The Ethics of Recruiting and Hiring Based on Physical Appearance

Hiring the right people for the job is critical for organizational success. However, employee selection can be a daunting process. Although there are numerous methods utilized by employers to understand personality and competence, physical appearance is an unspoken merit in terms of employability.

‘What is beautiful is good’ is a stereotypical standing that has existed as long as humans have been around. Physical attractiveness is often associated with positive personality traits which may well be an arbitrary notion or perhaps humans simply enjoy looking at attractive people. In any case, it is undeniable that there is an evolutionary basis for being attracted to beauty. Even so, if beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder, then every individual is presented with a subjective reality. With that being said, one might wonder – is beauty truly subjective? Generally, physical appearance refers to physical features such as height, weight, facial symmetry, body language and attributes such as hair styling and clothing.

As soon as we meet someone, we attribute qualities and weaknesses based on their appearance without realizing. This is called prejudice and this happens in the workplace too. The way you look is more important to your superiors and coworkers than your skills and capabilities. Appearance based discrimination is a hidden form of biasness in organizations and it functions as a screening mechanism in the recruitment process.

When discussing the ethical considerations in recruiting and hiring based on physical appearance, both arguments for and against such a dilemma should be deliberated. When rationality is added to the mix, we may have to battle with questions such as, what if physical appearance is a bona fide worker qualification? Would it still be considered discrimination if the job role is primarily customer facing such as Spa and Hotel staff? or required to represent beauty standards advertised by a company that sells beauty care products?

Ethical Dilemmas of Recruiting and Hiring Based on Physical Appearance.

A company is a collection of people brought together by a common motive and more frequently than not, the motive is financial gain. From brick and motor stores to online marketing platforms, from mobile screens to magazine covers, our interactions are met with attractive faces. It is partly the strategy used by companies to make their product or service more desirable to its customers. This projected desirability will result in higher sales and profits for the company, then in turn higher salaries and bonuses for the employees and subsequently benefits all the stakeholders in terms of financial gain and non-financial gain. This causal relationship among the company, its employees and its customers provide for a winning strategy. However, the question that needs to be considered is, would the company have yielded the same results if they had unattractive people representing the company?

When decisions are made towards a collective goal similar to that of a hiring decision within an organizational structure, the decision encompasses a variety of different requirements. ideally, the candidates that closely match the requirements should be selected from a pool of potential candidates. However, this decision can be largely influenced by physical appearance. A study conducted by Shannon and Stark (2003) required participants to pick one applicant out of a pool of 9 applicants with similar resumes but photos accompanying the resumes varied in terms of attractiveness. The study revealed that the attractive applicants had a higher rate of selection. Similarly, Rooth (2008) identified in a study that unattractive people had a lower chance of being called back for interviews. Evidently, discrimination based on physical appearance exists in the modern world.

Prejudice based on appearance has a rather dramatic effect on the lives of the applicants as well. This form of discrimination violates the rights of our fellow men to progress in their desired career paths despite having adequate skills and knowledge required to performs the tasks the job entails. Situations as such is deep rooted in the equality of opportunity problem. Discrimination based on beauty could play out in a variety of different ways in a corporate environment. Be if, refusal to hire, refusal to promote, not inclined to increase wages or any other unfair treatment could potentially have repercussions on the applicants at the receiving end of it. Consequentially, associated psychological issues such as low self-esteem, inferiority complex and exclusion suffering take origin. Although it may not be exactly illegal to hire based on physical appearance, it is certainly dangerous waters to tread.

The way you dress, how you wear your hair or your tattoos and piercings is your freedom of self-expression. The constitutional rights protect your freedom to choose how you present yourself. Hence, neither outdated, unacceptable norms nor unattainable beauty standards could be allowed to restrict self-expression. Implications of discrimination based on physical appearance could wade into the gender inequality conundrum. It could be makeup, clothing or body weight, the preconceived beauty norms vary across different genders. Defining acceptable physical appearance by companies could be more straining on the female gender than on male. At the same time, cultural and societal differences provide for varying definitions of beauty. Therefore, when a business decision such that of an employee selection decision is based on physical appearance, it could open up to a multitude of problems.

For a company that is allowing this type of prejudice to seep through into the organization, it is inevitable that the company will face reduction in productivity and quality because physical appearance was preferential to skills and competence. In addition to that, employee turnover and absenteeism would increase. It could even be expected that the company might face litigation risk. So, any company would have a plethora of ethical considerations to navigate in deliberating prejudice based on physical appearance.

Ethical Implications of Hiring Based on Attractiveness Over Skills.

Ethical dilemmas fall into one of two categories. One is called the type A dilemma where there is uncertainty as to what constitutes right and wrong. There appears to be no adequate solution because there are both positive and negative consequence. Appearance based discrimination falls under type B dilemma, also known as rationalizing dilemma. Type B dilemmas rather clearly presents itself as to what is right and wrong. However, rationalization invokes companies to pursue the best possible outcome for themselves. Companies rationalize, given that other organizations in the market or the industry hire based on physical appearance in pursuit of organizational objectives, they should also do the not so ethical to stay competitive. As much as this prejudice is required by organizations to survive, it could be argued by organizations that such a rational stance is detrimental in the growth and success of the organization.?

In the face of such opposing ethical concerns, organizations could make a convincing argument that job skills of employees can always be developed and trained. However, physical appearance such as body type, facial features or scars and deformities cannot be changed. Differences between the required ability, competence and knowledge possessed by employees can be bridged but biological differences cannot be minimized. Furthermore, evidence suggests that contrary to popular belief, appearance could reveal an awful lot about personality. Men who are tall with broad shoulders and muscular physicality tend to have confident, outgoing and assertive personalities. On the other hand, low waist-hip ratio in female body is considered attractive and thus reveals women to be more extroverted, sociable and adventurous. As such, organizations can counter this ethical dilemma given that they reserve the rights to hire employees for positive personality traits and attributes, whereby adding more value to the organization.

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Fairness in Recruiting Attractive People to Perform Customer Facing Roles.

It is an interesting endeavor to examine the fairness in recruiting based on physical appearance when physical attributes are considered as Bona Fide requirements for the job. Examples not limited to jobs such as runway models, jobs around beauty care products and services like beauty Salons and even hospitality industry like Spas, Resorts and Hotels. If customers prefer being served by attractive employees, if coworkers enjoy working with attractive individuals and the organization as a whole need to project an attractive outlook, it is not easy to claim unfair treatment by the applicants who could not be a part of the process.

A coherent appearance-based standard across the organizational hierarchy could eliminate some of the differences within the organization. Also, by eliminating or reducing the individual differences, the organizational structure and the organizational culture will remain unscathed. To further support the argument, somewhat similar personality types across the organization provides for better management and increases coordination between teams and individuals. All these aspects work together to bring about incremental success to an organization which could only be beneficial to the organization in its entirety. Therefore, if appearance or certain features of appearance is a qualifying criterion that needs to be met for applicants to be eligible to fill a position, discrimination could be considered unobjectionable.

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How to Avoid Prejudice Based on Physical Appearance.

Identifying appearance-based discrimination may seem like a relatively simpler task however, eliminating it requires sophisticated planning and complex decision making. Although attractiveness is subjective, it is not entirely subjective because a fair amount of people would agree on what is defined as attractiveness in spite of social and cultural differences. Beauty cannot neither be considered objective because there are always disagreements in how different people perceive beauty differently in the same individual. Discrimination in personal lives such that of choosing a potential life partner cannot be equated to discrimination in a cooperate environment as the latter could have quantifiably larger impact while the former may seem unobjectionable. Keeping fairness in mind, although attractive people are perceived to be presented with more opportunities, it may as well be that attractive people indeed possess adaptive skills and intelligence. Therefore, we understand that it is not always easy to test for prejudice.

?In order to balance the rights of the companies to have attractive employees and the rights of people who are perceived unattractive, modern technological solutions could be the key. If hiring decisions are purely based on data collected using resume data, science-based assessments, past performance and also include attractiveness based on a points scale, biasness could be reduced to a great extent. With the help of data and artificial intelligence, objective measurement of individual potential and performance can be achieved. Consequently, organizations can fill job positions with adequate consideration given to attractiveness as well as other skill-based requirements.

While modern technology could be very effective in eliminating prejudice, adopting to new business practices could be costly and time consuming. For companies that do not see technology as a viable option to utilize, retrospective alternatives could serve the purpose. As a starting point, the hiring team should be education on the implications of appearance-based discrimination and how it could be avoided. Once the applicants are assessed on paper, as the next step of the screening process, a good old phone call could help avoid any subconscious bias in hiring. Reserving in-person interviews or video calls until the applicants are validated on their qualifications could eliminate initial assumption of prejudice. When the selection process reaches the in-person interview stage, having an interview panel consisting of different demographics could also aid the reduction of unconscious discrimination.

In an attempt to remove appearance discrimination altogether within a state or a country, it could be made illegal for companies to recruit based on physical appearance. Which would entail understanding how different legal systems deals with this particular category of discrimination. Ways of presiding over cases of appearance-based discrimination should be analyzed in depth. Given that legal systems have the potential to evolve to encompass laws against appearance discrimination, it plausible that legislation could be used as a tool to eradicate discrimination based on physical appearance.

On the contrary, a compelling case could also be made as to how extensive regulation could curtail the rights of the companies. While legislation may protect the rights of the unattractive people, it will not necessarily balance the rights of the employers to hire attractive employees. It might be a better solution to develop a society that is moral and self-regulated by injecting good values into the culture instead of using legislation as a tool to restrict discrimination.

Conclusion.

The ethics of hiring and recruiting bases on physical appearance is a consideration that is of utmost importance. When looking at the selection of employees based on attractiveness for a non-customer facing role, the ethical stance is rather clear. On the other hand, when appearance-based discrimination is observed in the selection process for a customer facing job role, the same ethical stance does not appear to be valid.

Furthermore, while observe that prejudice based on appearance could affect career success in terms of equality of opportunity, pay raise and future promotions, on the flip side, employers can attract favorable financial and nonfinance outcomes attributing to the same prejudice. Giving considerable attention to the rights of the non-attractive people, we understand that this dilemma should also balance the rights of employers to hire attractive people. In order to achieve this, modern technologies using data to vet and select applicants could be of great assistance, in addition to the more retrospective solutions to avoid unconscious assumption of prejudice. Legislation could also be used as an apparatus of eliminate appearance-based discrimination but it may not necessarily be the best solution. Instead, developing cultural values and moral self-regulation within a society could help restrict discrimination.?

After careful deliberation of the ethical considerations in physical appearance-based recruiting and the possibly solutions to this dilemma, we can conclude that eliminating appearance-based discrimination in its entirety could be a strenuous task. However, identifying prejudice and actively working towards addressing such concerns can instigate personal growth and improve organizational culture and success.

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