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Discrimination in the workplace of individuals based on their race, age, and gender continues to be a significant issue and overwhelming source of pain for people in the graphic communications industry and beyond. It involves treating someone unfavourably because of their identity, whether during the job application process or as a current employee for a company. Research shows that 80% of companies in the U.K. pay women less than men. This not only affects the individuals while in the workplace, but can also affect their mental wellbeing such as their self-esteem, self-worth, and overall quality of life. In order to minimize discrimination in the workplace, you must educate yourself and eliminate it at the start… in the hiring process.
How You Can Educate Yourself
As with many things, the first step is acceptance and awareness that you may hold a bias that affects your decisions. Whether you do so subconsciously or consciously, it’s everyone's shared responsibility to check their own bias’ and work towards eliminating them. Listed below are a couple of examples of bias that you may hold without even realizing.
Do you think you have any biases? You can take this test from Harvard and find out. Click here to take the test!
Confirmation Bias
Confirmation bias is constructed by our brains in an attempt to get to the correct answer as efficiently as possible. They occur when our brain bases decisions on information we already know, leading to the interpretation of information in a biased way. These are common subconscious biases everyone has. For example, research shows that companies that consider themselves to be equal opportunity employers are still discriminating against people from certain racial backgrounds. These companies may believe themselves to be equal opportunity employers, however, the people hiring may possess unknown confirmation biases without realizing that they are affecting the company’s abilities to hire a diverse workforce.
Biased Assimilation of Information
Biased assimilation of information is the tendency for people to over-scrutinize contradictory information since it's easier to maintain our existing beliefs than to change them. For example, you may hold the pre-existing belief that older individuals are less qualified to work as a digital illustrator since they grew up with less technological exposure than the younger generation. When an individual comes across a study that proves the qualification of the older generation, they are more likely to dispute facts and require further proof than if one was reading something that maintained their existing belief.
How to Remove Bias From The Hiring Process
Check Your Own Biases
One way to do this is to use the Flip It To Test It method. Created by Kristen Pressner, a Human Resource Executive, the Flip It To Test It method is designed to help you to check yourself for biases when making decisions. In order to use the Flip It To Test It method, simply ask yourself how you would react if someone you would usually hire were to ask the same question or were to have the same experience as someone who comes from a different background. If your reaction would be the same either way, you pass. If you have a different reaction based on the person's different gender, age, or race, you may be affected by a pre-existing bias. This test can assist managers in critically analyzing their rationale when making decisions and help them to quickly check if their decision is being affected by a pre-existing bias.
Listen to Kristen Pressner's TED Talk on the Flip It To Test It method here:
Use a Resume Scanner to Check Applicants
By using an automated computer system to check resumes for job experience, you'll receive a list of the best qualified applicants all while removing any personal bias from the process! In a study conducted in 2016, it was found that 25% of Black Americans received callbacks for their resume when they took ethnic details out, but only 10% got callbacks when they submitted the exact same resume containing ethnic details. By using an automated system to check resumes for you, it won’t allow things like gender or ethnicity to affect the hiring decision. These automated systems scan through applications to pick out specific words selected by the company, and then these applications will be assessed by employers. Although these automated systems don’t completely eliminate the possibility of pre-existing biases to affect the companies hiring decision, it minimizes the chance by allowing the most qualified applicants to have their resumes viewed regardless of gender, age, or race.
Assess Existing Hiring Criteria
Take the time to reassess your hiring criteria and evaluate what you’re looking for in a candidate. Is it an education from a notable school? Job experience from a well-known company? A portfolio of work showing the candidate’s skills? Whatever it may be, try to restructure your hiring criteria to focus on the potential employee’s skills and attitudes. For instance, by focusing your hiring criteria on finding individuals with an education from notable schools, you may eliminate people who came from less privileged backgrounds. Instead, focus on learning the quality of an individual's work or their attitude in the workplace, so that things such as socioeconomic status, background, and age are less of a deterrent in the hiring process.
Standardize Interviews - Consider Likability
This should only occur if it matters to you. The advantage of hiring someone based on their likability is that they will be more likely to fit into the existing workplace culture. Another way is to give a work sample test which imitates different tasks that are similar to the work that would come with the job. This is considered one of the best indicators of the job's performance in the future.
Discrimination is rampant in the graphic industry. According to studies, at least 62% of Black Canadians agree that racial discrimination is an issue in their workplace, demonstrating just how prevalent this issue is in todays society. It is possible to avoid bias in the workplace during the process of hiring. Diversity can be achieved by first understanding the concept of discrimination, understanding forms of bias, using a resume scanner to evaluate applicants, and standardizing interviews. It’s important for people to recognize this issue and develop an inclusive culture to eradicate discrimination at work.
Tell us if you have any other hiring tips! Did you learn any new ones today? Or, if you’re not in a hiring position, did you discover any new biases?