The Non-Bias Mindset, Creating a Diverse Workforce

For the past few years, almost every organization has been focusing on “Diversity”. This subject has been done to death, yet it seems the needle still has not been moved as companies continue to struggle to enrich their workforce with true “diversity”. It is interesting because this topic ends up being a blame game of why our goals are not being achieved.

• Managers blame Recruiters because they are not searching and submitting diverse talent to evaluate. I do not have time to train as leadership tells me people need to be up and running in x weeks.
• Recruiters blame Managers because the team cannot retain their diverse talent which makes it harder to recruit and managers want talent that matches the makeup of their current team, therefore are not willing to disrupt team dynamics to “take a chance”.

I am not here to play the blame game because the answer is, we are ALL to blame.

Regardless if you are evaluating internal or external talent; recruiters and managers alike are constantly making decisions based on their own personal bias (consciously/ unconsciously).

You just shook your head no?

You are thinking that I have gone through several training sessions on how to interview based on experience and potential.

You have been trained on how a diverse team is more likely to be a high performing team.

But before you stop reading and go back to your busy day. Read below.

In 23 years of recruiting, I have heard a lot of comments from hiring managers and recruiters. Here are just a few. 

These are just some of the comments I have heard over the years, there are dozens more where candidates have been discredited and rejected because of our own perceptions and experiences creating an unconscious bias.

How many times have you made a similar statement?

If you said never, you are NOT human.

If you said “a few”, I expected it, you are human because even people with the best intentions unintentionally dismiss someone due to their unconscious bias.

We are all guilty.

Stop and think about this for a moment. Think of all the people who have been dismissed over the years. Those great people who could have “enriched” your team. If only you had made a conscious effort of looking at their capabilities, potential and how they could have strengthened the team with the diversity they could have brought to your organization? 

How does this negatively impact our diversity recruiting efforts?

First, a recruiters’ job is to find qualified candidates to fill vacant jobs as quickly as they can, so business and services are not interrupted.

Recruiters develop patterns over time based on responses from hiring managers on types of candidates they have presented and who have been rejected. Many recruiters fail to challenge the hiring manager so they can get the requisition filled. It remains status quo, because recruiters are tired of the fight. With 40 requisitions we do not have the time to battle every hiring manager to “do the right thing”.

Hiring managers are focused on “I need the same type of people as I have on my team”. They create a team who will refer potential candidates to open jobs (because employee referrals are critical) who are just like them. Limiting a diverse talent pool.

Finally, perception is reality. Word gets out on the street, candidates talk, they share their experiences on social media of not being accepted as a candidate because they didn’t fit the xyz’s company “model profile”. Once this happens, your efforts to grow a “diverse” workforce is dead in the water and your company becomes labeled as such.

How do you minimize this or completely overcome these challenges?

Is it training? 

Yes, but this is just such a small part of it. All training does is bring awareness. Once you have awareness unless you change your behaviors, all the training in the world is not going to improve the current situation.

It really comes down to making a cognitive effort to change your mindset. It takes the willingness to look at your team and ask yourself some hard questions:

Does the team essentially look the same? (Do not count the “token” hire, to make your boss or HR happy)

• Are they all white males?
• Do they come from the same competitor?
• Do they come from the same university?

Dig even deeper and ask yourself these questions.

• Is my team meeting their full potential? When the team is asked to come up with new ideas, are the ideas essentially the same?
• When “different” ideas are suggested, do they get squashed because the team is comfortable with status quo?
• Do you get any “different” ideas?
• Do new people outside the “normal profile” get boxed out and rejected because they have been told “that’s not how we do things here?”
• Does the team give excuses for why “different” candidates just won’t work in your team? 

These examples are for you to look and reflect upon. How you are these decisions negatively impacting the full potential in Sales, Software Development or Medical Research? 

A diverse workforce can blow the world away with new cutting-edge ideas, provide better collaboration, stronger relationships and moving your company ahead of the competition.

Where do you start?

How do you make the change in the way you hire and bring in a diverse slate of talent? There are a few variables, but they all come down to ensuring your recruiting & hiring practices are consistent, fair, and legal.

Here it is:

• Job description/ job postings- It starts here by using inclusive language, the foundational must have skills and nice to haves and then sticking to it. Yes, we know you want 10 years of experience, but really is this a key indicator for success? NO. You need to look at the job and stop eliminating people because you want the “perfect” candidate. There are no perfect candidates, but there are amazing candidates who have tons of potential which have been excluded because the poorly written job description/posting.  
• There are several tools out there you can use. I recommend you look at TapRecruit and Textio. They are some of the better tools on the market that will assist in improving the language in your job postings.
• Standardized Behavioral Interviewing- Consistency drives better hiring decision from Managers. Using standardized Behavioral interviews ensures every candidate gets to answer the same question. It is focused on skills, past behaviors and helps predict future performance. I recommend you look at DDI, in my opinion they are the pioneers in the “STAR” method. This here is something where training your recruiters and managers is so important and then holding everyone accountable to make sure it is being consistently used.
• Candidate Persona Validation or better known as “assessments”- Using validated, legal and benchmarked tools are a must. Assessment tools are about identifying the success factors needed in the person you are considering hiring. Removing the bias and in some cases the level of experience. The whole idea behind assessments is to use this upfront on candidates to help recruiters and managers alike determine qualifications aside of their motivation, desire and emotional intelligence to do the job. Again, training is a must and using assessment tools in a consistent manner is the only way to ensure you are evaluating candidates fairly. There are 100’s of them out there. I suggest you look at a few and determine what will work best for your organization. There are standard assessments and gamified assessment tools that use different tested methodologies to provide an unbiased approach of identifying potential candidates. I can provide a lot of options, but the two (2) I recommend that you MUST check out are Smart Work Assessments and Arctic Shore.
• Interview inclusion- Much simpler here, but as you drive consistency in your interview questions, you want to ensure you are including a diverse group of people in the interview process. This will allow all interviewers to provide a different perspective on a candidate and allow meaningful conversations on why a candidate should or should not be considered.
• Identify new talent pools (different companies, schools, geographies)- If you are using the same source for searching candidates you are more than likely getting the same types of candidates over and over again. This is where recruiters and managers alike should research and come up with a strategy to ensure the outreach for the open requisition is getting you exposed to the broader population. The saying is if you keep fishing in the same pond you are more than likely going to get the same results. Try different ponds, try different bait to attract the diverse talent you need to have in your organization.

It takes an enormous amount of awareness, discipline and commitment in creating a diverse workforce. As there are no “silver bullets”. As your takeaway, my hope in writing this is to help change your mindset, empower you to assess your processes and assist in identifying opportunities to change your hiring framework ultimately allowing you to build a high performing diverse organization.

If you would like the learn more about any of these aspects and how you can put together a Non-Bias Mindset, creating a Diverse Workforce, please feel free reach out to me.  

#diversity #inclusion #recruiting #recruit #talentacquisition #bias #nonbias #hr #humanresources #hiring