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Recruiting is a tricky business. There are many different ways it can go wrong, and every person out there has blind spots to some of them. Some might mean not knowing enough about a subject to miss the characteristics indicative of a great candidate. Others are worse, like relying on implicit bias and implementing accidental discrimination in your hiring practices. “I didn’t realize” isn’t a valid defense against unfair recruiting practices or discrimination. Not putting thought into your hiring practices is a great way to ensure that you end up with a sub-par workforce. How can you put oversight into practice and ensure that you’re eliminating as many sources of unfair hiring, discrimination, and adverse impact as possible? Here’s a guide on what to avoid. Understand Protected Classes and Characteristics The first thing to do is recognize that there are laws and regulations about hiring. Many protections are designed to apply fairer treatment across the board, typically protecting specific characteristics. By removing these characteristics from consideration, you remove the option to discriminate because of them. You can’t make a hiring decision influenced by a candidate’s race if you don’t know their race, after all. So, what are the protected classes? Sex and Gender . Some states also add transgender status as a protected class, and all employers should follow suit even if it’s not legally required. Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Related . In practice, this ends up being gender discrimination through another lens. Race . Racism and racial bigotry are some of the most prominent forms of discrimination, and many techniques are available for avoiding it, some of which we’ll discuss later. Nationality or Origin . Discrimination along with nationality is closely linked to racism and thus is also a protected characteristic. Skin Color . Again, a form of racial discrimination, most typically. Religion . Discrimination against religious practices is prohibited. Age . Various laws apply to age in hiring, including child labor laws, but age discrimination is specifically for people over 40 years old. Disability . There are thousands of small ways disabled applicants get discriminated against in hiring, and many of them are easy to avoid if you know what to look for. Veteran Status . A relatively recent addition to anti-discrimination laws; this protects veterans and active service members. Genetic Information . You cannot require or make decisions based on the results of any genetic test, including simple ones like Ancestry.com results. Additionally, many states have more protections than the federal-level protections listed above. These can include creed, code of ethics, political ideology, gender identity, sexual orientation, and more. In a sense, it’s easier to say “make decisions based on education, skills, and experience, and nothing else” than it is to list all of the protected categories. Remember, every category on this list is there because of high-profile discrimination successfully fought in courts. Don’t do something that can make your company the next prominent example. So, what specific practices might sound tempting but should be avoided? Maintain an Accurate Job Description Your job description is the core of your hiring process. It attracts candidates, allows them to self-filter, and gives you a framework to apply further filtering. To that end, your job description must be accurate. Unfair hiring practices include: Writing an overly strict job description . This practice can cause candidates to self-select in a biased way, particularly along gender lines. Writing a job description for a job that does not exist, with the intent of harvesting resumes for other purposes . This practice is disingenuous and unethical, though not overtly discriminatory. Changing the job description in the middle of the hiring process . Many companies get in trouble for picking a candidate that doesn’t meet the job description, then changing the description to fit the new candidate, disregarding more qualified applicants. This often ties into nepotism or other forms of unethical treatment. Altering the job description to be inaccurate . Writing deceptive changes into a job description to attract candidates who otherwise wouldn’t apply is considered unethical. A primary example is a highly inflated salary range (the top end of which would never be signed). In general, the job description should be as accurate as possible and remain unchanged from the start of the hiring process to the end. If you need to make significant changes to the job posting, take it down and create a new one instead. Just make sure not to do this to specifically disregard some applicants and hire someone else. Beware Exploitative Recruiter Tactics Many companies hire recruiters to handle their hiring. These recruiters act as middlemen and service providers, and they can provide a valuable service to their clients. However, they may also use exploitative or underhanded techniques that can, at best, be considered unethical. At worst, they can be labeled discriminatory. Examples of such methods include: Altering a candidate’s resume, either to make them appear better or worse than they are . These alterations are often meant to game the system of an ATS but may result in bias for whoever the recruiter wants to pick. Using “expiring offers.” Job offers typically do not expire unless your job is genuinely on a time limit and needs to get filled ASAP. If a recruiter is setting “take it or leave it” offers to pressure candidates to decide, it can be considered an unfair hiring practice. Soliciting money from candidates . Good recruiters get paid on commission based on the contracts they fill successfully. If they solicit money from their candidates or applicants, they often suppress the best candidates, who know better than to pay. Undermining existing employers . If a recruiter is targeting passive candidates, some might be tempted to spread unfounded rumors (“ I heard they’re looking at bankruptcy proceedings, how do you feel about your job? “) to undermine a sense of confidence and stability in the candidate and encourage them to move. Again, this is considered unfair hiring. Not disclosing themselves as a recruiter . Some recruiters will claim that they’re HR employees, hiring managers, or have a personal and direct connection to the hiring decision-makers for their companies, and on this pretense, try to convince candidates they have a better chance. It’s called “rusing,” and it’s unfair and unethical. Working with a recruiter is not a bad thing, but you need to make sure your recruiters are on the same page and that they have worked to minimize bias and unfair practices in their processes. Seek to Minimize Unconscious Bias Unconscious bias is, in a way, the opposite of overt bigotry. It’s implicit and fundamental, often hard to detect, yet still discriminatory. For example, say you are hiring for an engineer position. You have two candidates who are, on paper, identical. They graduated with the same GPA and degree from the same institution. They have the same amount of experience and have listed the same skills. The only difference between them is that one is male and one is female. Which one do you hire? Implicit bias might make you think the male is the better candidate because there’s a significant gender disparity in engineering, skewing more toward males. You’re more used to seeing male engineers, and so the male candidate “better fits” the role, even if they’re both perfectly qualified on paper. Of course, in reality, this scenario will rarely happen. No two candidates are ever perfectly identical save for one protected characteristic. But, this is how unconscious bias sneaks in; your personal experience indicates a trend that you unconsciously follow. “However, having a panel of interviewers does not always eliminate bias in the hiring process. Sometimes, having a panel of interviewers can still lead to one person influencing the opinion of others, especially if that person has a lot of authority. ‘Groupthink’ is often a result of this occurrence and can be just as ineffective in eliminating hiring bias as having a single interviewer make the decision.” – ThriveMap . How can you minimize unconscious bias? Recognize that you have bias . No human being alive is without bias; this is why many hiring decisions should be made by teams, preferably diverse teams. Use technology where applicable . For example, anonymizing resumes can strip names, which usually bring biased connotations with them. Invest in training . Today, many organizations provide training on recognizing and fighting bias in the workplace; invest in using this training throughout your organization, including management. Unconscious bias can never be entirely removed, but it can be mitigated. Be Cautious with Technology Many modern applicant tracking systems claim to use machine learning, pattern matching, and advanced AI to help filter and pick the best candidates. The trouble is, that technology is itself not unbiased. As a simple example, a neural network will take a data set and look for patterns within it. It might take a look at a group of highly successful people (such as, say, the list of Fortune 500 CEOs) and then look for those characteristics in the candidate pool. It will then select candidates who meet those characteristics. Unfortunately, that sample pool might not be representative in a positive way. For example, in the Fortune 500 list, there is a higher concentration of men named “David” than women . Thus, the AI might choose a man named David over a more qualified woman. To us, this doesn’t sound sensible. To an AI, it’s a pattern, and all patterns are as valid as any pattern without other validation. This is proven time and time again with machine learning and AI technology. They can be helpful, but they reflect the biases inherent in the data fed to them and the people designing them. This is an emerging field of study , and it’s why reliance on machine learning without validation is likely to enable and reinforce bias in your hiring practices. So: you can use modern technology, but be aware that it can be biased, and watch for those biases to appear. Set Diversity Goals Diversity is essential in hiring, not just in minimizing bias but in maximizing productivity and creativity in the workplace. Thus, hiring more diverse candidates will benefit the organization. However, this must be done carefully. “Diversity goals are worthwhile,” says Bohnet. “They make the issue front and center” in organizations. And yet, she says, be careful when you broach the idea with colleagues. These goals “are sometimes controversial for companies because they can undermine the people who are hired in those categories or lead to a backlash from the traditionally advantaged groups.” Data can help you get buy-in. A growing body of research suggests that diversity in the workforce results in “significant business advantages,” says Gino. She recommends that “at the end of every hiring process, leaders track how well they’ve done against the diversity goals they set out to achieve.” This also encourages those involved in the hiring and in other parts of the company “to keep diversity and equality top of mind.” – HBR Remember: employees should not be hired because of their diverse characteristics alone; they must still meet the criteria outlined in the job description. This helps ensure that they’re a productive team member and not a checkbox to avoid discrimination suits down the line. Remain Vigilant Many sources of bias are self-evident, and many unfair hiring practices are clearly unfair. They work simply because the people in charge don’t notice or don’t care to look for them. Thus, the number one thing you can do to minimize unfair hiring practices and discrimination in your hiring is to remain vigilant. With the proper safeguards and reviews in place, you can work to reduce any instances of unfair hiring that may sneak into your process.

Your thoughts are shaped by the pressures that formed you into the person you are today. These pressures can be social, they can be cultural, they can physical; they are the sum total of your experiences, viewpoints, education, and more.  In other words, no two people think in the same way. While it might seem as though one of the best things you can do to build a team is to find like-minded people who “think the same way as you” to avoid conflict and keep everyone focused on the same task with the same perspective, this is, actually, detrimental to a business. The truth is, that diversity – in culture, in religion, in background, and in thought – is a critical component of a great modern business. Thought diversity breeds conflict and disagreement, which are not harmful when approached the right way. Conflict brings ideas, resolutions, and thinking outside the box to find new solutions. Disagreement fosters discussion and new ways to approach a problem. To quote myself from a previous article: “Diversity is critical for a high-performance team. An effective team should consist of people from different backgrounds, demographics, skill sets, and knowledge bases. Drawing from a diverse teams’ thoughts, experiences, and histories leads to more varied discussion, more diversity of ideas, and better end-results.” Diversity in background, diversity in perspective, and diversity in thought are all critical components of a highly effective business. What is Thought Diversity? Thought diversity, also known as cognitive diversity, has been taken up as a buzzword, which is dangerous because it risks the concept becoming just another piece of jargon. When taken seriously, thought diversity is a critical component of business success. There’s just one question: what is it? Thought diversity is diversity in how you think, how you attempt to solve problems, and your experiences that inform your potential solutions. Consider: A graduate of Yale and a graduate of a local community college will have different approaches to solving a problem. A white male and a black female will have different perspectives on issues. An able-bodied individual and a disabled individual will, again, have different views. The Center for Talent Innovation describes two kinds of diversity: inherent and acquired. Inherent diversity is the diversity that stems from “traditional” diversity characteristics. Those characteristics include race, ethnicity, religion, background, etc. Acquired diversity comes from experiences, such as education level, lifestyle, and participation in extracurricular activities of various sorts. Both forms of diversity can be necessary for building a high-performing team and an effective business, and both contribute to thinking in different ways. Thought diversity is, essentially, conflict. However, it is a conflict that is both reasonable and mediated. Reasonable conflict means conflict over, for example, an approach to solving a problem. Irreconcilable differences (such as unquestioned bigotry from one party) are not reasonable conflicts that can lead to productive outcomes. Mediated conflict is a conflict that is channeled in a constructive manner. If a conflict between the hypothetical Yale graduate and community college graduate leads to one party disregarding the other, the conflict does not lead to solving a problem, just to driving away an employee. Thought diversity can be difficult to leverage, and it’s hard for many people to internalize if they’ve never encountered it before. To quote Titus Talent , thought diversity in the workplace means: “Implementing processes that celebrate thought diversity means opening yourself up to the idea that your way is not the best way. Reordering day-to-day operations can improve thought diversity by making the workplace more accessible to a larger group of people. A diverse workplace makes employees feel safe to express their perspectives and their needs.” Confronting diversity in thought without downplaying, minimizing, or disregarding opposing perspectives is difficult but essential. What Thought Diversity is not Thought diversity is distinct from neurodiversity. Neurodiversity is the viewpoint that differences in mental state, cognitive perspective, and brain chemistry/structure are not deficits but rather normal variances.  Neurodiversity includes things like ADHD, autism spectrum, dyslexia, and other former “disorders” that are increasingly being recognized more as differences in natural thinking that deserve accommodation rather than oppression. While neurodiversity is a form of diversity and can lead to thought diversity, the two are not the same. Another thing that thought diversity is not is an enforced change in perspective. All too often, business owners (typically white and male) try to train thought diversity into existing employees rather than bring it in from the outside. This is ineffective primarily because the individuals attempting to think in diverse ways will still default to their natural thought patterns. True thought diversity stems from diversity in natural thought patterns and perspectives rather than some trained, temporary cognitive exercise. Thought diversity cannot be turned on and off and is not an experiment; it is the natural consequence of differing perspectives encountering one another in a tempered, controlled environment. Where Does Thought Diversity Intersect Recruiting? There are three places where thought diversity is important in recruiting. Identifying, monitoring, and paying attention to thought diversity throughout the recruiting and hiring process is extremely important.  What are the three ways to use thought diversity in recruiting? First: Diversity in Candidate Selection As you might expect, the first is in who you choose to hire. When you build your candidate pool, and when you prune it down to the most highly qualified candidates for a given role, one aspect you should make sure to emphasize is diversity. There are many reasons for this. The obvious reasons include: Building a more diverse and inclusive workplace. Encouraging candidates of all demographics to consider your business a good workplace. Meeting industry or legal standards for diversity and inclusiveness (such as EEOC regulations.) Additionally, by building an employee roster of diverse employees , you naturally build up thought diversity. Individuals become coworkers, team members, and even friends, despite widely varying backgrounds and perspectives. Everyone can learn from one another. Second: Diversity in Sourcing The second source of diversity is diversity in sourcing itself. If you always work with a single recruiter or recruiting agency, always post on the same couple of job boards, or continually advertise using the same messaging, the same targeting, and the same channels, you’re going to have a relatively narrow pool of candidates. Conversely, what happens if you implement recruiting from a broader range of channels? You can gain applications from people with more diverse backgrounds. You can gain applications from people with more diverse geographic origins. You can tap sources of candidates from further afield. There is bias everywhere. Job sites have demographics, which are developed through the combination of their messaging, their chosen industries and skill levels, and so on. Some are intentionally narrow, while others are unintentional. The fact is, the more diverse your sources, the more diverse your resulting candidate pool will be. Third: Diversity in Interviewer Selection The third area where thought diversity can benefit you in recruiting is in the choice of individuals you pick to conduct your interviews . Group interviews are becoming more and more common and with good reason. One individual may be swayed by the charisma or connection to a candidate. Our hypothetical Yale graduate might favor another Yale graduate more than a community college applicant, even if no outward evidence indicates that an individual is a better hire. A panel of interviewers made up of individuals with diverse thoughts can be more difficult to sway. Candidates must navigate a more challenging environment, especially if they aren’t used to a diverse workplace or social situation. On top of that, diverse interviewers can see potential problems in behavior, answers, and questions that single interviewers or less diverse panels might miss. A common piece of advice for problem-solving is approaching the problem from different angles to get a more complete picture of a situation and trying out different solutions to see how they affect the issue. This technique for thought diversity becomes much easier when you have a team made up of people who naturally approach problems in different ways. How to Use Thought Diversity in Recruiting Thought diversity is critical for every part of a business, from top to bottom. Whether you’re recruiting your next C-level executive or Director, or you’re hiring a team of entry-level employees for customer service, diversity is crucial. The question is, how can you implement it? Step 1: Analyze Existing Diversity Everyone starts from somewhere, and that holds true for your business as well. Analyze your existing diversity as much as you can. Remember, though, that some forms of diversity aren’t necessarily something your employees want or need to disclose, including medical diagnoses, background, and more. You need to avoid stepping on toes or violating protection laws. Some clear indicators of diversity to look for include information that can easily be observed or identified from a resume. The geographic origin, race and ethnicity, and background of your employees are generally public knowledge. Look for gaps in diversity. Are your demographics heavily skewed to males? Is the majority white? Are they primarily young, single professionals rather than older workers with families? Are they all college-educated when that may not necessarily be required? Step 2: Remove Barriers to Diversity As you analyze your existing diversity, you may find explicit or implicit barriers in your hiring process. Some common barriers include: Requiring a college education for positions that don’t need it. Plenty of people get college-equivalent educations, or are perfectly intelligent and educated without a degree, and can be highly effective employees. Adding physical lifting requirements for jobs that don’t involve physical labor. This requirement tends to be discriminatory to physically disabled individuals, among others. Placing steep requirements in your job postings . It’s well-known that men will typically apply when they meet some of the job requirements, while women will usually only apply if they meet all of them. Thus, steep (unnecessary) requirements tend to suppress female applicants. Remember that thought diversity and demographic diversity are inextricably linked, and one leads to the other. By removing barriers to diverse hiring, you foster higher levels of thought diversity. Step 3: Don’t be Afraid to Make Significant Changes Often, diversity and inclusion require significant adjustments to implement. This adjustment can be anything from firing a toxic and bigoted executive to restructuring your organization to revamping your onboarding process . The onboarding process is a good example. If your onboarding process is slow and your new hires might wait 2-3 weeks before their first paycheck arrives, you end up suppressing certain kinds of candidates.  Those from impoverished backgrounds might not have the savings to wait that long. Thus, implementing a faster onboarding process to reduce time-to-first-paycheck helps. Step 4: Minimize or Punish Damaging Conflict Part of encouraging thought diversity in the workplace is fostering a safe place for individuals to express their views, argue constructively, and come to solutions together. That means you have to be aggressive in stopping the conflict that does not lead to productive outcomes. Managers, leaders, and team members who downplay, ignore, or fail to encourage participation from new hires will find those new hires “fall in line” and never voice their opinions. They may be an excellent resource, but they have been conditioned not to speak out, leaving that value on the cutting room floor. Is Thought Diversity Important? Unquestionably. Study after study has been conducted and shown proof that diversity in hiring, in demographics, and in thought leads to better results for any business at any level. Businesses with greater thought diversity find better, more agile outcomes to problems, implement better solutions, and navigate issues more efficiently. The hardest part is getting the ball rolling. Once you’ve begun implementing measures to encourage greater thought diversity, it becomes easier to keep it going. Have any questions or concerns regarding thought diversity and how you can implement the idea into your recruiting? We are here to help, contact us to learn how we can help ! Getting started with implementing thought diversity into your business isn’t going to be simple for everyone, so we would be more than happy to assist you or your business with any of your concerns.

Adverse impact is a term that comes up in discussions related primarily to recruiting. Still, it can also influence advertising (both commercial and job advertising), business practices, reputation building, and every other department in a business. It’s essential to be aware of adverse impacts, as well as the ways that you can mitigate them. So what, specifically, is it? The Definition of Adverse Impact A good, concise definition of “adverse impact” comes from Mighty Recruiter : “An adverse impact results from employer practices that seem to be neutral, but that disproportionately and negatively affect protected groups such as women and minorities. An adverse impact can occur at any stage of the employment process, including hiring, training, performance reviews, promotions, and layoffs. A practical means of measuring if an adverse impact exists is to evaluate whether a group’s selection rate falls below 80 percent of the group with the highest selection rate. For example, if you give a hiring test for job applicants, and the pass rate of a protected group is 80 percent of the pass rate of the group with the highest selection rate, the hiring test may hurt that protected group.” In other words, adverse impact is closely tied to discrimination . However, unlike intentional discrimination and bigotry, unintentional prejudice, and inherent bias, adverse impact is not outwardly discriminatory. Adverse impact is also known as discriminatory impact or disparate impact. This can crop up in many locations, and it may not be obvious. Some biases may also not be discriminatory, depending on the context. Some examples of discriminatory adverse impact may include: The inclusion of physical lifting requirements on jobs that do not have duties that include physical lifting, such as office jobs, is an example of discriminatory adverse impact. This example is discriminatory to disabled applicants. Machine learning or “AI” systems filter resumes and opaquely filter out applicants with education histories from foreign schools that are not in its database of valid schools. This strategy has an adverse impact on foreign applicants and may not be evident to anyone who isn’t double-checking the results of a software’s filtering. Your company issues a “general intelligence test” for applicants that asks questions unrelated to the job but related to a specific culture or area. This practice is discriminatory to anyone not part of that culture or location. The foundational court case that defines adverse impact is the case of Griggs v Duke Power from 1971. “In the landmark case, Griggs v. Duke Power, Willie Griggs and twelve other African-American employees of Duke Power sued their employer, alleging that the general intelligence test Duke used as a screening tool unfairly impacted African American applicants. These are the passing rates from Duke’s general intelligence test: Whites: 58%, African Americans: 6%. The Supreme Court ruled that if pre-employment tests had a disparate impact on protected groups (such as women and ethnic minorities), the organization requiring the test must prove that the test is “reasonably related” to the duties performed on the job.” Adverse impact is bias and discrimination, whether it’s part of a business process, a software system, or institutional habits. The 80% rule in the definition above, also known as the four-fifths rule, is the general standard by which employment procedures are judged. How to Avoid Adverse Impact Preventing adverse impact means being aware that it’s a thing that exists, understanding how it is measured, analyzing your existing practices looking for it, and implementing new processes to replace those that prove to include adverse impact. Measuring adverse impact means codifying applicants’ acceptance and rejection rates based on their demographics, particularly those related to a protected class. Measure whites versus minorities, locals versus foreign applicants, male versus female applicants , and so on. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) , these are the protected classes that you must be aware of: “Applicants, employees, and former employees are protected from employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), national origin, age (40 or older), disability, and genetic information (including family medical history). Applicants, employees, and former employees are also protected from retaliation (punishment) for filing a charge or complaint of discrimination, participating in a discrimination investigation or lawsuit, or opposing discrimination (for example, threatening to file a charge or complaint of discrimination).” Measure the acceptance rates, success rates, termination rates, and other relevant metrics per group, and compare them using the fourth - fifths rule. Bear in mind that the raw numbers of people hired are not necessarily representative. Here’s an example, again from Hire Vue: “Let’s say an organization is looking to fill 25 open positions in its local call center. Five hundred men and 1000 women apply. Of those applicants, 10 men and 15 women are hired. In this situation, the selection rate for men is 2%, while the selection rate for women is 1.5%. Dividing 1.5 by two, we get 75%: below the cutoff. Even though the organization hired more women overall, the women were still adversely impacted.” It’s also worth mentioning that the fourth-fifth rule is merely a start. Disproportionate measurements in a short time and with small numbers of open roles and applicants are not necessarily a sign of adverse impact. The adverse impact must also be statistically significant. Other tests, such as the Z-Test or the Fisher’s Exact test , can also be used to judge adverse impact. To be able to judge adverse impacts, you need raw data. This raw data needs to accumulate demographic information about protected qualities, so job applications can ask for this information, with the disclaimer that it is not used in the filtering or judgment of candidates. Job Analysis is a Crucial Part of Monitoring for Adverse Impact A job analysis should look at a given role and distill it down to the core components. What does the job require? What specific activities make up the job? What particular qualities does an employee need to perform the job? What is the environment of the job? Codifying this is a vital strategy for many reasons, including creating accurate, effective job postings . We often point out that a job posting should only list requirements necessary to begin the job; you should consider leaving out requirements that are “nice to have” and not necessarily a firm condition. A minimal list of requirements is also helpful in avoiding adverse impacts. Many “requirements” may be discriminatory, even if they aren’t intended to be. Remember, as well, that reasonable accommodation must be made for protected individuals and categories. For example, an office job cannot list physical requirements such as heavy lifting because it’s not a reasonable component of the job. Sure, employees might be occasionally required to move reams of paper or heavy binders, but accommodations may be made. The same requirement can be relevant to a job as a roofer, where the inability to work on a roof physically disqualifies an applicant. Job Posting Analysis is Related To determine whether or not you have an adverse impact in your workplace, you’ll need to gather the necessary data. However, you can also look at your existing job postings to see if there is an adverse impact inherent in them. For example, listing “Requires 4-7 years of experience” can be discriminatory. It prevents applicants with less experience (who are often younger) or those with more than seven years of experience (who are generally older), a veiled form of age discrimination. You should also examine your job postings and your hiring process for consistency and unbiased judgment. A common technique to help remove bias from the interview and hiring process is an objective interview scorecard , which is formulated for specific roles and judges only the qualities and skills necessary to perform those roles and nothing else. Subjective “impressions” and other judgments can be a source of unconscious bias and, thus, adverse impact. Analyzing Algorithms is also an Essential Part of Bias Analysis Algorithms may seem objective – algorithms are code, after all – but all code is as biased as the people writing it. Time and again, examples come up in technology where bias occurs. It can be as blatant as facial recognition software that identifies minorities as more significant security threats, hidden as light-reactive hand dryers not working on individuals with darker skin. The Harvard Business Review has an excellent overview of how algorithms can create or amplify bias in many situations, and it is well worth a read. Recruit from Diverse Sources Even something as simple as choosing which recruiters to work with, which sites to use to promote your job listings, geo-targeting for your job postings, and advertising, can all be sources of bias and adverse impact. Bryq.com says: “If your recruitment team is not diverse, then that makes it far easier for unconscious bias to overtake the process. If you want to minimize adverse impact, your hiring team needs to be as diverse as your applicants. As the hiring manager, you will surely be on the interview panel. You need to select two people quite different from yourself to make up the rest of the panel. This strategy will offer a diverse range of views on the potential job candidates you are interviewing and can help you to hire a more diverse range of people.” Remember, as well, that diversity and inclusion are an ongoing process. Your hiring process may never be perfect. Your goal should be “good enough” with the addition of “continually improving.” Keep an eye on data, keep an eye on changing laws and cultural mores, and make adjustments as necessary. Even something as simple as your word choice in a job posting can have a significant impact. Dealing with Adverse Impact Say, for the sake of argument in a hypothetical, you’ve examined your company policies and have discovered a significant adverse impact. What steps should you take? First, it is good to have discovered it before it becomes a significant legal issue. People will have been tangibly hurt by the adverse impact, and they are within their rights to bring legal action against your company for it. Discovering adverse impacts and taking steps to rectify it prevents this from becoming a problem further down the line. The primary thing you need to do is adjust your practices – be it in job postings, in the hiring and interview process, in onboarding, in metric reviews, in terminations, in performance reviews, or anywhere else within your company where you remove discriminatory practices. This process can include adjusting the wording in a job posting, changing software filters, or revising the entire hiring process from the ground up. If no lawsuits come your way and you have removed your discriminatory processes, you may proceed with caution. Continue ongoing monitoring to watch for your new processes’ impact and continue to adjust them to remove bias. As mentioned above, some forms of “discrimination” are context-sensitive. An individual unable to work on a roof cannot be hired as a roofer; you can create a defense against discrimination for that requirement. Developing a basis of legal defensibility for your hiring practices is essential for preemptively protecting your company from legal challenges. You may also consider talking to lawyers who specialize in discrimination and employment law. They can assist you in protecting yourself, revising your processes, and uncovering more hidden biases that may not be obvious. Conclusion  There will always be an ongoing discussion about the issues of adverse impact, the presumption of equitable application and hiring processes, and how bias impacts company progress. One thing is undeniable, however. A more diverse, inclusive, and robust workforce is universally better for productivity, profitability, effectiveness, and success within a business. Study after study proves this, time and again. If your company is not actively working to remove bias present in hiring, review, termination, and other business policies, you can do better. I hope this guide has been helpful and a step in the right direction! Did this article shed some light on adverse impact, and did it help you rethink some of your company processes? Are you struggling with adverse impact in your industry or hiring practices, or have you been a victim of it yourself? We’d love to help you out through this entire process. Contact us today to learn what we can do to help you .

Anyone can throw a job posting onto a bunch of careers pages and recruit employees. There are more than enough people out there looking for jobs and it’s easy to fill seats with warm bodies. When you want to recruit actual talent, however, and pick up candidates with specialized skills and experience, you need to be a little more strategic with your efforts. This process can be intricate, demanding a strategic approach that takes into account the intricacies of human potential and organizational needs.  In this blog post, we’ll explore the critical steps and strategies for spotting those rare gems – candidates with specialized skills and invaluable attributes. We delve deep into understanding what makes a candidate stand out, how to adjust our lenses to spot potential, and how to strategically position your organization to attract these talents. Whether you’re a startup looking for its next leader or a multinational corporation aiming to bolster its ranks with unparalleled talent, this guide is your comprehensive roadmap. Identify the Skills Necessary for the Role This might sound obvious but bear with us. Before you can spot rare talent in your candidate pool , you need to know what talent you’re looking for. Do you need a rockstar developer? Do you need an entrepreneur with success under their belt? Do you need a project manager to be the unsung hero of your success? Sit down with your department managers and C-levels, and identify the specific skills necessary for your open role. Divide them into four categories: Trainable Skills: These are the skills that you can teach to an otherwise well-qualified candidate on the job. Baseline Skills: These are the skills that are necessary to survive in the role from day one; a candidate should not progress to interviews without them. Selling Points: These are the skills your candidate should have to impress you and make a candidate stand out from the rest of the pack. Excellence Skills: These are the skills and attributes that showcase a truly unique individual who is destined for success in your role. This list allows you to filter down your candidate pool through progressively smaller filters. Your goal is to find someone with Excellent skills, though this is often unrealistic. You may need to be willing to expand the definition of trainable skills to make room for someone with untapped potential for excellence. Try to keep this list to skills and experiences. Posting elements like their location, years of experience, and specific certifications might filter out a candidate who would be excellent if you gave them the chance. After all, someone can know a lot about a subject and never bother to take a certification test, and your ideal candidate might not live in the same country when you find them. Be Specific About Needs in Your Job Posting There are a lot of ways to make your job posting stand out . One of them is to have a small but clear list of requirements. One common mistake that some companies make when drafting job postings is including too many items on their list of requirements. It discourages people who meet most but not all of the requirements from applying, so most of the people who apply are underqualified and overconfident. It’s much better to use the division of skills above to determine what is truly a requirement and what is just nice to have. The ideal would be to add your list of excellent skills to the list of requirements. You may have fewer applicants overall, but they’ll trend closer to the ideal candidate you have in mind. There’s a careful balance you need to strike here. Jennifer Tardy, of Jennifer Tardy Consulting, writes : “Job descriptions with a ton of basic qualifications indicate that the employer truly has no clue what they are seeking, or what it takes to get the job done.” Job postings with far too many requirements are one of the top signs of a poorly organized or poorly managed company. It’s all too easy to write down a huge list of nice-to-have qualifications, only to drive away from the best candidates because of the unrealistic nature of what they’re asking for. To a certain extent, the best way to get around this is simply to question every element. “Does the candidate need this attribute?” Pare your job posting down to the essentials, both to make it more attractive and to bring in the candidates who meet the most important requirements. Use an Applicant Tracking System The use of modern applicant tracking systems is surprisingly contentious. These systems can save a lot of time and energy in your HR team, but they can also accidentally filter otherwise excellent candidates. Kristen Hudson of Jobvite explains the benefits : “Recruiting software can automate many screening functions, search for unusual keywords, and expand searches to include social media tracking and integrations with third-party employment agencies. You can identify unique skills with automated searches. Using social media platforms, the software can look for keywords, behavioral patterns, and even what kind of products and websites interest potential candidates.” On the other hand, automated tools prove to be a double-edged sword. Peter Cappelli explains : “My earlier research found that companies piled on job requirements baked them into the applicant-tracking software that sorted resumes according to binary decisions (yes, it has the keyword; no, it doesn’t), and then found that virtually no applicants met all the criteria.” A good ATS can be tuned to show a percentage match with an array of different hard and soft requirements while using a limited number of essential requirements as filters. A poorly-tuned applicant tracking system, meanwhile, will poorly filter and sort candidates until there aren’t any viable candidates left in the pool. Look for Candidates in Unexpected Places These days, candidates with hard-to-find skills and experience are rarely out searching for a job. They have jobs already, where they’re at least satisfied because their skills and talents are in high demand. Finding the best candidates often means looking for passive candidates and convincing them that the grass is greener on your side of the fence. Thus, one strategy that many companies and organizations are turning to is looking in unexpected places for attributes, rather than defined skills and experience. The FBI is a good example of this. They ran a recruitment campaign called the “Unexpected Agent” campaign, looking for skills and knowledge first while being willing to train their new candidates to become agents. For example, they might look for an art historian to recruit as an agent specializing in forgeries and counterfeits in the art world. An art historian would likely never think to apply for a job at the FBI, but their unique skill set would make for a highly valuable asset. George Anders, the author of The Rare Find, seconds the motion . “Some of the best sports coaches I talked with would go out and get to know other parts of the globe. Or a rural coach would go and learn about talent spotting in Chicago. Hollywood casting directors might go and check out the Iranian film industry.” In other words, be prepared to look further afield for the best in rare talent to suit your needs. Look at industries other than your own, where skills might translate. Look for personality traits over experience. Look at broader geographies and be willing to hire outside of your immediate geographic area, or even your country. Be Willing to Ignore Gaps, Grades, and Past Experience Part of being open to a candidate outside of your industry is being willing to overlook some elements of a traditional resume or CV that would normally be requirements. Three elements, in particular, are worth putting in the “nice to have” bucket, rather than the requirements. Would you hire a college dropout for a high-level role in your company? Perhaps your initial inclination is no. Yet, many of the world’s most brilliant minds, especially in tech, dropped out of college to pursue their passions. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, and others all dropped out and became incredible success stories. Educational performance is not necessarily predictive of the attributes that make an individual truly successful in their career. While these tech geniuses dropped out to pursue their inspirations, many others don’t drop out, but rather let school take the back seat while they follow their passion projects. Consider looking not just at educational performance, but at what a candidate has accomplished throughout their education and subsequent career. A candidate who isn’t necessarily a viable option on paper might have developed an app that precisely exhibits the sort of drive and creativity necessary to succeed in your company. Alongside education, the candidate’s experience is often used as a sign of their past successes. Sure, to a certain extent, experience in their field is necessary. All a good candidate really needs, however, is familiarity with the industry. Someone with five years of experience and someone with ten may have comparable performance, and in some cases, long years of experience might simply indicate a candidate who is at risk of falling behind the times. Gaps in work history are another factor that can often be overlooked to find true talent. Sometimes your best, most entrepreneurial spirits have gaps in their employment and education history, from times where they spent years focusing on other projects. Look beyond the surface level and be willing to overlook these elements in favor of attributes that make a candidate more successful. Take a (Controlled) Risk George Anders is a fan of taking risks, but only in the right context. “I met with an art gallery manager who evaluated artists by saying ‘Surprise me’. You can’t hire pilots by asking them to surprise you – that’s not going to make a successful airline.” Risks can be hugely rewarding, in the right circumstances. Taking a risk with a high chance of success makes the potential failure less damaging if it happens. You may, for example, be willing to gamble on a candidate who doesn’t quite meet all of the requirements but shows promise, where the risk of failure is a loss of time and money. Don’t, however, sign a year-long contract with them with no escape clause. Context is important as well. As with the airline example, some roles require strict adherence to education and industry standards. A financial planner who doesn’t adhere to compliance regulations isn’t an asset, they’re a liability. A pilot can’t freestyle their flights. A doctor can’t go with their gut against the tenets of practicing medicine. Make Your Job Attractive Part of spotting the best talent is knowing what those candidates want out of a job. By offering what the best candidates really want, you attract a candidate pool that has the best chance of giving you the people you want to hire. The trick is to offer benefits and perks to your candidates that are truly in demand . What might qualify? The chance to work on big problems facing the industry or the world. A guaranteed ability to focus on real work, not busy work. Flexibility in days and hours; the ability to work when and where work can be done. Tangible support for lives outside of work, such as family leave and paid sick leave. Upward mobility; is the promise of growth and progression in their career. The reason so many of the best candidates never seem to stick with one job for long is because of a lack of progression within their companies. They may get hired on for their abilities, and they may excel in their roles, but if they have nowhere to go, they leave. Hire for Attitude Mark Murphy, the author of Hiring for Attitude, says it best : “It’s not that technical skills aren’t important, but they’re much easier to assess (that’s why attitude, not skills, is the top predictor of a new hire’s success or failure). Virtually every job (from neurosurgeon to engineer to cashier) has tests that can assess technical proficiency. But what those tests don’t assess is an attitude; whether a candidate is motivated to learn new skills, think innovatively, cope with failure, assimilate feedback and coaching, collaborate with teammates, and so forth.” Technical solutions and resumes have a hard time showcasing attitudes; that’s what the interviews are for. Finding a way to assess attitude as it fits with your company culture is essential. You want a candidate with the talent, the desire, the drive, and the attitude to succeed; everything else can be taught over time. Spotting the best talent out of any candidate pool is as much a matter of subjective judgment as it is any individual quality on paper. It’s an acquired skill, and it comes with experience in hiring and observing the results of those hires. Conclusion  Finding the right talent, especially those with specialized skills, goes beyond traditional metrics and requires a more nuanced and strategic approach. Whether it’s looking beyond conventional expectations, embracing the benefits of modern tools, or valuing attitude as much as aptitude, the path to recruiting the best is riddled with innovation and intuition. Ultimately, the goal is not just to fill positions but to enhance the overall value and potential of your organization.  If the task feels daunting or if you’re unsure where to start, we’re here to help. Our staffing services are designed to bridge the gap between employers and rare talent, ensuring that you find the perfect fit every time. Contact us today and let us assist you in spotting and securing that exceptional candidate for your team.

Diversity in the workplace is incredibly important. Diverse life experiences, backgrounds, and education are the core of a vibrant, innovative, and effective team. Diversity begins much earlier than many managers expect, however; everything from your job title to your requirements list to your targeted advertising plays a role. If you’re looking to attract more women to apply for your open roles, there are a handful of steps you can take. Here are 18 of them. 1. Promote Real-World Impact When building up your company brand , you want to position yourself as attractive to the audience you want to attract. It sounds simple, but a lot of psychology goes into it. In particular, you want to portray your company’s real-world impact in a positive light. This is because studies indicate that women have a more prosocial outlook than men in general. Highlight the tangible benefits you’re bringing to the world. For example, a company making self-driving vehicles can discuss lowered emissions, safer driving, and the lives saved via a reduction in accidents. 2. Limit Requirements in Job Listings Your job listing should have two sections for skills and experience; one for requirements and one for the “nice to have” benefits that make a candidate stand out over others. Make sure to restrict the “required” section to only the skills and experience that are truly required to perform in the role. The reason for this is the confidence gap . Men tend to apply for jobs when they can meet around 60% of the requirements for the role, whereas women tend to only apply when they know they meet 100% of the requirements. By putting requirements higher than necessary, you suppress the number of women who apply. It’s worth mentioning that this doesn’t make men any better at the role than women. Katty Kay and Claire Shipman write: “The natural result of low confidence is inaction. When women don’t act, when we hesitate because we aren’t sure, we hold ourselves back. But when we do act, even if it’s because we’re forced to, we perform just as well as men do.” 3. Use Gender-Neutral Writing When writing a job description , a pitch, or any other marketing materials, be sure to use gender-neutral writing as much as possible. When that’s not possible, if you’re targeting women, use the appropriate language. For example, if you’re writing a sample of job duties, saying “the applicant will be responsible for X” is better than “he will be responsible for X”. Avoid old-style gender “inclusive” writing like using s/he and (s)he throughout your text. Instead, try avoiding pronouns, using gender-neutral “they” pronouns, or even writing in the second person. This guide is an excellent resource for writing in a more gender-neutral way. 4. Make Use of Writing Tools When writing job advertisements and job listings specifically, and in writing copy that promotes your employer brand, it can be worthwhile to use a tool that analyzes your writing. Gender Decoder is a simple, free tool that is designed specifically for job ads. It uses textual analysis based on this 2011 report to determine how gendered your writing is. A more advanced tool like Textio can be useful for deeper analysis. This tool analyzes gendered composition but also reviews the average age the writing appeals to, analyzes mindset, and other analyses you don’t see in most writing tools. 5. Include Diversity in Job Imagery Most job listings have photos that portray what it’s like to work in that role. These images should include people of diverse origins and backgrounds, including an equal display of men and women. Avoid using images of women solely in female-oriented roles and men in male-dominated careers. Additionally, avoid portraying heavily gendered backgrounds and situations for your imagery. For example, promoting a casual office environment by talking about having a beer on top and having photos of people playing foosball in the break room. Women can certainly enjoy these things as much as men, but it’s a traditionally male-focused set of benefits and can make women applicants feel like they won’t be a good fit in the office. 6. Use Diverse Referrers One primary source of candidates for many roles, with an emphasis on STEM roles, is referrals from existing employees and recruiters. Referred candidates are an excellent source of new hires, but it turns out there’s a problem. Studies show that: “The use of referral networks can exacerbate inequality between groups with limited social contact.” In other words, people tend to have social networks composed of people like themselves and consequently refer to other people like themselves. If you already have a diversity problem in your workplace, referred candidates are not likely to help solve that problem. Either focus on diverse referrers or minimize referral candidates as a recruitment channel until your diversity problem has been solved. 7. Consider Incentivizing Diverse Referrals If referrals are a solid pipeline for new candidates, or if you want to promote more diverse hiring through referrals, you can consider an incentive program. Many companies pay employees a bonus upon hiring someone that they referred. You can pay a larger bonus for successfully referred women and minorities. While you might initially worry that this becomes an issue of discriminatory hiring practices, it turns out not to be the case. Margaret H. Allen and Mustafa Abul-Jabbar write : “The distinction lies in recruiting practices versus hiring practices. To be clear, it is improper and illegal to hire someone based on their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender, national origin, or other protected category. But ensuring that a company has diverse candidates in its recruiting pipeline is not only fair game, it is also strongly encouraged by federal agencies and watchdog organizations, and quite frankly, it is the right thing to do.” 8. Seek and Eliminate Bias in Candidate Evaluation When evaluating resumes and applications , look for parts of the process where a conscious or subconscious bias might be eliminating minority or female job candidates unfairly. A common example of this is hiring managers judging resumes based on their names before even reading skills and work history. Whenever you identify an area where bias may be unfairly eliminating candidates, fix it. For example, many modern applicant tracking systems offer the option of anonymizing applications to remove names and identifying information. This can also be done with certain kinds of interviews, particularly where practical skills are involved. The Boston Symphony Orchestra, for example, increased their rate of women hired by conducting “blind auditions” with the applicant behind a screen . 9. Establish a Clear Interview Process Interviews are another area where subconscious bias can make it into the process. To eliminate this bias, establish a clear set of questions for the interview, and develop a complete rubric for grading the answers to those questions. Make sure to ask every interviewee the same set of questions and judge them on the same set of criteria. Periodically, it may be worthwhile to review and correlate grading with minority status to make sure your hiring managers aren’t unconsciously biased the grades they give candidates. If you discover a bias, work to make the rubric more impartial, and offer training to minimize the bias in the future. 10. Look for Help from Tools Many modern hiring tools have options to help minimize bias and enhance diverse hiring. We already mentioned using a resume anonymizer feature in your applicant tracking system, but that’s far from the only option. You can also, for example, use third-party tools for skills testing that provide anonymized testing and results correlated with the applicant. To use a developer role as an example, a common interview task is a whiteboard coding assignment. Women traditionally don’t perform as well with a whiteboard assignment, but how often do your developers need to write code on a whiteboard anyway? More often, an “in situ” coding task provided by a tool like HackerRank will be less biased and better at testing the skills of a potential developer anyway. 11. Provide Benefits Relevant to Women When selling your job opportunity to potential applicants, you want to make sure you’re providing benefits that are relevant to a diverse pool. While career progression and remote work flexibility are common priorities, women might also be looking for benefits like salary transparency, a more flexible work-life balance, family leave, and healthcare.  Above all, a supportive, team-focused environment is one of the best benefits your company can provide. 12. Establish a Diverse Interview Panel In most businesses, your hiring should be performed through a panel of interviewers, not a single hiring manager. One person can have biases that skew the diversity of your company. A panel is not any less likely to have biases but is more likely to balance out and counteract those biases. A good interview panel should include an overall hiring manager, a manager of the department the hire would work in and a third manager whose role is to balance the panel. When you’re looking to hire women, including a woman on the panel is a surefire way to ensure that women are more likely to be judged fairly. 13. Hire from Diverse Sources In many cases, where you’re advertising your job listings is as important as how they are composed. One common example is university recruiting. If you’re looking to hire women in a STEM program, you will want to focus on recruiting from universities that focus on diversity in their STEM programs. You can’t hire women from a program that doesn’t graduate women, after all. One potentially valuable option is HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). These institutions tend to have a better focus on diversity , from admissions through to graduation and on to their choice in faculty. You can also find lists of universities participating in diversity initiatives and rankings of institutions by their diverse graduates. 14. Ensure Your Workplace is Safe from Gender Discrimination Diversity in the workplace goes beyond hiring; you need to ensure that your workplace is safe for women and minorities. Look at retention amongst minority groups, and examine the reasons why minority employees leave. Implement zero-tolerance policies for sexism and harassment. Examine HR cases in the recent past and look for problem employees and trends. Making your workplace comfortable for everyone helps you maintain not just a diverse workplace, but a reputation for supporting that diversity. 15. Examine a Gender Pay Gap It’s no secret that a gender pay gap exists. Examine salaries throughout your organization and work to eliminate that gap. If you discover that minority or women employees are paid less than their white or male counterparts, close that gap with a raise. Once the pay gap is eliminated, be transparent about both salary policies and salaries. It’s already illegal to prohibit employees from discussing salaries, but you can go one step further by including salary information in job listings . 16. Sponsor Diversity Groups and Initiatives To some candidates, you can say anything you want, but it’s meaningless unless you put your money where your mouth is. Use business funds to sponsor female-led or diverse initiatives, such as female tech conferences or Girl Geek Dinners . This has the added benefit of listing your company as a sponsor, so anyone investigating companies that support diversity will find your company, adding to your employer brand. 17. Promote Women’s Stories Women throughout your organization are encountering challenges and succeeding. Making yourself aware of their stories, and promoting those stories to the public, can give your brand a more diverse and beneficial reputation. For example, Goldman Sachs has a blog on their careers page where they highlight specific employees with a “day in the life” series. They highlight a diverse range of employees for these features . 18. Remember Equal Opportunity Laws It might be tempting to use Google or Facebook paid advertising, with their very detailed targeting options, to target job ads specifically for women. While this would certainly bring in more female job candidates, it’s also discriminatory. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has ruled that targeting ads based on gender, age, and even zip code is a discriminatory practice . You can run ads that have a slant in writing towards attracting female job applicants, but you cannot make those ads only visible to those groups. Conclusion  As we venture into a future where diversity and inclusion are more than just buzzwords, it’s paramount that businesses prioritize and implement strategies to foster a truly diverse workforce. The advantages are multifold, from fostering innovation to better representation in decision-making. While the journey to attracting a more diverse talent pool, especially women, may seem complex, taking steps like those outlined above can make a significant impact.  Need help creating a workplace that mirrors the diversity of our society and leverages the strengths that come with it? Contact us today and learn how we can help .

Diversity is important in any workplace. Diversity also means more than just making sure different genders and races are represented. You can, and should, hire people with disabilities as well. Yes, you will probably have to implement extra accommodations to make sure such employees can thrive in your workplace. Yes, you may have to combat some resentment or ill will from other employees. The rewards, though, are well worth the effort. Today we’re going to discuss deaf or hard-of-hearing hires. These people have to deal with a lot of misconceptions and discrimination in the workplace, but they can be just as valuable as any other employee when they’re allowed to thrive. Disability does not mean a lack of ability to perform in a role. Misconceptions Regarding Deaf Employees One of the first hurdles to leap when considering hiring a deaf or hard-of-hearing individual as an employee is learning, recognizing, and fighting misconceptions that might get in the way of either the hiring process or their role in the workplace. Misconception #1: All deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals know sign language. Sign language isn’t necessary for many hard-of-hearing individuals, and even some deaf individuals don’t know it or don’t like to use it. As with any culture and language, it varies from person to person. Some are fluent in sign language, others only know a bare minimum to communicate, and still, others don’t know any at all, and prefer to communicate in different ways. Misconception #2: All sign language is the same. Sign language is not a universal language. The first thing that most will think of is ASL or American Sign Language . There are other regional sign languages, like British Sign Language, French Sign Language, and others. Attempts have been made to make standardized sign languages, resulting in languages like International Sign, but it’s not widely adopted. Misconception #3: Accommodating deaf employees is expensive. Many accommodations for hard-of-hearing individuals are cheap or free, and the average cost for many one-time accommodations is under $500 . For example, you don’t necessarily need an ASL interpreter on staff when email and a company Slack work just fine. Misconception #4: Deaf employees cannot hear at all. Hearing loss is a wide spectrum of disability. People who are fully deaf aren’t able to hear anything at all, but many hard-of-hearing individuals can hear some of what goes on around them but may have trouble making out words or identifying when someone is trying to get their attention. Additionally, hearing aids and cochlear implants can enable many hard-of-hearing individuals with an improved level of hearing. Misconception #5: Deaf employees cannot drive. Some employers are hesitant to hire deaf employees under the assumption that they cannot drive, making it harder for them to get to work on time and reliably through public transportation or other means. The reality is much more complicated. Deaf people can drive, and varying studies suggest that they’re as safe as any other driver . They often face discrimination in licensing but can drive just as well as anyone else when they’re given the opportunity. Besides, as part of your application process, you likely have a line saying “must have reliable transportation.” If they have reliable transportation, their license, and are insured, then they meet the requirements. Misconception #6: Deaf people can read lips. Lip reading is a skill much like sign language, and it’s not inherent to being hard of hearing. Lip reading is difficult; only 30% of spoken English is even visible on the lips. Facial hair can also make it more difficult to read lips.  It’s not some magic replacement for hearing; it’s a means to help interpret when hearing is muddled and difficult. Misconception #7: Deaf people have “super-senses” in other ways. Much like the stereotype that blind people have enhanced hearing, many people attribute enhanced sight or other characteristics to the deaf. The truth is, while deaf people may need to focus on using other senses to compensate for a lack of hearing – and thus might catch what others miss – it’s more a matter of attention and practice than any inherent advantage. As it turns out, many of the reasons that companies fail to hire deaf employees are more about personal biases, stereotypes, and lack of experience rather than a reason that would disqualify them from being able to carry out the duties of the position. Add to that all of the possible benefits a deaf or hard-of-hearing employee brings to the table, and you’ll wonder why these hard-working individuals have been excluded from many positions. Benefits of Hiring Deaf or Hard of Hearing Employees Why should you go about hiring a deaf or hard-of-hearing individual for your business? Well, first and foremost, they’re human beings with lives, experiences, and skills just like anyone else. Being able to hear doesn’t necessarily make someone more efficient or better at handling certain tasks. There’s also the inherent benefits of a diverse workplace, which shouldn’t need to be explained. But, to put things in more specific terms, here are some tangible benefits to hiring such people. Deaf and HH individuals are generally extremely adaptable. Lydia Callis writes: “People who are deaf spend much of their lives finding ways to adapt within hearing culture. Because of this, deaf employees may exhibit impressive patience and flexibility in the face of a challenge.” We’ve all experienced an employee who, when presented with a problem, simply locks up. They don’t pursue a solution, and they’ll only take action when pushed to do so. More often, they seem to use it as an excuse to do nothing. This is much less common with deaf employees, who are used to solving their own problems as necessary. Deaf and HH individuals bring unique life experiences to the team. This is one of the biggest benefits of workplace diversity of any kind. Everyone has their own unique life experiences, with different pressures and different perspectives developed from their unique situations. Whether it’s the color of their skin, their gender presentation, or their disabilities, diverse employees bring unique thoughts to the table. There’s rarely a time when this isn’t beneficial to a company. With deaf or hard-of-hearing employees, you can expect recommendations or suggestions for enhancing accessibility and accommodations for others with hearing loss, which can make your products, services and marketing more acceptable and applicable to an entire audience you previously missed. Deaf and HH individuals tend to be very loyal to their jobs. In a time when turnover is high and employee loyalty is tied more to a paycheck than a company, employee loyalty is a highly valued trait. Deaf individuals have a hard time finding a job – unemployment amongst the deaf is around 50% , though it depends on the precise definitions of both employment and hearing loss – so they know to value a job when they have it. That’s not just an assumption, either.  A U.S. Department of Education study found that: “Disabled employees, in general, are average or above average in performance, quality and quantity of work, flexibility, and attendance.” Deaf and HH groups have their own job boards you can use to hire them specifically. Given how hard it is for the average hard-of-hearing individual to be given the time of day by a typical hiring manager, it’s no surprise that deaf people have created their own resources. Sites like DeafJobWizard serve as job boards where the hard-of-hearing can browse open positions specifically offered to the deaf. More importantly, you as a business owner can use these sites to post jobs where you’re willing to hire a hard-of-hearing employee. Deaf and HH individuals tend to be very detail-oriented. This can be beneficial in a few different ways. For example, deaf employees often take good notes during meetings with clients or customers, and those notes can be a valuable asset for the team after the meeting is over. These individuals are also frequently good at reading body language and developing an impression of the people around them. This gives them more insight into a variety of different situations. As the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association says: “There can often be a mismatch between what is spoken and their body language, which may very well be overlooked by our hearing peers if they are just focusing on what they hear.” Businesses can qualify for tax credits for hiring hard-of-hearing individuals. The Work Opportunity Tax Credit, or WOTC , is a federal tax credit offered to businesses for hiring individuals from certain groups who typically face discrimination in hiring or in the workplace. Accommodations You Should Make If you’ve decided that it could be a good idea to hire a hard-of-hearing person to work for your company, you’ll want to make sure you can properly accommodate their disability. A lot goes into this, but thankfully, most of it isn’t very difficult or expensive. You also have a lot of options. For the application process , you hardly need accommodations at all. Make sure that any mandatory media is accessible, such as making accurate closed captions available for videos. Most applications are either paper documents or online forms, neither of which is impacted by hearing loss. For the interview process , you should start by asking the interviewee how they prefer to communicate. The ADA requires that your company cover the cost of an ASL interpreter if one is needed, but some hard-of-hearing candidates won’t want or need an interpreter. If an interpreter is present, make sure to focus on the candidate. A common etiquette mistake is addressing questions and making eye contact with the interpreter when it is the candidate you’re interviewing. Talk to and address the candidates, make eye contact with them, and – as hard as it may be – treat the interpreter as a tool or accessory, at least for the duration of the interview. Additionally, make sure to provide paper copies of any documents, itineraries, questions, and media you need to give the candidate. For an inclusive workplace , you’ll typically want to focus on a few different categories of accommodations. Emergency coverage, workplace training, and business process accommodations are the name of the game. First, you’ll want to provide training for existing employees on how to integrate a hard-of-hearing coworker. You want your employees to feel supported and at home, and a hostile work environment is not conducive to a positive workplace experience. Training should involve debunking myths, providing a venue for employees to ask questions, and providing training on the etiquette on dealing with hearing loss. Primarily, you’ll want to focus on making sure your other employees don’t discriminate against your new employee or make their environment hostile or toxic to work in. Next, you’ll want to make sure you have accommodations in place for communication. Phone calls may or may not be viable depending on the level of hearing loss the employee has, but there’s nothing wrong with using email, Slack, or another text-based communication channel. There are also technological options for phones , such as captions phones or video relay services that route a call through an interpreter via a video phone. Don’t forget to ensure that any disaster warning systems, such as fire alarms, are accommodating as well; flashing lights and visual markers for exits and directions are crucial. Another area where you can be accommodating is at workplace meetings. Meetings should be held in areas with good lighting, where your hard-of-hearing employees can always see who is speaking. You may also want to implement practices that better indicate who “has the floor” and is speaking at any given time. Visual aids, notes, and meeting minutes are all good as well. You may note that many of the accommodations for a hard-of-hearing or deaf employee are behavioral more than technological; this is why they’re as cheap as they are. It doesn’t take much to be accommodating . Bringing a deaf or hard-of-hearing employee on board can be a great boon to any company, with their unique perspective, their loyalty, and their skills. It might take a little adjustment, and you may have to smooth over some wrinkles in the general workforce, but the benefits are well worth the effort. Are you considering hiring somebody who is Deaf or Hard of Hearing, or have you already? What have your experiences been? Let us know in the comments below!

No one is free of bias. Every last one of us makes judgments and decisions based on the collective influence of our upbringings, our experiences, our educations, and our societies. That “gut feeling” you have about anything from how your food looks to the impression you get when meeting someone new? That’s nothing more than a collection of biases manifesting. This can be potentially valuable in social interactions, but it can also lead to miscommunications, misinterpretations, and misadventures. As a tourist, your gut feelings might serve you well, or they may lead you into an exploitative scam. Even these situations are individual, comparatively minor. Where bias can truly become disastrous is in hiring. As a hiring manager or director in charge of making hiring decisions, you are not free from bias. It’s truly, 100% impossible to be completely free of bias. The best you can do, the best you can hope for, is to take steps to minimize the effect bias has on your decision-making and be aware of what you cannot eliminate to mitigate it. To that end, we’ve put together this list of the most common sources of bias in hiring. Examine your hiring process and your decision-making to see if any of these are present, and take action to adjust for them. The Halo/Horn Bias If you have an appointment with someone and they turn up late, dirty, and unkempt, you’re likely to judge them negatively. They might shine in their interview, ace the skill tests, and make a stellar impression on others, but you can’t shake that initial impression. In your mind, you’ll never see past them showing up looking like they dove out of a moving vehicle to make the appointment. Perhaps they did just that. You don’t know the situation that led to their presence. Yet you ascribe a value to it – the “horn” effect, for devil horns, indicating something negative – and that value judgment lingers despite other evidence. You might not hire them despite their tangibly great metrics because of that impression. The same thing can happen in reverse, the “halo” effect. Someone comes in for their interview, immaculate, charming, personable, and excellent at the skills tests. You hire them, but over time, you find that they’re abrasive, that their charm is entirely fake, and that they barely know how to do their job and don’t seem interested in learning. You give them plenty of chances and the benefit of the doubt because they were so charming that first time around. They cling on longer than they had any right to due to that initial bias. Avoid this simply by questioning your assumptions and judgments. You don’t know the depths of someone’s character based on one meeting and shouldn’t make an assumption about it. Confirmation Bias 60% of interviewers make a judgment about their candidates within 15 minutes of meeting them . Is that judgment accurate? Maybe, maybe not. Confirmation bias is the unconscious practice of focusing on information, answers, or behaviors that back up that initial judgment or gut feeling while disregarding actions, behaviors, or information that run counter to it. Consider that initial impression; you make a judgment that someone seems well put together for their interview. Throughout the interview, they stutter (oh, a speech impediment is fine, they’re working on it), shuffle papers (just nerves, not disorganization, right?), and show signs of not knowing what they claim to know. Yet that initial impression carries through; you unconsciously assign less weight to negative factors or disregard them entirely while giving more weight to minor details that support your impression. Everyone is guilty of this bias, which is why so much of hiring is about using objective markers, data from assessments, and interview scorecards to make more even judgments. Affect Heuristic Bias A heuristic is a shortcut. Heuristics are things like generalizations or attributions that are “good enough” to make a judgment, even though they may not be rational, consistent, or perfect. Affect heuristics are emotionally charged heuristic decisions. As a simple example, maybe you’ve had three or four kinds of foods with cheddar cheese flavors attached to them. So, when presented with a decision between a bag of cheddar chips and a bag of sour cream and onion, you know you like cheddar, so you go with that option. You make that decision, even though you don’t know the quality of the flavoring, whether cheddar will satisfy your current cravings, or if the cheddar chips are old and expired, but the other ones are fresh, and so on. You don’t have all the information, but you made a judgment based on your experience that is likely to be, at worst, maybe a little disappointing. How does this relate to hiring? Heuristics can be snap judgments using information that otherwise has little bearing on the situation. Consider: Your best friend from childhood is named Stephen. A new applicant makes it to the interview process and is named Stephen, so you have an initial good impression of them based on the emotional memories the name brings up. A candidate’s keychain has a logo of a sports team you dislike. Seeing it puts you in a bad mood – they just beat your team last night – so you judge the candidate more harshly. Neither example is rational or based on anything tangible; it’s a memory of an emotion that biases your judgment. Affinity Bias A Silicon Valley startup primarily consists of young men in their 20s and 30s, with computer science, business, and engineering degrees, Type A personalities, and a love of a good hipster brew. This company puts out a job ad and pulls in half a dozen candidates to interview. They choose a candidate who is a young man in his 20s or 30s, with a degree in computer engineering, a Type A personality, and a love of a good hipster brew. Like attracts like. Yet, time and again, studies show that one of the best things you can do to bolster productivity, agility, and resilience in business is to hire a broadly-based and diverse workforce. The startup in question knows that diversity is important, yet they value “cultural fit” over “tokenism” in their hiring. They tend to choose people who already resemble those who fit in rather than “gamble” on someone different. This is affinity bias – the bias towards people you share an affinity with and away from people who might challenge you – in action. There’s a natural and reasonable urge to minimize potential sources of conflict. After all, people work better when they aren’t fighting. Unfortunately, this suppresses diversity and leads to further self-reinforcing bias. The real solution is to invest in conflict resolution training so that when disagreements arise, they can be handled reasonably and consistently. Illusory Correlation Bias Correlation does not equal causation. You’ve probably heard that before. For example, a famous graph shows how ice cream sales rise and fall in sync with the number of shark attacks. That doesn’t mean that buying ice cream makes you more at risk of a shark attack, nor does it mean that shark attacks are somehow an inherent driver of ice cream sales. In hiring, an example might be an interviewer noticing that all of their best hires answered a specific way on a particular question in the process, which is otherwise just one of many similar questions. They correlate that answer to job performance, when the reality is, it’s more likely a coincidence. This bias is another reminder not to ascribe specific value or undue influence to an otherwise innocuous piece of data that is not an actual correlation with job performance or outcomes. Conformity Bias Many people want to be a part of the crowd and have an aversion to speaking up. Perhaps they have had poor experiences in the past, or they’re unsure of themselves. This can rear up as a bias in hiring, specifically in cases where a panel of interviewers is conducting an interview. Say you have five people conducting an interview. Four of them thought the candidate was great, but the fifth got a poor impression and thought they didn’t do well. Does that fifth interviewer speak up? On the one hand, perhaps they feel the candidate performed poorly due to another bias – perhaps Affect Heuristic – that they didn’t recognize and adjust for. On the other hand, perhaps everyone else was affected by a bias like Affinity Bias, while the fifth interviewer was not. Conformity bias pushes this fifth interviewer not to speak up, even when speaking up might foster discussion that can circumvent other biases and make for a more accurate hiring decision. Contrast Bias Stand out, make a good impression, and get your foot in the door. Common advice for candidates, but is it valuable for interviewers? As an interviewer, you are likely combing through dozens or hundreds of resumes for any given position. These have, presumably, already been through at least two filters. First, they’ve been through the self-selection filter of people who apply only if they believe they fit the role or are close enough to have a shot. Second, they make it through the filter on your ATS that pulls out the best resumes that most closely fit the open role. Due to these filters, the chances are that many of these resumes are pretty similar. People applying for a particular role with a specific set of requirements will, by definition, have a resume tailored to that role and requirement set. The monotony of reading so many resumes that are all, more or less, interchangeable becomes numbing. Any resume that stands out from the rest, whether it’s a particular skill or use of color or anything else, might be enough to make the candidate memorable. Is the candidate any better than the rest of the cohort? Not necessarily, but they stood out, and that contrast made them visible. Fighting Bias in Hiring There are many different ways to fight bias in hiring, but they all boil down to three generalities. First, use a system that removes the source of bias. For example, the candidate’s name can lead to Affect Heuristic bias or other biases related to inherent racial or experiential biases. Anonymizing resumes is an easy way to remove that potential source of bias, at least until the candidate has progressed a bit through the application and interview process. Second, be aware of the presence of biases. Knowing is, after all, half the battle. If you aren’t aware of the possible biases that can come up, you won’t be able to watch for them or combat them. Guides like this one can help, but it may require further reading. This guide isn’t a comprehensive list of biases because there’s no such list. Biases take many forms and are often unique to the individual. Third, question the source of your choices and work to minimize biases. Panel interviews help remove bias by looking at each candidate from several viewpoints. Tools like interview scorecards can help remove biases inherent in less objective judgments. Training can help keep your interviewers on top of their own biases. It’s impossible to remove all sources of bias. No one is capable of making unbiased judgments. That is why having multiple people review the hiring process is ideal; it can help to have multiple sets of eyes on any problem. No software is either; software is made by biased people, and those biases can be built into the software or crop up through reinforcement in machine learning. It’s a considerable challenge in modern AI development, in fact, and it’s not one that is easily surmounted. The best you can do is work to minimize the effects of bias on your hiring process and adjust for when they are noticed. Do you or your company have any questions about hiring biases, or do you require any additional explanation about how you can avoid them further? If so, please feel free to comment down below, and we’ll get a conversation started! The first step to avoiding biases is to recognize that they exist, and by doing so, you’re already off to a good start. We would be more than happy to assist you however we possibly can.

Diversity and inclusivity are often tied together in corporate initiatives and discussions, but they’re two distinct, if related, aspects of workplace culture. Diversity is critically important for many reasons , but inclusion is often overlooked in the emphasis on diversity. Building a more inclusive workplace culture has a knock-on effect across the whole of your organization and can improve business outcomes in ways you might not even expect. Primarily, it: Leads to happier employees. Happier employees have higher morale, better loyalty, better teamwork, and more productivity all across the board. Think of it like a modifier to the success of your staff. Helps promote thought diversity. One key element of an inclusive culture is accepting ideas that may be new to you or outside of your comfort zone. When employees can feel welcomed despite differences in opinion, perspective, and approach, that can be leveraged into more unique, outside-the-box solutions to problems large and small. Builds a better external reputation. Despite (or perhaps because of) ongoing “culture wars” on the internet and in the media, millions of people are currently more than willing to make purchasing decisions based on a company’s treatment of employees, especially those who match their demographics. A more inclusive workplace fosters more employee diversity and helps build a positive reputation amongst the audiences who care most about it. With these and other benefits in play, fostering an inclusive workplace is an easy decision. Unfortunately, it’s much easier said than done. Often, the people most suppressive of inclusivity are the most vocal critics and will make it challenging to push your workplace culture in the direction you want it to go. Inclusivity needs buy-in from the top. It needs enforcement across the board. You need to be unafraid to make hard decisions, particularly regarding resistant but enfranchised employees and managers. Luckily, you can take many easy steps to foster a more inclusive work culture. Here are eight such options. 1: Perform a Language Review One of the simplest ways to encourage inclusivity is to audit and review the language used within your organization. That includes language used in documentation, website copy, internal policies, official and unofficial communications, and even casual speech. For text, perform an audit and change any non-inclusive language to be more inclusive. For communications, send guidelines to your employees and enforce them as you can. If you make a mistake, apologize and do better. If someone else makes a mistake, point it out. Be wary of punishments; being too harsh can be detrimental. On the other hand, repeat offenders who coincidentally never seem to learn may need further observance; repeated “accidental” breaks of inclusive language can be a form of discrimination. For ideas of what to watch for and change, check out inclusive language guides like this one from NASAA or this one from the APA . Examples include: Referring to minority groups by their preferred terms rather than yours. Shift towards gender-neutral as a base. For example, “spouse” or “partner” rather than the assumption of a husband or wife. Allow (but do not necessarily require) specification of pronouns. Be aware that requiring pronouns to be specified may be suppressive to people who may be unsure but would feel pressured to “come out” in the workplace. There are many such examples, and no one will be perfect right away. Moreover, the discussion is constantly evolving, and preferences change. Do your best with good intentions, and you’ll be 90% of the way there. 2: Build a Continuous Feedback Culture A culture of continuous feedback is excellent for both inclusivity and productivity in a modern workplace. One of the worst things a company can do is make its employees feel like anonymous cogs in a machine, with no influence or say over how the company is run, the direction it takes, or even how their department is run or their tasks are directed. Remember: your employees are intelligent, independent, educated, and motivated. They want the company to succeed, they want to be invested in its success, and they very likely have ideas on how to improve, streamline, or otherwise benefit their role, their team, their department, and the company as a whole. Establish lines of communication throughout your organization. Allow for feedback at any and every level. Encourage employees to raise concerns, present suggestions, and offer alternatives to processes. If their ideas are off-target or would not work, it’s not because the employee is unintelligent; they probably don’t know the full context. Education and feedback go both ways, and when you provide your employees with the full context, they can come up with better suggestions and ideas. 3: Develop Safe Spaces Though some aspects of the media have corrupted the concept of a “safe space,” the truth is that there are already safe spaces all around you. Adding a few more for more inclusivity among various demographics will never be bad. For example: do you genuinely need gendered restrooms? Thousands of companies and places of business across the country have gender-neutral restrooms already, and they’re never an issue. The chances are, you’ve used them plenty of times and never thought about it. Other examples may include: Prayer spaces for those whose religious observances take place during the workday and who might need a place they can go to practice their religion without interruption, either of themselves or their peers. Lactation rooms, where new mothers can breastfeed or pump in peace, again without disrupting those around them or making a “big deal” out of it. Quiet spaces for those who may need a 15-minute nap on their break, who may need to get away from the overstimulation of an open floor plan, or who may need a place to meditate and get their thoughts in order for a project. Even something as simple as reducing the reliance on icebreakers and other popular extrovert-focused cultural signifiers in meetings can be a step towards inclusivity of your more introverted employees. 4: Add Holiday Flexibility People from various cultures and religious traditions will have dramatically different holidays they prefer to celebrate. Despite their prevalence in America, Christmas, Easter, and other holidays may not be significant to many employees. They may not want or need the day off, while they would prefer a different day, such as Yom Kippur, Ramadan, or Diwali instead. Other non-religious holidays, like Juneteenth, are also worth acknowledging. It may be impossible to offer company-wide days off for every holiday between all of the various cultures you may have represented in your organization. Instead, implement a flexible holiday policy. Allow individuals of any background and faith to select their holidays to take days off (without tapping into PTO or sick days) and include flexibility. You can even keep the office open on Christmas or Easter as well, for those who don’t celebrate and who would be perfectly happy working those days. At the same time, implement company-wide recognition and acknowledgment for these holidays. You don’t need full-blown holiday parties for every holiday, but neither should certain holidays get significantly more treatment than others. There’s no single one-size-fits-all solution for every company here. You’ll need to communicate with your employees, determine which holidays are represented, and develop an equally inclusive plan for all of them. If you hire someone who celebrates holidays you don’t already cover, add them to the list. 5: Ensure Top-Level Buy-In Inclusivity and diversity are powerful , but they require buy-in at all levels of an organization. That means team leads, middle managers, upper managers, directors, board members, and the C-suite all need to be aware, involved, and supportive of inclusivity initiatives. Buy-in means more than just saying they support it in a company-wide email. It means actively putting inclusivity initiatives into practice. Your leaders must lead by example. And if they make mistakes – and they will – they must lead by example in how to correct them as well. It’s tough, especially for companies run by “old-fashioned” individuals, but change throughout the organization isn’t possible without change at the top. How, exactly, you ensure top-level inclusivity will vary. Amex and Merck, for example , provide mandatory inclusivity and unconscious bias training for all managers or executives. It may also be helpful to build up inclusivity from base principles. Some people may do best with a list of behaviors to modify, but others prefer to know the underlying reasons; otherwise, the checklist – to them – seems nonsensical. Handling inclusivity on a personalized basis is the best option but requires careful attention and ongoing education. 6: Build an Inclusion Task Force Your company can say it is devoted to inclusivity, but without an enforcement mechanism, the words are meaningless. Moreover, an inclusivity task force or enforcement team needs to be present at all levels in an organization, from bottom to top. Start with a C-level, someone like A Chief Diversity Officer. Build the team by pulling diverse members from various levels and departments of your organization. The team itself should be diverse and highly educated on inclusion practices in the workplace. They may not all agree on everything – indeed, if they do, they likely aren’t diverse enough – but they should be united in purpose. The goal: improving the organization’s diversity and inclusivity. Building this team is not enough on its own. The team must also be empowered to audit, deliver recommendations, and potentially even mete out punishment as necessary for offenses. This applies both to employees and managers, as well as to executives. Not even the CEO is exempt from awareness of inclusivity in their organization. 7: Don’t Limit Inclusivity to Just Who You Have We mention that you don’t necessarily need to celebrate holidays that aren’t relevant to your staff in our recommendation about holidays. That’s not entirely true. Inclusivity affects more than just your employees. While you don’t need an all-hands vacation day for a holiday no one celebrates, including it in your coverage of culture and traditions can be important for awareness, including awareness of that segment of your customer base. Another example is language. Your entire organization may speak English, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be accessible in other languages. Multilingual signage throughout your office, multilingual documentation and content on your website, and other forms of support for other languages can be a great way to encourage inclusivity passively. Despite not “needing” it, having it is an implicit statement.  Moreover, it tells anyone who sees it that you aren’t being dragged into inclusivity only when it becomes relevant to someone in your organization. 8: Always Be Learning The conversation surrounding inclusivity is constantly evolving, in no small part due to systemic and cultural resistance to it in many areas of life. A common complaint, in fact, is that the standards keep changing, so even people who (begrudgingly) accepted one change are now being told that that new change is now wrong. There will never be perfect inclusivity because inclusivity is an evolving process that reacts to the cultural environment in which it happens (or doesn’t happen). A crucial part of implementing greater levels of inclusivity in your organization is a willingness to learn and absorb new information, change behaviors and policies, and adapt to changes as they develop across culture. It won’t be easy. Inclusivity requires change, self-reflection, and adjustment on a personal and individual level. Moreover, on a company level, it requires making decisions, implementing policies, and even spending money in ways that don’t directly show returns. It can often be difficult to tell what benefit you’re getting from it. Focusing on greater inclusivity and greater diversity in the workplace has many intangible and secondary benefits to your organization and your employees. Critically, it strives to minimize harm; those who claim it harms them are either pointing out a flawed policy or are being confronted in their inherent bigotry. React accordingly, and always strive to do better. Feel free to reach out to us to discuss how we can help you build a more diverse team.

C-level positions – also referred to as C-suite positions – start with the letter “C” for “Chief”. These are often the most important positions in any company. They’re the people in charge of daily operations, guiding everything from the overall direction of the company to the core responsibilities of individual departments. These positions require the most talented, intuitive, skilled, and ambitious people to fill them. There are also more of these C-level positions than you might realize, and some of the titles on this list may be entirely new to you. C-level employees are executives, but they are not always the people in charge of a company. Larger companies usually have more than one executive, and some of them may share similar roles. The Founder may or may not be the President, and the President may or may not be the CEO. The question remains: what are each of the C-suite roles, and what are their daily responsibilities? Let’s define them. CEO – Chief Executive Officer The CEO is traditionally the leader of a company and its most public face. CEOs are the people who make the overall decisions for the direction and goals of a company, though they take the opinions and considerations of other C-levels, executives, founders, presidents , and core team members into consideration. Typically, a CEO is nominally “in charge” of the business as a whole but rarely do they make decisions unilaterally. The CEO may be the founder of the company, or they may be an executive appointed to run the company in the founder’s stead. They may be a former C-level promoted to the role, or they may be a CEO or C-level from another company. COO – Chief Operating Officer The Chief Operating Officer is typically the “first mate” to the CEO’s “captain”. They take the strategies and business plans put forth by the CEO and enact them throughout the company. From Workable: “They ensure that the company runs like clockwork.” Smaller companies may not have a COO and can roll the responsibilities into those of the CEO, President, or another executive. CFO – Chief Financial Officer The Chief Financial Officer is another common and critical role in the list of C-suite positions. They manage all things financial within a company, from budgets to expense reports, overseeing all of the money coming in or going out from the company. They may not do all of this directly and may have a department of finances or an accounting department to do the daily work for them, while they make some of the more high-level decisions on budget constraints and expense approvals. CRO – Chief Revenue Officer Similar to, but distinct from, the chief financial officer, the chief revenue officer is the head of all things revenue. Any source of money coming in, from fundraising to profit margins to cost-cutting, falls under the purview of the Chief Revenue Officer. Per Marketo: “A CRO’s role is to look at ways to generate and retain revenue across multiple channels with a long-term perspective, rather than the short-term horizon usually embraced by sales departments.” Additionally, the title of chief revenue officer is a relatively recent one in comparison to many other C-suite titles. Critically, the Chief Revenue Officer is different from sales executives, marketing C-levels, and other revenue generation titles. CTO – Chief Technical Officer Also known as the Chief Technology Officer or the Chief Information Officer, the CTO is responsible for the technology and infrastructure upon which the company is built. Everything from the IT department and its array of servers and cloud services, to the platforms and services used for accounting, sales, marketing, and communications, are all beholden to the decisions of the CTO. The CTO is not just responsible for overseeing and maintaining the existing technology, but also investigating new options and determining when a change or upgrade is in order. CMO – Chief Marketing Officer The Chief Marketing Officer is responsible for the advertising and marketing the company pursues. They are responsible for high-level analysis and decision-making regarding what channels, platforms, and technologies that the company will use for its marketing strategy. They also ensure that marketing efforts are in alignment with the overall goals, values, and messaging the company wishes to pursue. They rarely interface with the day-to-day marketing, but rather tend to make their decisions based on overall reports, marketing trends, and high-level concerns for the business. CHRO – Chief Human Resources Officer The Chief Human Resources Officer is the head of the human resources department. They oversee human capital and are responsible for managing the workforce as a whole. They set hiring goals, oversee hiring, manage training, deal with promotions, and monitor employee performance. They also consider long-term human resources concerns, such as succession planning and overall talent acquisition. CLO – Chief Legal Officer The Chief Legal Officer is the executive responsible for managing the company’s legal presence. They manage legal risks and legal compliance. They oversee company lawyers, ensure compliance with regulations, monitor employee relationships and get ahead of potential legal issues with employee disagreements, and handle all of the legal paperwork relating to the operation of a company. This includes everything from licensing to auditing to oversight. The CLO is closely related to other c-level positions that may or may not exist within a company as distinct roles. Chief Risk Officer. This is a more specialized legal role, focusing on the specific risks a company may face in legal considerations. Chief Compliance Officer. This is also a more specialized legal role, focusing primarily on compliance with industry regulations, regulatory bodies, local, state, regional, and national government regulations, international regulations, and other compliance regulations. General Counsel. The general counsel for a company is typically the role they have in place of a Chief Legal Officer, before the company growing to a point to need one. A company may have one or the other, or both. CIO – Chief Investment Officer The Chief Investment Officer is a branch of the financial department and is typically a role that only appears in companies large enough to require multiple, distinct heads of different aspects of finances. The Chief Investment Officer builds and monitors the portfolio of assets a company controls, from subsidiaries to pension funds to traditional investments in tangible or intangible assets. ChEng – Chief Engineering Officer The Chief Engineering Officer is a specialized role that appears in two forms. The first is in a traditional company that does product research and development with an engineering department. The head of the engineering department is the Chief Engineer. The other common use is on ships, typically commercial and not military. The chief engineer is the most senior engineer on the ship and is a role comparable to captain. CDO – Chief Diversity Officer A relatively new addition to the c-suite, the Chief Diversity Officer is responsible for diversity and inclusion. They review and oversee the company from the top-down and the bottom-up, monitoring for issues. They may review and identify problems with discrimination within the company. They audit the workforce to identify percentages of minority groups and to address inequality in pay, benefits, and treatment. They typically also develop and implement strategies to address these issues and broaden diversity in the company . CSO – Chief Strategy Officer Also known as the Chief Strategist, the Chief Strategy Officer typically works directly with the CEO. They help to develop the overall long-term strategies for the company and are occasionally called a “mini-CEO” for their role in guiding the overall direction of a company. CSOs are typically most relevant in areas where the CEO lacks the time to guide the company strategy amongst their other duties, and are most common in academic and nonprofit organizations. Additional Modern C-Suite Roles In addition to all of the above, there is a wide range of additional c-level roles that have cropped up in recent years, or that are specialized roles within certain industries. Typically, any time a company grows large enough to have an entire department dedicated to a task, the leader of that department may be given a c-level title to reflect their importance. These roles are often overlapping with Director titles. Chief Medical Officer. A specialized role within hospitals and healthcare facilities, as well as in certain environments where medical issues may be an ongoing concern, such as manufacturing or mining. The Chief Medical Officer is the head doctor at a hospital. Additionally, the Chief Medical Officer may also be the Surgeon General or a comparable role, as the member of governmental leadership focusing on the medical and health concerns of the populace. Chief Data Officer. This specialized role applies to companies that need to produce, parse, and analyze large amounts of data. The Chief Data Officer is also the Head Data Scientist and is usually responsible for high-level analysis of reports, as well as the guidance of analytics and key performance indicator monitoring. Chief Digital Officer. The Chief Digital Officer is typically a role given to an executive who guides the transition of a company from analog, paper-based systems to more modern digital systems. They oversee the development and implementation of modern digital technologies and help companies continue to push the cutting edge of their fields. Chief Experience Officer. Another more modern role. As time progresses, the availability of a product is no longer the key differentiator in a market. Rather, the ease of access and use of that product is becoming increasingly important. The Chief Experience Officer is responsible for accessibility and user experience, promoting a holistic and curated experience for all users. This role is most often found in tech companies offering software or other digital products where the user experience may be the primary factor in differentiating them from the competition. Chief Culture Officer. From SHRM  culture Expert Debbie Robins: “The building, managing, and merging of cultures has become a full-time job in the new economy. These demands now exceed the capacities of most HR divisions and call for a new kind of specialist.” The Chief Culture Officer is typically an off-shoot of the Chief Human Resources Officer and has overlap with the Chief Diversity Officer role. Chief Happiness Officer. Another new branch of human resources , the Chief Happiness Officer is a position popularized by Google. Their primary goal is employee satisfaction, engagement, and motivation. They help enhance overall workforce productivity, employee retention, and engagement within a company. Chief Green Officer. The world is increasingly concerned about the climate. Individual clients and customers are beginning to make decisions based on a company’s awareness of and compliance with green initiatives, and the use of recycled materials, a carbon-neutral footprint, and other green concerns have become a deciding factor for consumers. The Chief Green Officer is similar to a Chief Compliance Officer, but with an emphasis on cultural and climate awareness, green processes and materials, and a carbon-neutral footprint. Chief People Officer. This is a rebranding of the traditional Chief Human Resources Officer. The term “human resources” is viewed by some people as a derogatory term treating employees as little more than human capital, a resource to be burned through in pursuit of business objectives. Thus, some companies are rebranding their human resources departments for a less potentially derogatory title. The core responsibilities and duties are the same. These are far from the only C-level roles out there. Again, any time a company department grows to the point that they appoint a chief, that chief is often given a C-level role. Some companies mint new C-level titles simply to add to the importance of their management team. Not all c-level roles are created equal, either. Obviously, a company shouldn’t feel the need to try and fill every C-level role. Roles such as Chief Genealogical Officer, Chief Gaming Officer, Chief Knowledge Officer, and Chief Process Officer are either highly-specialized or are simply alternative names for existing roles. While C-level roles are the peak of attainment within a company, they are not necessarily the peak of attainment within a career. Anyone with a C-level role can aspire to achieve greater heights by pursuing the same position in a larger and more globally recognized company. CFOs and CROs and CSOs can aspire to become CEOs, and CEOs can leave smaller companies for larger ones, even with a title cut. Often, these moves are motivated by a combination of money, recognition, and influence over an industry. Did I miss any? Do you have any questions for me? Drop a message in the comments section below. I reply to every comment and would love to hear from you.

Generational diversity in your workplace can have many benefits, including bringing different perspectives to your organization, creating the opportunity for knowledge sharing between generations, and improving customer experience. Unfortunately, there are many stereotypes about the various generations that can leave companies with teams that aren’t able to benefit from age diversity. For example, some organizations or HR teams might assume that older people will be resistant to change, more costly, and less able to deal with an increasingly technological world. These stereotypes aren’t just harmful to older workers, but they’re also harmful to your organization. By working to improve generational diversity, you can simultaneously confront age bias. What do you need to know about age bias and generational diversity in the workplace? How can you use the latter to confront the former? What Is Age Bias? Age bias, sometimes referred to as ageism, is a type of discrimination that involves holding negative stereotypes about people based on their age. People of all ages can be impacted by age bias, whether young or old. Instances of ageism can be found in countless situations and settings, whether in healthcare, the workplace, or social environments. What Is Generational Diversity? When you work to create generational diversity in your workplace, it means that a wide range of generations are represented within your organization. Generational diversity isn’t just something you should promote for PR reasons- having a healthy balance of generations in your workplace can benefit your brand, your employees, and your clients. For example, younger generations tend to value novelty, innovation, variety, and diversity. However, they lack the experience and knowledge that can only be gained through time in the workforce. Therefore, when you create multigenerational workforces, both generations can benefit and grow from the strengths of the other. Which Generation Makes Up the Largest Workforce Segment? According to the Pew Research Center, Millennials are the largest generation in the US labor force. Analyzing data from the US Census Bureau found that 35% of workforce participants are Millennials, meaning they were born between 1981 and 1996. While there may be 56 million Millennials making up a big chunk of the working population, four other generations are present in our current economy. The next largest segment of the US workforce is Gen Xers, a generational term that refers to people born between 1965 and 1980. Americans born between 1946 and 1964, commonly called Baby Boomers, made up 25% of the labor force in 2017, while the Silent Generation (born 1945 or earlier) only comprised 2% of the working population. As of 2017, 5% of Post-Millennials (also known as Gen Z) had jobs in the US. However, as more Americans born in 1997 or later have reached working age, the percentage of Gen Z in the workforce has increased since the studies were conducted. The Five Generations Making Up the Modern Workforce The Department of Labor predicts that 99.3% of the US workforce will be comprised of Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers. As the Silent Generation grows older, fewer and fewer of them are participating in the labor force. Let’s take a closer look at each generation in the modern workforce to illustrate how each group has valuable skills and characteristics to bring to any organization. 1. Gen Z Born between 1997 and 2012, the youngest members of this generation are only about ten years old in 2022. As the years continue to go by, Gen Z will increasingly make up a substantial part of the workforce and most likely replace Millennials as the largest generational group in the US economy sometime down the road. Having grown up with technology being an integral part of their lives, it’s no surprise that Gen Z is considered the most tech-savvy generation in the workforce. Compared to the other generations, they tend to prefer career stability and be more cautious. 2. Millennials Sometimes referred to as Generation Y, Millennials are drawn to the startup mentality and are innovation-focused. Preferring flexibility in the workplace and the ability to maintain a healthy work-life balance, Millennials are expected to make up as much as 75% of the workforce by 2025. Great at multitasking and always interested in working smarter rather than harder, the needs and wants of Millennials have noticeably impacted company cultures around the world. Millennials tend to require quite a bit of feedback from their employers compared to older generations. A few negative stereotypes about Millennials include being too dependent on technology and self-involved. 3. Gen X Since the Gen X generation is smaller than the Baby Boomers and Millennials, you don’t find as much discussion about them as you do with these more popularly discussed generations. Gen Xers have the potential to bring a lot of value to any organization. They are known for being self-sufficient and extremely independent while also being the generation that brought work-life balance to the forefront of the conversation. While they might not be as tech-savvy as Millennials or Gen Z, Gen X is known for being very capable when it comes to technology. 4. Baby Boomers Baby Boomers are known for being a hardworking generation that puts quite a bit of focus on professional accomplishments. Competitive and goal-oriented, you’ve probably heard Baby Boomers referred to as the “workaholic” generation. While Millennials and Gen Z might prefer communicating via text or online, Baby Boomers tend to prefer phone calls or in-person communication. 5. The Silent Generation The smallest segment of the working population, the Silent Generation, is typically said to include people born between 1928 and 1945. Considering that someone born in 1928 would be 94 in 2022, you can understand why the Silent Generation is less and less represented in the workforce with each passing year. Having grown up during the Great Depression and World War II, it’s fair to say that this generation had a very different life experience than their younger coworkers. Typically considered to be very resilient and have a strong work ethic, people in the Silent Generation tend to value life stability, financial security, and comfort. When the Silent Gen first entered the labor force in the 1950s and 1960s, they commonly joined traditional corporate hierarchies. At this time, professionalism and workplace etiquette were highly valued. 5 Ways to Confront Age Bias with Generational Diversity You can employ numerous techniques to improve generational diversity in your workplace. 1. Establish Employee Retention Practices Increasing generational diversity in your organization isn’t just about hiring people of various ages but also improving employee retention, so the representation of generations in your workplace is organically diverse. There are many good reasons to implement strategies to reduce employee turnover, and improving generational diversity is only one. As you likely know, hiring new employees and having frequent turnover is incredibly costly. By determining where your pain points are to incentivize employees to stay aboard the ship for years or decades to come, you can reduce your costs and improve your workplace culture. Some things you can do to improve employee retention, as well as generational diversity, include improving communication, fostering teamwork, and building a mentorship program. When recruiting new employees, you want to ensure the experience is positive for everyone involved. You can learn more about creating the best possible candidate experience in this article . 2. Pivot Your Recruiting Strategies Another way to confront age bias in your organization is to adapt your recruiting strategies. You’ll want to be able to attract candidates across generations. You can do this by ensuring that your job posting deliberately appeals to individuals of all ages. For example, Millennials might be more drawn to discussions of social responsibility and personal development opportunities, while Baby Boomers might be more interested in learning about your organization’s industry awards. Where you post your open positions can also help to increase generational diversity. Gen Z and Millennials are more likely to be tied to the digital world, for example, while Baby Boomers might be better reached through referrals or your professional network. That being said, you shouldn’t assume that Baby Boomers don’t use social media. In 2018, more than 60% of people between 50 and 64 used at least one social media platform. Are you looking for ways to attract talent virtually? Check out these thirty online recruitment ideas . 3. Put Together Generationally Diverse Teams For Projects One of the best things about generational diversity in the workplace is that it creates the potential for true growth and innovation in your organization. Older workers tend to benefit from younger, tech-savvy, and more flexible employees, while younger workers can benefit from older employees’ experience and accumulated knowledge. When putting together a team for your next project, consider creating an age-diverse team to leverage each age group’s particular strengths. This is also the perfect opportunity to foster teamwork and relationships between employees of various ages. While creating age-diverse teams can create potential for disagreements or conflicting opinions, many employers and employees find that teams made up of people from various generations can create better outcomes and contribute positively to the company culture. 4. Avoid Making Assumptions Based on Age There has been a significant campaign in recent years to remove bias from the workplace, and age discrimination is no exception. It’s essential to avoid stereotyping or making assumptions about people based on their age to take full advantage of your generationally diverse workforce. There are generalizations about each generation, but Baby Boomers might suffer the most in this regard when it comes to the workplace. For instance, a commonly held belief is that older people aren’t knowledgeable about technology and therefore less suited to an increasingly computer-based economy. However, one survey found that employees over 55 are less stressed out by using technology in the workplace than their younger coworkers. 5. Adapt Your Communication Style There are many ways you can change your communication style to confront age bias and increase generational diversity in your organization. For one, you can make an effort to overcome any age-based biases you hold and listen to your employees to understand what they need and want. Doing so can help avoid the negative aspects of stereotyping while also improving employee engagement, opening lines of communication, and boosting efficiency in the workplace. You also might consider tailoring your style to meet the needs of each individual employee. This has to do with how you treat people and the avenues through which you contact them. Different generations tend to have different preferences when it comes to communication. For example, Millennials prefer to communicate through text or instant messaging, while Baby Boomers would rather talk on the phone. You can work to meet your employees more than halfway by understanding individual and generational preferences. There’s also the opportunity for your multigenerational workforce to learn from one another. For example, you might consider creating an initiative where older employees can mentor younger employees. In comparison, younger employees might help older workers understand the ins and outs of social media and the digital landscape. You’ll also want to think about your methods for delivering feedback. You’ll want to understand your employees’ preferences at the individual level while also grasping generational tendencies. For example, Gen Z tends to prefer having a lot of feedback right away, while Gen X typically wants to be left alone. Do you know other strategies for confronting age bias in the workplace that I missed? Or, perhaps, do you have any questions about how to improve generational diversity in your organization, or about generational diversity in general? If so, please feel free to leave a comment below, and we’ll get a conversation started on the topic! Tackling bias and discrimination in the workplace is critical, and doing so properly is vital to the ongoing operations of your business. Together, we can make the workplace a safer and more inclusive environment for everyone involved. We’re always happy to assist our readers with improving their workplace in any way we can, so if any questions or concerns ever come to mind, please feel free to reach out at any time! Additionally, be sure to check out our other articles about how you can combat the other forms of discrimination in the workplace so that you can fight discrimination at all levels!

Hiring teams are likely well aware that it is illegal and unethical to discriminate against candidates based on “race, color, national origin, sex, religion, age, or disability.” However, it’s also essential to ensure that your hiring practices aren’t allowing favoritism to guide staffing decisions in your workplace. Favoritism in hiring certainly can cross into the realm of illegal. For example, research has found that men are more likely to hire other men, while women are more likely to hire other women. This points to the reality that favoritism and its related discrimination might be all too common in recruiting and hiring. At the same time, favoritism doesn’t have to be unlawful to impact your organization negatively. Factors as seemingly harmless as preferring a candidate because you belonged to the same fraternity or sorority or share common hobbies can mean that you aren’t hiring the most qualified person for the job. Let’s take a look at how you can combat favoritism in your hiring practices to ensure that you are always selecting the best candidate for the position. What Is Favoritism in Hiring? Favoritism is precisely what it sounds like– favoring an individual for reasons that don’t have to do with their abilities and experience, but instead due to some extraneous feature. That might have to do with a person’s likes and dislikes, membership in a favored group, or another reason entirely. Organizations should be motivated to eliminate favoritism in hiring individuals and in giving out promotions. One specific type of favoritism is known as cronyism . This is when a person is favored because they belong to a network of insiders. Another, more narrow kind of favoritism is nepotism . In hiring, nepotism occurs when someone is hired because they are related to someone in the organization rather than based on their skills, abilities, and experience. Cronyism and nepotism are two types of in-group favoritism, which means that a person favors someone else for being a member of a group they belong to. People can also show out-group favoritism, which is when you favor someone who belongs to a group you don’t belong to. An example of out-group favoritism might be hiring someone because they went to an Ivy League school you have always held in high regard, even though you didn’t attend the school. Why Is It Important to Avoid Favoritism in Your Hiring Process? Playing favorites can be a problem in the office, but it’s also important to avoid during the hiring and recruiting process. One of the most apparent reasons why combatting favoritism in hiring is important is that it can hurt your organization. After all, if you favor someone in the hiring process for reasons that don’t have to do with their ability to perform the role, your company won’t be gaining the most capable employee for the position. Favoritism in the hiring process can add up over time to cause issues in your company culture as well. For example, if your existing employees believe someone was hired for reasons other than their qualifications for the position, it can lead to resentment, bitterness, and other negative cultural attributes. It’s also essential to avoid favoritism when promoting employees. If it is clear to your team that someone received a promotion because they are your close friend, for example, rather than their ability to fulfill their necessary duties, it can negatively affect motivation, productivity, morale, and the culture as a whole. Is Favoritism in Hiring Illegal? Depending on why an individual is favored in the hiring process, it may or may not be illegal. For example, hiring a less-qualified candidate because they like the same sports team as you isn’t unlawful, though some could consider it unethical. However, hiring one candidate over another because of protected characteristics is illegal. An employer cannot make an employment decision because of an individual’s race, religion, color, sex, national origin, disability, age, or genetic information. Illegal favoritism stretches beyond your actual hiring decision, too. Employers cannot publish job advertisements that discourage people from applying or show a preference toward certain people based on the protected characteristics listed above. For example, it might technically be illegal to publish a job post seeking “recent college graduates” for a position, even if that seems relatively harmless. That is because people over the age of 40 (as this is how the government distinguishes the protected characteristic of age) might be dissuaded from applying. It’s essential to avoid favoritism when recruiting candidates as well. It is similarly illegal to discriminate against people based on a protected characteristic in the recruiting process. In the application and hiring process, an employer also cannot discriminate based on a protected characteristic, and their hiring decisions cannot be based on assumptions or stereotypes due to a person’s possession of one of these protected characteristics. Any tests you require as a part of your job application process must not exclude anyone based on these protected characteristics, and the test must be necessary and related to the job. Employers are also required to provide accommodations for individuals with a disability if they are necessary to apply for the job (so long as significant expense or difficulty isn’t caused to the employer.) These protections apply to job referrals, assignments, promotions, pay and benefits, discipline, and discharge. By favoring an employee because they aren’t in a protected class, you are likely breaking the law. For example, if you choose a female candidate over a more qualified male candidate because you assume that the open position is a woman’s job, you are discriminating against the male candidate. 5 Tips to Combat Favoritism in Your Hiring Practices To make sure that the most qualified candidate is hired for any open positions at your organization, it’s essential to work to combat favoritism in your recruiting and hiring process. Here are five ways to ensure that preferential treatment isn’t impacting your hiring decisions. 1. Rewrite Your Job Descriptions One of the first places you can begin combatting favoritism in your hiring practices is through your job descriptions. The application pool you receive can be significantly impacted by even the subtlest word choices, so it’s worth taking the time to ensure that no candidates are dissuaded from applying because of how the description is written. For example, using certain words in a job post can come across as more masculine to job seekers, potentially leaving women to feel as though they don’t belong in the work environment to the extent that they don’t apply. Words that typically dissuade women from applying to a job include adjectives such as “determined” and “competitive.” On the other hand, words like “cooperative” and “collaborative” tend to draw more women than men and might deter men from applying. Are you interested in learning how to improve generational diversity in your workplace? If so, check out these five ways to confront age bias . 2. Institute Blind Hiring Practices Another way that you can reduce favoritism in the hiring process is by instituting blind hiring and recruiting practices . Blind hiring involves anonymizing the resumes and applications of candidates so that recruiters can focus only on their experience and skills rather than other factors that could lead to favoritism or discrimination. When you follow a blind recruitment process, several common identifying details can be left out of resumes and applications. Whether you have a third-party anonymize these documents or you use a blind recruiting software, some of the information that can be removed from resumes and applications include: Gender Ethnic background Names Age Education Personal interests A person’s name can indicate many pieces of identifying information, such as their gender, nationality, and ethnic background. Even if the indication is false (for example, a person with a name that sounds female but is actually male,) favoritism or discrimination could arise, even unconsciously. Leaving out the specific educational institution where a person received their degree can also reduce favoritism in the hiring process. For example, a recruiter might feel a sense of camaraderie with someone that attended their alma mater and show favoritism towards them during the process. Most hiring teams would never dream of explicitly being discriminatory or showing favoritism, but it’s essential to understand that this can be very subtle. For example, if a person’s interests are listed, a hiring team member might favor them because they share a similar hobby without even realizing it. 3. Standardize Your Interview Process While unstructured interviews are often the preference for hiring teams, research has found that they are “among the worst predictors of actual on-the-job performance.” In this type of interview, the goal is for a candidate’s skills and experience to unfold through a natural conversation rather than being guided by defined questions. On top of being less effective as a hiring practice, unstructured interviews also open up the process to potential favoritism. The person conducting the interview might be more likely to favor someone they feel they have a lot in common with, for example, over someone else with more experience with whom they didn’t “click” with as much. Implementing standardized interviews can allow you to minimize bias and focus only on factors that directly impact candidate performance. Ideally, the interview process can be another independent data point that can be incorporated into the hiring decision. 4. Have Candidates Complete a Work Sample Test Another way to remove potential bias that might lead a hiring team to favor one candidate over another is by including a work sample test. This test mimics the type of work expected of the candidate within the role. By having a standardized test for all candidates, you can weigh out their performance against one another in a way that doesn’t incorporate non-related factors. If the position that you’re hiring for is customer-facing or otherwise requires high levels of interpersonal skills, you might find that incorporating likability as a measurable factor could be helpful. Studies have revealed that employers tend to hire people that they personally like the best out of the candidate pool, as well as the fact that the initial impression made in the first ten seconds of the interview can lead to a candidate getting hired or not. While it is natural for people to want to work with others they get along with; it’s important to combat favoritism in the form of natural chemistry or common interests. If you know that likability is a significant part of the role the candidate will be fulfilling, consider grading all of the candidates on a likability score to help control this as a factor and remove it from other parts of the process. 5. Be Self-Aware of Your Existing Biases Learning about hiring prejudices and how they work is essential in combating favoritism in the hiring process. On top of that, you’ll also want to work to be self-aware of any existing biases you might have. Even if you work hard to treat everyone equally in the hiring process, favoritism can still emerge when you don’t even realize it. Subtle things can impact whether you favor one candidate over another. For example, something as simple as a person having the same breed of dog as you could unconsciously lead you to give them preference over another candidate. No one wants to feel like they are unfairly favoring one candidate for reasons that don’t have to do with expected job performance, but the reality is that it’s more common than we’d all like to think. By having a sense of how you might be swayed to favor one candidate over another, you can keep an eye out for preferential treatment or favoritism during the recruitment and hiring process. Do you have any questions about how to combat favoritism in your hiring practices? Did we miss any essential tips that you want to contribute? If so, please feel free to leave a comment below, and we’ll get a conversation started on the topic! We love talking about all things recruiting and hiring and would be happy to help you work to eliminate favoritism in your recruiting and hiring process.

Embracing diversity and inclusion has become crucial for organizations aiming to thrive in the modern workplace. Recognizing and valuing the differences among individuals can lead to a myriad of benefits, including increased creativity, enhanced problem-solving, and improved employee satisfaction.  This blog post explores the significance of diversity and inclusion, their impact on business growth, and the role of leadership in fostering an inclusive environment. Furthermore, we will discuss the challenges in implementing diversity and inclusion initiatives, measuring their impact, emerging trends in this field, and more. Understanding Diversity and Inclusion Diversity encompasses the range of unique attributes and characteristics individuals possess, such as race, ethnicity, gender, age , sexual orientation, disability, and more. It goes beyond mere representation and recognizes the inherent value and perspectives each person brings to the table. Inclusion refers to creating an environment where every individual feels welcomed, respected, and valued for their unique contributions. It involves cultivating a sense of belonging, promoting equal opportunities, and ensuring that diverse voices are heard and considered. Diversity and inclusion are interconnected concepts that complement each other. While diversity focuses on achieving a diverse workforce, inclusion is about creating an environment that embraces and leverages that diversity. Inclusion is the key to unlocking the full potential of a diverse workforce. By embracing diversity and inclusion, organizations can benefit in numerous ways. It fosters innovation by bringing together individuals with diverse backgrounds and perspectives, leading to more creative problem-solving and better decision-making. It enhances employee engagement and satisfaction, as individuals feel valued and appreciated for who they are. Additionally, diverse and inclusive organizations have a competitive edge in attracting and retaining top talent, as they become more appealing to a broader range of individuals. Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace Diversity and inclusion have emerged as fundamental components in curating a vibrant and dynamic workplace. They cultivate an environment where individuals are free to express their authentic selves, resulting in heightened employee morale and productivity. Moreover, a diverse workforce equips organizations with the ability to understand and connect with an equally diverse clientele, thereby driving business growth. Research consistently demonstrates that diverse and inclusive organizations outperform their counterparts. A diverse workforce brings a variety of perspectives and experiences to the table, leading to better problem-solving and innovation. Inclusive practices also contribute to better employee engagement, reducing turnover and increasing productivity. Moreover, organizations that prioritize diversity and inclusion gain a reputation as socially responsible and attractive employers, positively impacting their brand image and market positioning. The Role of Leadership in Promoting Diversity and Inclusion Leaders are the primary drivers in fostering an inclusive workplace culture. They bear the onus of setting the organization’s tone and ethos, ensuring that diversity and inclusion are deeply ingrained as core values. Effective leaders embody transparency, facilitate open communication, and guarantee equal opportunities for all employees, thereby upholding the organization’s commitment to diversity. Leaders who are proactive in championing diversity initiatives allocate resources judiciously to these causes, demonstrating their dedication. They hold themselves and their teams accountable for maintaining and promoting an inclusive environment. They strive to lead by example, demonstrating through their actions that diversity and inclusion are not just buzzwords but are integral parts of the organization’s DNA. The commitment and actions of leadership significantly influence the success of diversity and inclusion strategies. When leaders prioritize and embody these values, they send a strong, unambiguous message throughout the organization, thus inspiring employees to adopt these values in their everyday interactions. Leaders who actively endorse diversity and inclusion shape a culture that celebrates differences and leverages them to foster collaboration, driving employee engagement, satisfaction, and overall organizational success. Challenges in Implementing Diversity and Inclusion Implementing diversity and inclusion initiatives, while beneficial, is fraught with several challenges. Unconscious biases, lack of awareness or understanding, resistance to change, and inadequate resources or support are common hurdles that organizations often encounter. Unconscious biases, deeply ingrained and often unrecognized, can inadvertently influence decision-making and interpersonal relationships, hindering diversity and inclusion efforts. Organizations need to identify these biases and provide training to raise awareness, helping employees understand and overcome these latent prejudices. Resistance to change can be another significant challenge. Change, especially cultural change, can be unsettling and may lead to resistance from employees at all levels. Leaders need to communicate the reasons for the change clearly, detailing the benefits it will bring to individuals and the organization as a whole, to mitigate this resistance. Moreover, successful implementation requires significant resources and support. These might include financial investments for training programs, time allocation for planning and executing initiatives, and human resources dedicated to overseeing the progress. A lack of sufficient resources or support can stall these initiatives or limit their impact. Overcoming these challenges requires robust strategies, ongoing efforts, and unwavering commitment from the entire organization. The path to a truly diverse and inclusive workplace is not always smooth, but the destination is rewarding. Measuring the Impact of Diversity and Inclusion Measuring the impact of diversity and inclusion initiatives is vital to assess their effectiveness and make data-driven decisions. Some key metrics include: Workforce diversity representation  Employee engagement surveys Retention rates Promotion rates Customer satisfaction Regularly tracking these metrics allows organizations to identify areas for improvement and measure progress over time.  Workforce diversity representation provides insight into the demographic composition of the organization and helps identify areas that need more focus. These employee engagement surveys can capture employees’ feelings toward the organization’s diversity and inclusion efforts and identify areas of improvement. Retention and promotion rates can shed light on whether employees from diverse backgrounds have equal opportunities for growth within the organization. High retention rates often suggest that employees feel valued and included, whereas promotion rates can indicate if there is a fair representation of diverse individuals in leadership positions. Customer satisfaction scores can reflect whether the diversity and inclusion initiatives are also appreciated by the organization’s clientele, which often translates to better business performance. Regular tracking of these metrics allows organizations to continuously improve their strategies and measure progress over time. Several organizations have achieved remarkable success in their diversity and inclusion efforts. For instance, Johnson and Johnson is a multinational company known for its medical devices, pharmaceutical products, and consumer goods. The company has a comprehensive vision for diversity and inclusion, which centers around leveraging the diverse experiences, abilities, and backgrounds of every individual. The goal is to foster collaboration that leads to innovative solutions for a better and healthier world. Johnson & Johnson achieves this by establishing employee resource groups, embracing diverse hiring practices, and integrating diversity and inclusion initiatives into its daily operations. Incorporating Diversity and Inclusion into Your Organizational Strategy Integrating diversity and inclusion into an organization’s overall strategy can provide substantial benefits. It requires deliberate effort, starting with an assessment of the current state of diversity and inclusivity in the organization. Companies can conduct diversity audits or surveys to gather this information, which can then guide the development of strategic objectives. In terms of integrating diversity and inclusion into the organizational strategy, it’s important to start at the top. Leadership commitment to diversity and inclusion must be clear and unequivocal. Leaders should outline a vision for a diverse and inclusive workplace and then establish policies and practices to realize this vision. Human Resources (HR) plays a crucial role in implementing diversity and inclusion strategies. From the recruitment process to training and development programs, HR can ensure that diversity and inclusion are considered in all aspects of talent management. For example, HR can work on eliminating unconscious bias in hiring processes, create mentorship programs for underrepresented groups, and facilitate training to promote an inclusive culture. Moreover, communication of the strategy and its benefits should be carried out across all organizational levels. Regular updates and progress reports can increase employee buy-in and reinforce the importance of diversity and inclusion to the organization’s success. Organizations can undertake several strategic initiatives to promote diversity and inclusion. This could include setting up employee resource groups, which provide a platform for individuals from underrepresented groups to connect and support one another. Another strategic initiative could be developing a diversity and inclusion charter that clearly outlines the organization’s commitment and the steps it will take to achieve its diversity and inclusion goals. Salesforce, a leading customer relationship management platform, is a shining example of successfully incorporating diversity and inclusion into its organizational strategy. Their “ Equality for All ” agenda not only drives their hiring and promotion practices but also influences product development, customer relations, and even their approach to public policy. Salesforce consistently works on closing the pay gap, champions equality in the tech industry, and supports various non-profits promoting equal opportunities. Their approach has earned them not only the admiration of their workforce but also recognition as a leading company in diversity and inclusion. By consciously incorporating diversity and inclusion into their organizational strategy, companies can create a more inclusive culture, attract and retain diverse talent, drive innovation, and achieve better business outcomes. This strategic approach ensures that diversity and inclusion are not just peripheral considerations, but fundamental to the organization’s success. Creating an Inclusive Culture: Going Beyond the Company Policy Creating an inclusive culture is about much more than drafting policies. It’s about transforming those policies into daily practices, making inclusion an integral part of the organizational fabric. It’s about moving beyond the rhetoric and genuinely valuing, celebrating, and leveraging diversity in all forms. One of the fundamental steps to foster an inclusive culture is cultivating awareness and understanding. This process often begins with training programs that focus on unconscious biases, privilege, and empathy. These initiatives aim to increase awareness about the diverse experiences and challenges different individuals may face and teach employees how to support their colleagues effectively. Another crucial step is promoting open dialogue. Encouraging conversations about diversity and inclusion can break down barriers, reduce misconceptions, and cultivate a more understanding and respectful work environment. This process includes creating safe spaces for individuals to share their experiences and perspectives, and ensuring that these conversations translate into actionable changes. Leaders also need to lead by example. Their commitment to diversity and inclusion, demonstrated through their actions, can inspire other members of the organization to follow suit. Leaders can show their commitment by acknowledging and celebrating diverse holidays, promoting diversity in their teams, and being mindful of inclusive language. Moreover, it’s important to provide equal opportunities for growth and development. This practice includes promoting from within and ensuring that underrepresented groups have equal access to opportunities for advancement. It also involves providing mentorship programs and leadership training to prepare diverse individuals for higher-level roles. A classic example of a company that has reaped the benefits of a truly inclusive culture is Google. The tech giant has long recognized the value of diversity and champions its “ Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion ” initiative. Google has implemented a variety of programs and policies to promote inclusion, from unconscious bias training to employee resource groups. As a result, it has not only been able to attract and retain a diverse pool of talent but also foster a culture of innovation and creativity, contributing significantly to its market dominance and reputation as a great place to work. Ultimately, the goal of an inclusive culture is to create a workplace where everyone feels valued, heard, and empowered to be their authentic selves. It’s about moving beyond mere policy to daily practice, ensuring that diversity and inclusion are not just checked boxes but woven into the very fabric of the organization. The Future of Diversity and Inclusion As societal norms and values evolve, so do the concepts of diversity and inclusion. This evolution brings forth new trends and practices, pushing organizations to adapt their strategies accordingly. One emerging trend is the recognition of intersectionality, which involves acknowledging the interconnected nature of individuals’ multiple identities. An intersectional approach to diversity and inclusion recognizes that individuals’ experiences are shaped by their different identities – such as race, gender, sexuality – and that these identities do not exist separately from each other but interact and intersect in complex ways. Additionally, organizations are increasingly focusing on creating diverse and inclusive supply chains, ensuring that their business partners uphold the same values. This practice not only reinforces the organization’s commitment to diversity and inclusion but also positively impacts the broader business ecosystem by promoting these values among suppliers and partners. With societal attitudes towards diversity and inclusion constantly evolving, organizations need to stay abreast of these changes and adapt their strategies accordingly. By being proactive and forward-thinking, they can leverage the power of diversity and inclusion to drive innovation, enhance employee engagement, and secure a competitive edge in the marketplace. Conclusion In conclusion, embracing diversity and inclusion is no longer just a moral imperative; it is a strategic advantage in today’s modern workplace. By recognizing the value of diverse perspectives, organizations can foster innovation, improve employee engagement, and drive business growth. Effective leadership, along with strategies to overcome challenges, is vital in creating an inclusive environment. By measuring the impact of diversity and inclusion efforts and staying abreast of emerging trends, organizations can adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing world.  Reach out to us to learn more about our services and how we can assist your organization in embracing diversity and inclusion.