Of all the changes and shocks that have beset society over the last few tumultuous years, this hopefully final drive for – at long last – true racial equality in this country is among the most precious and welcome. Companies know what the way forward is, but its talent teams are on the front line of this movement, and here are how six such teams are making sure no racial bias creeps into the experience their job candidates go through.
In the past year, Curriculum Associates has undertaken several initiatives to restructure the hiring process and make recruiting a more equitable and inclusive process for all.The revamped hiring practices include mandatory internal anti-racism training, restructured language in job descriptions, close guidance to address bias in the interview and candidate evaluation process, and mandatory DEI conversations with the Senior Director of Talent for all director-level or higher candidates. CA is also planning to implement a series of hiring manager trainings to be released in Q4 of 2021 for topics ranging from bias in the interview process to selecting a diverse interview panel. In fact, CA’s interview panels have already begun the restructuring process to ensure diversity in terms of race and gender, and as a result, 50% of CA’s hires for 2021 have been members of the BIPOC community, and 57% of managers have been BIPOC hires.
What can eliminating racial bias add to make a workforce stronger, beyond the obvious need for fairness?
Eliminating racial bias makes the talent evaluation process more equitable, but also helps to cultivate a more diverse and inclusive workplace culture. It levels the playing field so that teams can hire talent based on skills they need, rather than someone “you’d connect with outside of work.” Working to eliminate racial bias at CA has made their hiring process more rigorous, and they’ve been able to find stronger talent for their organization as a result. Because CA mostly serves Black and Brown students, their goal is to not only make it easy for students to see themselves reflected in the curriculum, but also to be a company that these students can see themselves working for in the future.
In what ways does your talent team work to eliminate racial bias for candidates?
We constantly examine our hiring processes to be proactive in eliminating all bias, including racial bias. This effort includes training for our hiring managers, to help them avoid favoring demographics, such as location, pronouns, names, and education. We also use demographic reporting to recognize any areas of bias that may need addressing. Our focus on evolving our hiring process to create the most positive experience for candidates as possible means we are constantly reevaluating our systems — research has shown a history of unconscious bias toward candidates based on certain information, including name, location, email address, etc., and we hope to develop new processes that strip down that identifying information from resumes for the initial review cycle.
What can eliminating racial bias add to make a workforce stronger, beyond the obvious need for fairness?
Racial bias is a challenging problem to combat as not everyone fully understands the impact — for us, we look to build greater understanding of this impact through education. We have built continuous microlearning journeys for all of our employees on diversity, equity and inclusion, including the impact of racial bias on a team or business. Our goal is to make our workplace diverse, equitable, and inclusive so that our business resembles the world we live in today. Opportunities for all mean stronger connections to our customers, higher employer retention, a wider candidate pool and a workforce that’s prepared for the future
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Unconscious bias training is offered to all colleagues on a bi-yearly basis through our Learning & Development program, EXPLORE. Further, unconscious bias is covered in the recruitment kick-off with all hiring managers to reinforce Beiersdorf’s stance on DEI and ensure hiring teams are keeping this top of mind when interviewing. We also include a structured interview approach to help mitigate any potential room for bias which encompasses 5 data points in the interview process including a recruiter phone screen, hiring manager phone interview, online behavioral assessment, diverse panel interview team, and debrief conversation.
What can eliminating racial bias add to make a workforce stronger, beyond the obvious need for fairness?
Eliminating racial bias provides a fair and equitable playing field for everyone to interview for a job they are qualified for. Focusing on skills and qualifications is the core of hiring. Because of this, the workforce builds strength with diverse skillsets, connections, higher levels of productivity, innovation, and overall happiness.
As explained by our Corporate Recruiting Director Jaci Pulice, “From start to finish our team is focused on eliminating racial bias for candidates here at Beacon Hill. Our jobs are live on 500+ University Career Sites, a Diverse mix of job boards and Virtual Recruiting Events – which have been proven to unlock equity and accessibility – have been fully embraced by our team. Additionally, our job description language is inclusive, we don’t require GPAs on resumes, we are transparent about compensation in our job descriptions and our first round discussion is a phone call. Lastly, we have adapted to a “culture add” vs. “culture fit” mindset in thinking of how we are growing our teams internally and encourage this approach to all of our internal hiring managers.”
What can eliminating racial bias add to make a workforce stronger, beyond the obvious need for fairness?
“Eliminating racial bias makes a workforce stronger in that it’s an actionable step to increasing diversity and equity. It is proven that diverse teams make better decisions, our goal here at Beacon Hill is to always #GoHire and be OUR best – whether it’s at home, at our desks, or in the world – and a workforce comprised of different thoughts, voices, identities, and backgrounds helps us work towards that each and every day.”
All employees are required to take training on how to hire with diversity and inclusion in mind. We also have a step in the recruitment process that prevents racial pay parity at the offer stage.
What can eliminating racial bias add to make a workforce stronger, beyond the obvious need for fairness?
Eliminating racial bias is in essence adding equity to the work environment which creates a culture of trust and transparency. We have made a conscious effort to communicate about the harm bias causes and how when bias is experienced in the workplace, employees are not experiencing inclusion, respect, or belonging; all things that are core and critical to the type of employer we strive to be at BNSF Logistics.
KeepTruckin’s talent team developed multiple programs and training for employees to eliminate racial bias, such as:
- Disrupting Bias Training for hiring managers.
- Diverse interview panels and improved reporting on applicant flow demographics.
- Including our company values as core competencies in candidate reviews and standardizing interviews.
- Reviewing mitigating bias in all job descriptions.
- Implementing revised Rooney Rule for the management and upper management positions (which requires 50/50 gender diversity in the final candidate slate).
What can eliminating racial bias add to make a workforce stronger, beyond the obvious need for fairness?
At KeepTruckin, we embrace diversity and intentionally make it a business priority. We know that diversity drives innovation and improves an organization’s ability to adapt to rapid change. With this in mind, we have worked incredibly hard to remove racial bias from our hiring processes.