IMPROVING DIVERSITY

HOW TO REDUCE UNCONSCIOUS

BIAS WHEN HIRING
CONTENTS

02 WHAT IS
UNCONSCIOUS BIAS?

04 HOW DO BIASES IMPACT OUR

BEHAVIOUR?

06 WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF

REDUCING UNCONSCIOUS BIAS?

08 HOW CAN I MITIGATE UNCONSCIOUS

BIAS AT MY ORGANISATION?

15 TOP TIPS FOR REDUCING

UNCONSCIOUS BIAS

16 REVELIAN
ASSESSMENTS
 I HAVE A CHALLENGE FOR YOU

Read the following passage and think about your answer before continuing.

A father and his son were in a car accident. The father died on impact, and the son was taken to the
nearest hospital. At the last minute, the surgeon pulled away from the boy and said, I cant operate on this
boy, hes my son. How can this be?

The answer is. The surgeon is the boys mother.

Many people struggle to come up with this answer, and actually, most people dont get it. Some of us might
think that the boy had 2 gay fathers, and earn a tick in the LGBTI box, but not the gender equality box.

If you havent heard this puzzle before, its a great way to demonstrate how our unconscious bias works,
and the impact it can have on diversity in the workplace. Unconscious bias by its very nature is
unconscious, meaning that we are unaware of it, making it all the more difficult to address. Its a way for
our brain to save resources and make quick decisions and judgments with minimal effort, but that doesnt
always work to our advantage.

PAGE 01
WHAT IS UNCONSCIOUS BIAS?

Wed like to believe we Biases are something that every single person on the planet has,
are open-minded, fair because theyre human and have a brain. Theyre incredibly useful
and without bias, but in many ways: because our brains have to process millions of
research shows pieces of information at any one time, most of this processing
otherwise. This is an happens unconsciously. In other words, weve created mental
shortcuts for ourselves (the word bias derives from the Greek
important, even if
word oblique, meaning a diagonal line).
uncomfortable,
realisation for all of us. These shortcuts actually help to keep us on an even keel. As David
Rock, Director of the NeuroLeadership Institute puts it, our biases
Dr. Mahzarin Banaji, Professor of Social help us navigate the world with marginal effort. Making conscious
Ethics at Harvard University and author of decisions takes a lot of brain power, and our brains have evolved to
Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People
take shortcuts for the majority of the decisions it makes to
conserve energy for the more important decisions.

So, when we make a quick assessment or judgement about other people which we do every time we see
or interact with people most of it happens unconsciously on the basis of our background, cultural
environment and personal experiences. Its fast, automatic and, as the name suggests, unconscious.

EVERYONE WITH A BRAIN IS BIASED

Its easy to feel offended when someone tells us were biased. Most of us like to think were open-minded,
rational, enlightened people who treat everyone equally, regardless of ethnicity, gender, age, weight,
height, language, sexual identity and so on. Bias has a stigma attached.

PAGE 02
 The fact is that regardless of our very best efforts, scientists have shown that every single brain has over
100 biases built in. Theyre built in to our brain structure and are a critical part of how we process
information. In short: if you have a brain, you have biases.

Even if you think youre not biased, theres a reason for that. Its called Blind Spot Bias, also known as nave
realism and is one of the most challenging biases to overcome. It leads us to believe that our own
perception of reality is objective, accurate and not influenced by other biases. So while we can see biases in
other people, were easily convinced that they dont affect us or impact our judgement.

PAGE 03
HOW DO BIASES IMPACT OUR BEHAVIOUR?

Some claim we have over 150 different biases embedded in our brains; others place the number around
the 100 mark. In a workplace situation, some biases are clearly going to be more important than others,
particularly those that discriminate against people.

The infographic at the end of this whitepaper highlights 21 of the more dangerous ones, including biases
that lead us to prefer people who are similar to us over those who are dissimilar.

On a practical level, biases can come into play when were hiring new people, conducting performance
reviews, bringing teams together, looking for expert input for a project, promoting someone to a
leadership role, and offering development opportunities. They can also impact team performance, decision-
making effectiveness, organisational culture and, ultimately, the success of the organisation.

Most of us are aware of the more well-known biases such as gender and ethnicity: making assumptions
about people based on their gender or ethnic background. In many ways, even these common biases can
be more insidious than you might think.

Lets look at few examples.

GENDER BIASES

Perhaps the most famous example of gender bias is from orchestras. Realising that less than 5% of their
members were women, the top international orchestras began conducting blind auditions. Today, the
numbers of women are closer to the 25-30% mark.

PAGE 04
 A study from Yale University asked male and female science researchers to rate two candidates with the
same qualifications for a lab manager position. All of the researchers rated the male candidate more
favourably than the female candidate. They were also willing to pay him a higher salary.

Men were found to be more likely to critique females for coming on too strong, and to attribute a womans
success as being due to external factors or luck, according to Stanford Universitys Clayman Institute for
Gender Research. On the other hand, the same men attributed mens success to their individual effort and
abilities.

NAMES/ETHNICITY

During a recent study conducted by the Australian National University, over 4000 resumes were sent out
to different organisations. Each was identical, apart from the candidates name. They found that to get as
many interviews as an applicant with an Anglo sounding name:

An indigenous person had to submit 35% more applications;

A Chinese person had to submit 68% more applications;
An Italian person had to submit 12% more applications; and
A Middle Eastern person had to submit 64% more applications.

Revelian product manager Salih Mujcic has also had a similar experience, which you can read about here.

VOICES/ACCENTS

Associate professor of linguistics at Stanford University, Meghan Sumner, found that where were from and
how we feel about particular accents dictate how we listen to others. Most of us prefer a particular type of
voice in terms of gender, accent and intonation. For example, in the US, she found that most people
preferred listening to a Southern Standard British English voice over a New York City accent, and so were
more inclined to remember what the person with the English accent said, and consider them to be more
intelligent than people with other accents.

And, despite MRI data analyses showing that bilingual people have better cognitive processes including
attention and inhibitory control, memory and cognitive flexibility, than monolingual people, many people
with English (or any other language native to the country they now live in) as a second language find
themselves discriminated against because of their accents.

These are just a few of the different types of bias that impact our HR processes. Others include
educational background (where the person went to school); location (where the person grew up or
currently lives) appearance (weight, height, level of attractiveness, disfigurement); age and disability.

To read more on this topic we highly recommend Ramon Martinez Mendozas blog post on Why
does my accent influence peoples perceptions of my intelligence or ability?
PAGE 05
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS/IMPACT OF
REDUCING UNCONSCIOUS BIAS?

GETTING THE BEST PEOPLE

We all want to hire and retain the best talent. While the impact of a poor hire can be felt more keenly by
smaller businesses, it has repercussions for organisations of all sizes.

If were automatically disqualifying people based on unconscious biases, without really understanding the
basis of our decisions, were immediately reducing the pool of talent we invite into our organisations, which
in turn means were reducing the likelihood of hiring the very best people for the job. In other words, were
hiring someone who fits into an unconscious, probably irrational pre-conceived idea of what the best
person will be like.

If you havent already, download our Definitive Guide to Hiring Employees for Small and Medium
Businesses for lots of great tips on creating a successful recruitment process.

IMPROVING DIVERSITY AND INNOVATION

We all want our teams to be engaged, committed, productive and satisfied. And its been proven
repeatedly that diverse teams are more innovative and better able to tackle complex problems more
successfully. Multiple perspectives, backgrounds and experiences help to improve problem-solving
capability, raise team intelligence and increase creativity, while reducing mindless conformity.

The reality is that if we dont address unconscious biases, well never create an inclusive work environment
with all the benefits of diverse ideas and ways of working.

PAGE 06
 ENHANCING YOUR EMPLOYER BRAND

Attracting and retaining great talent is competitive, particularly for smaller businesses who dont always
spring to mind as a desired employer when compared to the bigger companies with better known brands.
So it makes no sense to unwittingly damage your employer brand reputation through biased hiring,
management or promotion practices. Adopting practices to mitigate unconscious bias in your recruitment
can have the effect of strengthening your employer brand and attractiveness. Lets face it, people talk
either face to face or via various social media platforms so you want that word of mouth to be positive.

FINANCIAL RETURNS

Theres also a very strong financial case for building a more inclusive workplace. According to the Diversity
Council of Australia, greater executive and board diversity in organisations leads to equity returns more
than 50 per cent higher and gross earnings 15 per cent higher than organisations with lower diversity.

A study of 506 US-based companies found that gender and racial diversity was associated with increased
sales revenue (businesses with high racial diversity earned 15 times more sales revenue than those with
the lowest levels), more customers, greater market share, and greater relative profits.

PAGE 07
HOW CAN I MITIGATE UNCONSCIOUS
BIAS AT MY ORGANISATION?

Google, Facebook, IBM, Salesforce and Microsoft, amongst other tech giants, have been working hard at
trying to overturn bias by making the unconscious conscious: in other words, raising awareness of
unconscious bias in the workplace. Theyve introduced workshops for their teams, and many have released
publically available diversity videos than anyone can download and use.

The question is: do they work? One year after Google began its training program, the composition of its
workforce remained largely unchanged. The ratio of women to men stayed the same. The number of white
employees fell from 61% to 60%, while the number of Asian employees increased from 30% to 31%.
Hispanic and African-American employee numbers remained unchanged.

Of course, its early days for these organisations, many of whom have only begun focusing on unconscious
bias in the past 2 or 3 years. However, there is a large problem with relying on training programs to
mitigate bias: many scientists claim they dont actually work.

A recent Harvard study looked at data from more than 800 organisations over 31 years to see which
diversity programs had increased the numbers of women and minorities in leadership roles. They found
that, on the whole, diversity training had no positive effects in the average workplace. They further
commented that Overall, companies that try to change managers behaviour through training and
evaluations have not seen much change. This is disappointing, because training is the most popular
program and, by most accounts, the most costly.

So, if awareness and training on their own wont improve the problem, what can we do that will have an
impact?

PAGE 08
 INCREASE AWARENESS

Of course, the first step is becoming aware of our biases. While awareness on its own doesnt help us
overcome our unconscious biases, it does help us recognise that were subject to them. This can involve
identifying the different biases that might exist in our workplace, and then developing strategies to counter
their impact. Methods could include conducting employee surveys to identify problem areas and openly
discussing biases that can lead to unfairness.

ADOPT A HIGHLY STRUCTURED RECRUITMENT PROCESS

As we mentioned earlier, we want to hire the best people for our business: people that are going to be
superstar performers. And because biases can hinder us from identifying the most suitable candidates, we
need to design a robust recruitment process that protects us from their impact at each step of the way.

A best practice recruitment methodology looks something like this: structured, consistent, objective and
designed to remove bias and enhance diversity at every step of the process.

Screen candidates: Interview candidates:

Job description: according to the structured and
checked for same consistent consistent, notes taken,
inclusive language criteria multiple perspectives

Source candidates: Assess candidates Reference check

ensure multiple for suitability: candidates: same as
channels scientific, validated, interviews
objective criteria

Lets take a look at each step.

PAGE 09
 1. WRITE AN INCLUSIVE JOB DESCRIPTION

While this might seem like the most innocuous part of the process, theres still room for bias when writing
job descriptions. For example, studies have shown that particular words and phrases are more likely to
attract or repel female candidates.

Textio, a recently launched company that

analyses the text of job descriptions and
advertisements and suggests how to make them
more successful and inclusive, has shown that
words like exhaustive, enforcement and fearless
(masculine toned) and transparent, catalyst and in
touch with (feminine toned) actually exerted a
bias effect. Simply using more masculine words
in an ad made it significantly more likely that a
male would be hired and vice versa.

What does this mean for inclusive hiring? We need to be very careful about the words and phrases we use
in our job descriptions and ads, to make sure were not inadvertently excluding brilliant candidates because
the language doesnt appeal to them. This can have repercussions not just in terms of gender, but also age,
ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity and so on.

Interestingly, Textio also found that jobs with descriptions that included equal opportunity statements and
inclusive phrases such as gender equality were filled more quickly than those without.

2. SOURCE CANDIDATES FROM RELEVANT PLACES

The more candidates you can get your job in front of, the better your chances at attracting top performers.
In practice, this means identifying all of the places your ideal candidates are likely to be and ensuring you
get the word out to them. Different job boards, forums, social media platforms and publications can attract
different demographics in terms of location, ethnicity, age and gender amongst others, so its imperative
that you cover as many as you can.

3. SCREEN CANDIDATES CONSISTENTLY

The whole purpose of a recruitment process is to identify the most suitable candidates for a role. And the
best way to find out if people have the skills and qualifications you need is to ask them to fill out an
application form. This is easy if you use an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) or a job board that allows you
to ask questions of your candidates. However, if you dont have access to either of these, the next best
thing is a simple checklist, which could include:

PAGE 10
 A list of the absolute essentials for the position, based on the job description e.g. residency
status, required licenses, qualifications or skills, with a checkbox next to each one (this will
help you quickly eliminate the people who dont meet your minimum criteria)
A list of the nice to have criteria, based on the job description with a checkbox or rating
scale for each one
A rating (e.g. 1-3) for how polished the application is (especially if the role requires a high
level of literacy or written communication skills).

At the end of this process, you should have a list of checks in boxes and ratings. You can assign a 1 for
each check, and add this and your ratings together. You can then sort your applications into 3 groups: Yes,
No, and Maybe.

4. ASSESS CANDIDATES OBJECTIVELY AND SCIENTIFICALLY

It shouldnt come as a surprise that were advocating the use of psychometric assessments during the
recruitment process. But its for a good reason: properly constructed and validated psychometric
assessments give you a clear, objective, scientific appraisal of each candidate.

A meta-analysis conducted by Gallup found that when companies selected the top 20% of candidates
using a scientific assessment, they were likely to experience 41% less absenteeism, 70% fewer safety
incidents, 59% less turnover, 10% higher customer metrics, 17% higher productivity and 21% higher
profitability.

What is surprising is that some organisations still arent convinced of the effectiveness of psychometric
assessments, despite all of the evidence that confirms theyre the most efficient and effective way to
identify top performers.

For example, after analyzing over 85

years of research across 32,000 job
applicants and 500 different jobs, Frank
Schmidt and John Hunter found that a
valid cognitive or general mental ability
(GMA) assessment was the single best
and most effective way of predicting
performance at work, regardless of
industry, role type or location.

PAGE 11
 They can also help you identify people who will:

Share your organisations values and culture

Have the emotional intelligence to work well with others, lead a team and interact with
customers
Behave with integrity
Enjoy the day-to-day requirements of their job
Take personal responsibility for safety

And the best thing about them? Theyre blind: assessments will objectively measure peoples attributes and
behaviours, regardless of their ethnicity, gender, age, level of education and other background
characteristics.
You can learn more about psychometric assessments on our website at www.revelian.com.

5. CONDUCT STRUCTURED INTERVIEWS

Unfortunately, many hiring managers prefer unstructured interviews an informal, getting to know you
type of process that allows them to explore different facets of each candidate over a more structured,
scientific approach. Its unfortunate because unstructured interviews have been repeatedly shown to be
one of the very worst methods of predicting performance at work. Its little better than picking someone
from your shortlist at random, yet people prefer them because they feel confident in their ability to
determine the best candidates.

The best and most scientifically reliable strategy at this stage is a structured, standardized interview
process with identical questions, used consistently across every candidate. As Iris Bohnet of Harvard
University notes, while this approach can make the flow of conversation throughout the interview feel a
little more awkward, the payoffs are definitely worth it.

PAGE 12
 Bohnet suggests several other strategies to increase objectivity for interviews:

Questions should be asked in the same order for all candidates.

Each interviewer should score each question immediately after the candidate answers it. This
means we dont need to rely on memory, or be swayed by any other judgements our
unconscious mind might make during the rest of the interview.
We should compare responses horizontally when reviewing them. So, for example, if we
interview ten candidates, we should review each candidates response to Question 1 at the
same time, then Question 2 and so on.
When reviewing each candidates answers we should continually ask ourselves what evidence
we have to base our decision on.
Each interviewer should keep their assessment separate from other interviewers to prevent
being influenced by their point of view.
Once everyone has reviewed and scored all of the candidates, their scores should be
aggregated before all evaluators meet to discuss each candidate.

6. CONDUCT REFERENCE CHECKS

Like interviews, reference checks can be inadvertently influenced by biases. The best strategy is similar to
conducting structured interviews: each referee should be asked the same set of questions; their responses
should be recorded and scored at the time; when reviewing we should ensure we have sufficient evidence to
make a judgement.

BLIND RECRUITMENT

Based on the orchestra recruitment strategy of blind auditions or, if you prefer, The Voice blind
recruitment removes key identifiers such as name, gender, dates, educational institutions: anything that
could trigger human biases. Its gaining popularity across the world: companies such as Deloitte, HSBC, the
BBC, Virgin Money and KPMG are using variations of the strategy.

Recently, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) wanted to increase the numbers of females in senior roles,
so they removed names, genders and other identifiers from applications. In addition, they emphasised
flexible hours and working from home options as well as providing training for their interview panels and
management on unconscious bias. As a result, 15 of 19 senior hires were female, whereas previously only
21% of their senior roles were filled by women.

PAGE 13
 Also in Australia, an initiative of the Victorian
Government called RecruitSmarter is currently
rolling out across organisations including
Westpac, Ernst & Young, Deloitte, Australia
Post, PwC, Dow Chemical and the Victoria Police.
Theyll be removing names, and other details that
could provide clues about gender, cultural
background, ethnicity, age, location, educational
institutions even interests that could indicate a
specific demographic. Recruiters will need to
decide who advances further based only on each
applicants skills, relevant qualifications and
reasons for applying for the job.

So while this sounds promising, the effectiveness of blind recruitment warrants further research
(particularly in the psychological literature) to determine the overall effectiveness over and above other
initiatives. It may be helpful, and a good step towards decreasing the impact of unconscious bias, but its
not a silver bullet by any means.

SET DIVERSITY GOALS

As the saying goes: if you dont measure it, you cant improve it. Its important to set goals for your
organisation and then monitor your progress periodically. This gives you something to aim for, and also
helps to keep reducing bias and improving diversity front of mind across the organisation. Pinterest, Twitter
and other organisations have adopted this approach, and have also shared their goals publically to make
them more accountable.

ADOPT A MULTI-FACETED APPROACH

Any strategy to mitigate bias and improve diversity and inclusion must be part of a larger push to address
these factors at all levels and across all areas of the organisation.

A study by Dobbin et al systematically analysed data from a large group of companies to see which kinds of
programs had work best to increase diversity. They found that The good news is that companies that give
diversity councils, or diversity managers, responsibility for getting more women and minorities into good
jobs typically see significant increases in the diversity of managers. So do companies that create formal
mentoring programs. Having teams and individuals responsible and answerable for improving diversity
and inclusion across the organisation can go a long way to tempering the impact of unconscious biases.

The key is to identify the processes and situations that are impacted by bias and take an holistic approach
that aims to increase awareness of dangerous biases, put in place procedures that reduce their impact, and
make people responsible and accountable for improving diversity and inclusion.

PAGE 14
TOP TIPS
FOR REDUCING UNCONSCIOUS BIAS

To summarise, here are our top recommendations for mitigating the effect of bias on your hiring process.

1. Understand that breaking biases is hard, because theyre complex, automatic and
unconscious.
2. Remember that theres no shame in holding unconscious biases: our brains are
hardwired for them and they help us navigate the world more easily.
3. Ensure that people understand the importance of reducing the impact of biases and are
on board with the relevant initiatives.
4. Review hiring processes to understand when biases can creep in and influence
judgement.
5. Implement scientific and equitable recruitment processes to reduce the impact of
biases at each stage.
6. Ask each candidate to answer the same questions when applying and assess responses
consistently.
7. Conduct structured interviews with multiple interviewers to increase objectivity and
neutrality.
8. Use psychometric assessments to appraise each candidate objectively.
9. Appoint people or groups to suggest and spearhead diversity and inclusion initiatives
across the organisation.
10. Measure it! Make sure you define what success looks like and measure your progress
over time.

PAGE 15
 REVELIAN ASSESSMENTS

Our assessments will give you objective, scientific information about your candidates to help you make
more equitable and bias-free selection decisions.

COGNITIVE ABILITY Identify people who will learn quickly, reason effectively
TEST and solve problems.
SEPARATE ABILITY Focus on just one aspect of ability: verbal, numerical or
TESTS abstract reasoning ability.
An engaging and interactive way to understand a
THEME PARK HERO candidates mental agility, cognitive speed, spatial aptitude,
attention and numerical reasoning ability.
A set of 5-7 mini-games or puzzles that measure problem-
COGNIFY Solving, numerical reasoning, processing speed, and verbal
knowledge.
Understand how people prefer to interact with others, deal
BEHAVIOURAL PROFILE
with rules and procedures, and solve problems.
Get a more comprehensive profile of a person, with an in-
16 PERSONALITY
depth assessment of the unique characteristics that
FACTORS
underlie and influence their behaviour.
EMOTIONAL Understand how well candidates can identify and manage
INTELLIGENCE (MSCEIT) their own and other peoples emotions.
WORK SAFETY Identify people who are more likely to behave safely at work
ASSESSMENT and avoid risky behaviour.
Identify whether a candidate is likely
RELIABILITY SCALE
to be trustworthy and reliable.
Predict organisational commitment by measuring how well
VALUES INVENTORY the candidates work-related values match the
organisations values.
Predict job satisfaction by measuring how well the
WORK PREFERENCES candidates task preferences match the requirements of the
role.
Measure technical and practical skills to ensure candidates
900+ SKILLS TESTS
have the skills required for the role.
Screen candidates quickly with tailored interview questions
VIDEO INTERVIEWING and ask everyone involved to review and score each
candidate.

View the full suite of assessments and further information about how each one helps you identify the best
people at www.revelian.com.

PAGE 16
 www.revelian.com
enquiries@revelian.com
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