level). This can result in racial (or classist) discrimination.
Advantages: Human beings have lots of unconscious biases, including common preconceptions about names/race, age and school name, which are factors usually neutral or negative relevant to business outcomes. Note: anonymization may or may not be feasible depending on your current hiring practices or software system (but if not technically feasible, maybe time to start evaluating other systems?).
6. Build Culture of Inclusion
Background: Despite moderate success in hiring diverse candidates, retention of diverse employees tends to be poor if those individuals don’t feel a sense of inclusion, but are instead expected to minimize their diverse characteristics, or are merely “tolerated” for their differences.
Recommendations:
6a. Provide Diversity & Inclusion Training.
Your company should offer and promote a wide range of (free) diversity trainings for all employees and, ideally, require a subset of these. At minimum, all recruiters, hiring managers and top leaders should be required to complete unconscious bias training.
6a. Reform/Loosen Dress Code.
Re-evaluate your dress code, paying close attention to areas which may limit diversity or enforce unconscious biases. Do not regulate hairstyles (which may create difficulty for individuals with significantly different hair types), remove/reduce any gender-specific limitations, and remove any other potentially diversity-quelling attire policies.
Advantage: Hang onto those new diverse hires, plus make the workplace more welcoming in general, as you may have existing employees who were “covering” or “closeted.” Also, high retention saves money!
On the flip side, losing visibly diverse hires tends to make it harder to retain other diverse employees and hampers diversity recruitment.
Conclusion:
Many hiring traditions have the unintentional impact of minimizing diversity of hires and perpetuating “sameness,” but these can be updated. Optimizing hiring (& HR) practices for Diversity & Inclusion is a winning strategy for business, as it will improve employee retention, engagement and productivity.
Diversity is also critical for product and process innovation, since diversity of ideas usually stems from a diversity of perspectives and experiences (i.e., individuals of diverse ethnic/racial, religious, gender, etc., backgrounds). Moreover, such ideas won’t be freely shared without culture of Inclusion.
References:
1. Increase Outreach – I don’t have a specific link/article for this, but know this is a key strategy for several large companies (including mine) which are currently focused on increasing diversity of candidates. Also, it’s a logical conclusion that if old methods haven’t resulted in sufficient diversity, additional effort will be required to change that.
2. Reform Background Check process – see 65 Million Need Not Apply: The Case for Reforming Criminal Background Checks (2012 report by the National Employment Law Project).
For much more detail on the racial injustices of the criminal justice system see Michelle Alexander’s excellent book, “The New Jim Crow: Colorblindness in the Age of Mass Incarceration” (10th anniversary edition from 2020 recommended).
3. Focus on Skills / 4. Limit Salary Consideration – see Black Workers Still Earn Less Than Their White Counterparts: Employers can examine their pay policies to root out inequities (2020 article from SHRM.org)
5. Anonymize Candidate Data – Internet search on “hiring bias candidate name” will turn up a number of results, including “Is your name holding you back?” (article with research references) and “Can Blind Hiring Improve Workplace Diversity?” (SHRM article which contains tips for how to implement nameless recruiting).
6. Build Culture of Inclusion — I know this from various articles and books, as well as personal experience at my work where significant diversity training materials are available. Also, as a personal anecdote, a friend of mine declined to pursue a job after her first interview (in person) revealed she’d be the only black person in a sea of white faces at the company. I also found this article which, though IT focused, applies to other industries (especially in STEM) as well: How to Plug the Leaky Bucket: Retention Strategies for Maintaining a Diverse Workforce.
General/Conclusion – see “What is Unconscious Bias in Recruitment” – See also the topic of “covering” (which argues for Inclusive culture for the benefit of both new and preexisting employees) in articles/papers such as: “Identity covering at work—a majority phenomenon“
Various studies have shown that a diverse (& inclusive) workforce correlates with business success, such as this McKinsey report: “Diversity wins: How inclusion matters – May 19, 2020 | Report“.
