What can recruiters do to ensure they are treating applicants fairly?
All organisations should engage in regular monitoring of their own recruitment processes. Monitoring can highlight deficiencies in the whole process and can provide a defence if a discrimination claim is brought as the organisation would be able to prove that they have robust non-discriminatory recruitment processes in place.
Hiring managers or recruiters should avoid asking health or disability related questions and should not give any comments about their hiring practices which could be misconstrued and lead people to believe they have certain ‘non-official’ hiring rules such as preferring people of a certain race over others. This could cause reputational damage to businesses and could be a breach of Section 60A of the EqA 2010 even if the practice is not in place.
Where job descriptions list personal characteristics as requirements for a role, recruiters and employers should ensure that no unconscious biases have crept in so as to exclude prospective applicants with certain protected characteristics. For example, requiring candidates to be a certain height to carry out certain aspects of a role could discriminate against women who tend to be shorter than men, especially when there is no legitimate reason for the required height, or adaptations could be made to ensure that shorter applicants can carry out the height related aspects of a role.
Additionally, the requirement to have a certain qualification such as a media studies degree could be discriminatory towards older prospective candidates as they would not have had the opportunity to study media studies which is a relatively modern qualification. By opening up the role to candidates with a degree in media studies or equivalent, the role is opened up to candidates of all ages collapsing any potential age-related barriers.
To become more diverse, equitable, and inclusive, many companies have turned to unconscious bias training. However, increasing awareness usually is not enough to tackle unconscious bias alone. Recruiters or hiring managers must be made aware of any unconscious biases they hold through different exercises, including fictional scenarios and role-plays. They should be taught how to manage their biases, how to change their behaviour and track their progress. Organisations must encourage interactions amongst people from different groups and any policies and document related to recruitment such as template wording in job descriptions must be regularly reviewed and re-written if they leave the potential for discrimination.
Credit: Paul Chamberlain of JMW Solicitors LLP
