5 ways to remove bias in the recruitment process

Removing bias in the recruitment process is essential for creating a diverse and inclusive workforce.

While affirmative measures are adopted by many workplaces, often more can be done in the recruitment process to remove unconscious bias against workers potentially facing discrimination, including disabled and neurodiverse workers and women in a male-dominated industry.

Unconscious bias can lead to job candidates being compared based on factors that are not relevant to the job, such as their gender, age, ethnicity or the school that they went to. Yet improving workplace diversity can have significant benefits for employers. Diverse workplaces bring together people with different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. This diversity can lead to new ideas and new approaches to problem solving, which can foster greater productivity in the workplace.

Below I outline five ways organisations can remove bias in the recruitment process to promote a more inclusive work environment. 

1. Make a longer shortlist when recruiting
   

Unconscious bias can be ingrained in recruitment processes. Companies aiming to reduce gender or other biases in their hiring processes should be as objective as possible and broaden the field of candidates. This can involve advertising jobs through new channels to broaden your audience and capture candidates from different backgrounds.

Broadening your field can also involve making your shortlist longer, which might help to remain more objective, according to this report in the Harvard Business Review. Adding three candidates to an initial shortlist of three, for example, saw the women-to-men ratio rise from 1:6 on the original list, that study found.

2. Remove personal information from the recruitment process

Removing personal information about a candidate that could trigger biases such as name, gender, age, and ethnicity during the initial screening phase can be an effective way to reduce unconscious bias. Blind screening ensures that candidates are compared based on their qualifications, experience and skills rather than their personal characteristics, which can help to promote diversity in the workplace. An increasing number of employers are committing to anonymous or blind recruitment, which removes all identifying details from a job application until final interviews.

3. Establish objective criteria

Objective criteria make the recruitment process fairer and level the playing field by providing clear and consistent standards for evaluating candidates. Skills-based assessment can also help remove biases rather than relying on interviews alone, which are one of the most common recruitment methods but can be the least objective.

Skill-based assessment typically involves asking candidates to perform tasks they would be expected to carry out in the role for which they are applying. This enables organisations to assess their suitability and skills based on their performance rather than their gender or physical abilities. This form of recruitment can also rely on data (such as test results) being used to make hiring decisions to increase objectivity.

4. Train hiring managers and introduce a diverse panel

Educating hiring managers on how to recognise and avoid discrimination in the recruitment process is also very important.

By training HR managers to remove unconscious bias and introducing a diverse recruitment panel, organisations can improve the quality of their hiring decisions and expand diversity. People tend to hire others who are similar to themselves, so having a diverse panel can offer employers different perspectives, help to remove unconscious bias and broaden the field of candidates that are considered for positions.

5. Introduce flexible workplace policies and build education
   

Introducing flexible workplace policies can attract women to the workforce, as women are, more often than men, responsible for the care of family members. Insurance company Zurich saw a 16 per cent increase in women applying for jobs after it became the first firm in the UK to advertise all its vacancies with the options of “part-time”, “job-share”, or “flexible working”. Gender inequality in the workplace widens considerably after women have children, so enabling flexible work policies can help considerably to keep women in the workforce.

More generally, education to build awareness and knowledge and uncover unconscious biases is very important. Backing that up with workplace policies and practices to support diversity and removing biases can help to attract greater commitment from employees, who are more likely to be engaged and committed to their work when they feel valued and included.

By Kris Grant, chief executive of ASPL Group.