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Unconscious bias: Within the Workplace and During the Recruitment Process.

HUDSON TALENT MANAGEMENT

July 2016

Consider this..

There are more CEOs of large U.S. companies who are named David than there are CEOs who are women…

..and David isn’t even the most common first name among CEOs. (That would be John)

Harvard Business Review

Diversity supports performanceCompanies with greater gender diversity outperform their peers on a number of key economic indicators3

3 Companies with the most gender diverse management teams compared to industry average, Women Matter, McKinsey & Company, 2013.

10%

48%

%x Share price growth 2005–2007

Average return on equity 2003–2005

Average earnings (EBIT) 2003–2005

17.

Organisations focusing on diversityIs increasing diversity a key strategic objective of your organisation?

Yes56.3%

No43.7%

Organisations focusing on diversityIs increasing diversity a key strategic objective of your organisation?

Would your organisation benefit from focusing on this?

Yes56.1%

No43.9%

No43.7%

About the research: Findings from a phone survey of 394 Human Resources hiring managers in Australia and New Zealand in Q1, 2014. For more information on hiring intentions visit The Hudson Report www.au.hudson.au

How Australia shapes up with diversityFrom strong participation to minimal representation at the executive level

45.6%

9.2%

33%

2.4%

of the working population are women.2

of management roles are held by women..

of ASX 500 executive key management personnel positions.

of ASX 500 CEOs

2 ABS February 2014 Labour Force.

7

A father and son are in a horrible car crash that kills

the dad. The son is rushed to the hospital; just as he’s

about to go under the knife, the surgeon says, “I can’t

operate—that boy is my son!”

What is unconscious bias?The attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner

the conscious brain: slow, analytical, deliberate and logical

the unconscious brain: fast, intuitive, emotional, cannot be switched offSystem 1

System 2

Understanding unconscious bias

Common types of Unconscious BiasActivated most in times of: stress | time pressure | multi-tasking

Affinity Bias

Halo/Horn Effect

Confirmation Bias

How unconscious bias impacts womenUnconscious gender bias is found in men and women interviewers

People favour men, whites, youth and the physically able

Likability bias

17% pay gap

Performance evaluation bias

Motherhood penalty

‘think manager, think male’

RECOMMENDATIONS

Strategies for mitigating bias

S P A C E

Slow down

Perspective-taking

Ask yourself?

Cultural intelligence

Exemplars & expand

From Culture Plus Consulting - www.cultureplusconsulting.com

Implicit Association Test (IAT)

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html

Varied initiatives to support diversityInitiatives focus on recruitment and developmentHudson Report Question: Please indicate which initiatives your organisation has in place.

1. Targeted selection criteria

Develop female friendly Employer Value Proposition (EVP)

Define requirements for recruitment champions community Design materials, policies

& merit-based selection process

Community applications & selection

Community members trained

Success metrics (including candidate feedback)

01 02 03 04 05 06

Introduce targeted selection criteria for new starters and promotions• Women tend to minimise their own contributions and not push themselves forward

17

The myth of the meritocracy?

“Given a plethora of candidates, all with perfect CVs, selection committees continue to looks for the ‘X’ factor and find, strangely enough, that it resides in

people who look remarkably like themselves”

– The Economist

“If There’s Only One Woman in Your Candidate Pool, There’s Statistically No Chance She’ll Be Hired”The relationship between finalist pools and actual hiring decisionsAccording to one study of 598 finalists for university teaching positions

2. High potentials

Develop high potential program concept

Attain executive level internal sponsorship for a high potential women program

Implement high potential development (including development support and secondments)

Identify high potential females using an objective high touch process

Track progress

01 02 03 04 05

Identify and support high potential females• Difficulty in identifying with success, and lesser ambition, combined with a greater focus on their families, seem to

result in many women choosing to opt out of a business career.

3. Mentoring

Develop the formal mentoring process supporting documentation and collateral, including a Mentor application process and a Mentee application process

Open applications for individuals interested in becoming a Mentor for Women.

Open applications for individuals interested in becoming a Mentor for Women.

Provide Mentoring Skills Training to all individuals who are successful at the application stage.

01 02 03 04

Design and develop mentoring programs specifically for women• Vital importance of networking and coaching programs.

Bias is natural and inevitable; with social, biological/cognitive and motivational origins

Our biases are often unconscious and automatic

We can override our automatic biases with mindful intention

Bias affects our judgments and behaviours, even if we explicitly reject the stereotype

Bias limits the strategic benefits of diversity for organisational performance

Overcoming bias requires awareness of our hidden biases and the motivation to monitor our responses, challenge our assumptions, and engage in techniques that disrupt social categorisations.

Summary

An equal future

THANK YOUQ&A

Level 17, Central Plaza II 66 Eagle Street Brisbane, 4000 Australia

0429 342 183

Shannon.Roberts@hudson.com

au.hudson.com

Director, Talent Management – QLD & NZRegistered Organisational Psychologist

Shannon Roberts