Fair Hiring Decisions
Learning on the Run 23: Fair Hiring Decisions
How to help supervisors change their hiring practices to make fair and legal hiring decisions?
The Request. A Director of a State Department of Maintenance and Operations wanted to ensure that all his supervisors were creating a more inclusive workplace around the state based on fair and legal hiring decisions. He wanted them to understand their legal responsibilities as hiring authorities especially when it came to hiring men, women and people of diverse background.
Larger Context. The State Department of Maintenance and Operations provides maintenance, operations and repair services for all state-owned facilities. This included asset management of all buildings, grounds and parking lots which required the services of engineers, architects, carpenters, electricians, mechanics, painters, gardeners, security personnel and custodians. The Department’s hiring process had been quite informal and based on, what was commonly referred to as, “the old boys network.” Job candidates were solicited and hired for employment on the basis of who they knew at the Department. Consequently, the Department reflected friendship patterns of those already employed, mostly Caucasian men and did not reflect the diverse population of the state. It was important to the Director to change the current basis for hiring and ensure that ethical and legally defensible hiring decisions were being made. He expected everyone with hiring authority to use professional employment practices that met the highest hiring standards. Most of the hiring managers and supervisors had never been given any training in interviewing and employee selection.
Consulting Intervention. A significant component of the change process was to deliver hands-on training to anyone with hiring authority in the department. Given the lack of knowledge and skills, we thought it best to provide some rationale for why the current employment decision-making process needed up-dating without blame or recrimination. If the folks with hiring authority could appreciate the potential problems with the current process, the necessary skill building would be much more desirable. We used the metaphor of test taking, and in particular, a vehicle driving test to mimic the employment hiring “test” process. Driving was something everyone could relate to. We asked them to assess the fairness of a driving test under different test conditions that mimicked unfair hiring practices. We used this exercise to demonstrate the need to make valid hiring decisions, e.g., to ensure that only the best job candidates would be hired. It made it quite easy for anyone to see the threats to fairness that certain employment hiring practices might have. For example, we asked if one driver examiner passed a new driver, but another examiner didn’t pass that same individual, would the test be an accurate measure of the person’s ability on the road? Similarly, if two interviewers couldn’t agree on which job candidate was best, would the hiring process be valid for selecting the best candidate? Hence the need for interviewers to agree on what constitutes a best candidate.
Last line: Using a commonly understood metaphor is one way to change attitudes and practices without increasing resistance to change that might accompany a more direct approach.
© 2017 Philip S. Heller, Learning on the Run 23, Fair Hiring Decisions
Download the Exercise-What's a Fair Hiring Decision?
Download some characteristics of a Fair Employment Interview