How blind hiring can improve workplace diversity

How blind hiring can improve workplace diversityTheres a growing trend across industries when it comes to hiringand in the age of information, you may be surprised to learn that involves having access to less information instead of more, in an effort to enhance ethical hiring practices and improve workplace diversity. If your company isnt utilizing blind hiring practices yet, it might not be long before it jumps on this progressive new hiring bandwagon. googletag.cmd.push(function() googletag.display(div-gpt-ad-1518041901437-0) ) What is blind hiring?This bold new hiring practice is referred to as blind hiring, and according to a recent article by Analytics in HR (AIHR), Blind hiring is any technique that anonymizes or blinds personal information about a candidate from the recruiter or hiring manager that can lead to unconscious (or conscious) bias about the candidate. This bias tends to be unfair and discriminatory because much of the personal information that is presented is gener ally unrelated to his or her on-the-job performance.How blind hiring can improve your companys hiring practicesAs an HR professional, not having access to personal candidate information that tends to lead to bias allows for increased objectivity when evaluating potential hires. As a result, decisions will be based on a candidates skills, knowledge, and potential to succeed, and things like a candidates race, gender, age, and education level are ignoredand when ability is the primary driving factor for hiring, it results in a more qualified and talented workstaff. Increased hiring objectivity also leads to a more diverse workforce, which benefits both employers and employees.How are companiesand the HR world at largewarming up to the idea of blind hiring According to AIHR, Blind hiring is gaining more acceptance as parte of a larger movement to remove faulty menschlich judgment element that interferes with hiring people that were truly the best candidates in first place. Research fea tured in the Harvard Business Review found that candidates who were hired based on an algorithm were50% more likely to be successfulon the job than candidates picked based on recruiters human judgment.How companies are implementing blind hiring practicesCurrently, the most common methods for doing so are occurring during the resume review process and through the use of anonymized pre-hire tests and assessments. AIHR reports that significant human bias exists during the resume review process Resumes with White-sounding names receive30 percent more interviewsthan identical resumes with African American names. Resumes with old-sounding names were rated asless suitable for the jobcompared to identical resumes with modern-sounding names. Removing all superfluous personal candidate info from their applications, resumes, and online profiles is designed to eliminate this bias. Pre-hire tests and personality assessmentsusing anonymous candidate IDsare also being used more frequently to asses s a candidates abilities and potential fit when making hiring decisions. Both of these tools are reported to increase hiring objectivity and workplace diversity, which can be gauged and tracked through your HR departments recruitment metrics.