THE WOMEN IN BUSINESS TOOLKIT: Promoting Diversity Through Recruitment
THE WOMEN IN BUSINESS TOOLKIT All of the Chapters so the Women in Business Toolkit can be found online on the Women in Business Toolkit section of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce Website along with an online version of this document. Click the links below or see www.Birmingham-Chamber.com/WIBToolkit for more information.
Having a family and caring for dependents
Promoting Best Practice Mentoring and Sponsorship
Maternity Leave and Pay
Unconscious Bias Training
Paternity Leave and Pay
Transparency in Pay and Promotions
Adoption Leave and Pay Shared Parental Leave and Pay The Right to Request Flexible Working
Promoting Diversity Through Recruitment Flexible Working
Statutory Parental Leave
Diversity Policies and Strategies
Your Rights in the Workplace
Making the Case
Discrimination, Informal and Formal Grievances and The Equality Act (2010)
Making the Case: How to Construct a Business Case and Useful Statistics
Taking a Case to Employment Tribunal
INTRODUCTION: This handy little guide offers you some concise and, we hope, highly practical and useful information on promoting diversity through recruitment. If you like the sound of promoting diversity through recruitment check out the ‘Making the Case’ chapter of the Women in Business Toolkit for lots of helpful advice and statistics to help you make the case to your employer. For more information click on the link on the left-hand page or go to the Women in Business Section of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce website: www.Birmingham-Chamber.com/WIBToolkit
Connecting you to opportunity... This guide, brought to you by the Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce, is part of the Women in Business Toolkit. This toolkit aims to help inform and empower women and encourage best practice in businesses, helping make the UK a forward thinking, attractive place to work. Whilst useful and informative, it does not aim to provide encyclopaedic knowledge or in-depth legal advice about the topics in question, merely an introductory account. If you have any questions about any of the topics covered in this document please do speak to your HR department/the member of staff responsible for this area or seek professional advice. The Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce features some of the UK’s oldest and largest Chambers. It has nearly 3,000 member companies that employ over 200,000 plus affiliate organisations representing 15,000 people. It offers extensive services to industry and commerce, having served the interests of business for nearly three centuries, promoting trade locally, nationally and internationally.
A 2009 DWP study found that when sending fake CVs with identical qualifications and experiences the candidate with the white British sounding name had to send... BEFORE RECEIVING A POSITIVE RESPONSE FROM AN EMPLOYER ...where the candidates with ethnic minority names had to send an average of
Of businesses believe that more needs to be done to encourage greater gender equality in the workplace
...the 25 year olds were
TIMES AS LIKELEY
FOR THE SAME RESPONSE.
Of businesses favour business led change over government legislation
In 2012 Policy Exchange sent out 1000 identical CVs for bar and personal assistant jobs. Half claimed to be from 25year olds, half 51 years olds‌
to receive a response
Of businesses have not sought information or guidance on equality matters in the last two years...
...of those would not know where to go for guidance
WHAT IS PROMOTING DIVERSITY THROUGH RECRUITMENT? If your organisation tends to find the same kinds of people applying for and/or being selected for vacancies, you may want to suggest that your organisation looks at how it can encourage greater diversity through its recruitment processes. When recruiting, companies should always feel free to select candidates on merit alone. However, they can try and find ways of removing the risk of bias from the recruitment process at every stage. This introductory guide offers some simple hints and tips for how to get your company out of its comfort zone and promoting a diverse workforce.
Step 1: The Job Description
Often, when advertising a vacancy, companies simply reuse existing job descriptions, adding or changing a few details relevant to the role at hand. Whilst this is not a bad thing in itself it can lead to some unintended consequences such as employers asking for skills and qualifications that, on reflection, they don’t really need. This can be highly off-putting for potential applicants who do not feel that they meet the employment criteria. As a result it is often better to start with a blank sheet and think about the skills, qualifications and experiences actually needed for the role. For instance; many firms, when recruiting for entry level positions, may ask for one to two years experience in the field in question. If an individual is a recent graduate or school leaver they may simply not have had the opportunity to gain said experience. If the company is going to offer training to the member of staff anyway then they may not need direct experience at all. As a result it may be better to think about the
transferable skills the successful applicant will need and state that the applicant will need to be able to demonstrate them in the application and at interview. This means that potential applicants who have come from a different background or have experience in different fields may still feel able to apply. A good recruitment process will find the best all-round quality applicant, not simply the applicant with the most experience in the field. Focusing on transferable skills, rather than direct experience, can be a good way of achieving this.
Step 2: Advertising the Vacancy
When advertising a job vacancy, many companies stick to advertising through the same job sites, institutions and recruitment agencies they always have. If this is failing to return a diverse array of applicants, your company may want to look at widening its networks. Finding local organisations and networks aimed at individuals from different backgrounds, cultures, races, religions, genders or sexual orientations, building up positive links and asking them to circulate information on your vacancy can have a direct positive impact on widening the pool of applicants. Step 3: Sorting Job Applications
An efficient way to reduce unconscious bias in the application sorting process is to simply have another member of staff block out all references to names, gender and date of birth from application forms or CVs before passing them on to the members of staff assessing them. Numerous studies have shown that individuals with non-UK sounding names and older people can fair disproportionately badly in recruitment processes. Removing reference to these characteristics can help stop any biases emerging when selecting candidates to interview.
When reading through CVs and covering letters/applications, all members of staff involved should have the same clear and consistent guidelines for scoring the applicants. This should involve emphasising the importance of relevant skills and focusing on the content of the application/CV, rather than its style or aesthetic appearance. CVs/ applications should always be viewed by at least two members of staff to minimise the impact of any personal biases.
Step 4: The Interview Process When organising interviews it is advisable that your organisation puts together an interview panel (i.e. two or three interviewers) rather than relying on a single interviewer. Try and make the panel as diverse as possible, featuring members of staff from different backgrounds, with different management styles, or protected characteristics. Remember to ask interviewees if they have any special needs or disabilities that you will need to accommodate for at interview and ensure that the interview site is accessible. Write a list of predetermined questions that will be asked to all interviewees and score their responses on a grid. This doesn’t mean that you can’t ask secondary questions to explore an interviewee’s answer more fully, but will mean that all interviewees get the same chance to illustrate their experience. Make sure the questions are relevant to the job description and the skills that the interviewee would need in the role. Try and ensure that the interview team avoid bringing any stereotypes concerning age, gender, race, religion, disability or any other characteristics to their interpretation of an interviewee’s response. You can do this by discussing more fully the reasons behind their thoughts on individual interviewees, rather than their overall response, as you decide on who to invite for the final round/select as the successful candidate. For more information on Unconscious Bias please click here or see the Women in Business section of the Chamber website: www.BirminghamChamber.com/WIBToolkit for the toolkit chapter on Unconscious Bias Training.
HOW CAN I GET IT? If you think that your company could benefit from updating its recruitment procedures have a chat with your HR department/member of staff responsible for recruitment. It may be that they already operate some of these procedures and activities. If not you can ask them if they’d consider updating their approach to include some or all of the activities mentioned in this document. If they need some convincing you may want to offer to put together a business case for why they should consider updating their processes.
A business case is a formal, written document designed to encourage a decision maker to take a particular course of action. For more information on how to write a business case and some useful statistics, key lines of argument and case studies you can include please click here or see the ‘Making the Case’ Chapter of the Women in Business Toolkit on the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce website www.Birmingham-Chamber.com/WIBToolkit.
JARGON BUSTER: UNCONSCIOUS BIAS Our implicit people preferences, formed by our socialisation, our experiences, and by our exposure to others’ views about other groups of people. PROTECTED CHARACTERISTIC These are there characteristics described in the Equality Act 2010: Age, Race, Disability, Sex, Sexuality, Marriage and Civil Partnership, Pregnancy/Maternity, Gender Reassignment and Religion or Belief. It is illegal to discriminate against someone based on any of these characteristics.
USEFUL LINKS: ACAS Website: Selecting the Best Candidate http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=751 This link will take you the ACAS guide on Selecting the Best Candidate. It offers advice for employers and staff on good practice in recruiting new staff.
Diversity Works for London: Employee Recruitment, Retention and Progression http://www.diversityworksforlondon.com/employee-recruitmentretention-and-progression Diversity Works for London is a programme backed by the Mayor of London that encourages and supports businesses to realise the competitive advantage of London’s diversity. It offers a wide variety of information on diversity and policies in the workplace that including information on recruiting employees.
HR Council Website: Diversity at Work http://hrcouncil.ca/hr-toolkit/diversity-recruitment.cfm This Canadian website offers and array of advice and guidance on diversity at work, including recruitment processes, that are also highly relevant to a UK context. Whilst aimed at non-profit organisations the advice is easily transferable to other areas of the private and public sector.
SOURCE OF STATISTICS
A 2009 DWP study found that when sending fake CVs with identical qualifications and experiences the candidate with the white British sounding name had to send... BEFORE RECEIVING A POSITIVE RESPONSE FROM AN EMPLOYER
...where the candidates with ethnic minority names had to send and average of
NatCen (2009) A Test for Racial Discrimination in Recruitment Practice in British Cities [Online] [Accessed 09 October 2012]
Of businesses believe that more needs to be done to encourage greater gender equality in the workplace Birmingham Chamber of Commerce Group (2013) Women in Business: The Greater Birmingham Picture Survey and Report [Online] [Accessed 09 October 2012]
...the 25 year olds were
TIMES AS LIKELEY to receive a response
FOR THE SAME RESPONSE.
Of businesses favour business led change over government legislation
In 2012 Policy Exchange sent out 1000 identical CVs for bar and personal assistant jobs. Half claimed to be from 25year olds, half 51 years olds‌
Policy Exchange (2013) Too Much to Lose [Online] [Accessed 09 October 2012]
Of businesses have not sought information or guidance on equality matters in the last two years...
...of those would not know where to go for guidance GEO (2012) Evaluation of the Implementation of the Equality Act 2010: Report 1 - Organisational Approaches to Equality [Online] [Accessed 09 October 2012]
THE WOMEN IN BUSINESS TOOLKIT: WE NEED YOU
We want to make sure that the Women in Business Toolkit stays as up to date and relevant as possible. To do this we need your support: Are there any chapters that you think are missing? Do you have experience of any of the topics included in the toolkit? Could you offer a case study? If the answer is yes to any of the above please get in touch using the contact details on the back of this document. We look forward to hearing from you.
The Women in Business Toolkit was Developed in Partnership with:
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