Conquering Prejudice

According to Horace McCormick, Program Director of UNC Executive Development at the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School, unconscious biases are a fact of life. Everyone harbors them—and takes them into the workplace. Unconscious biases in the workplace can stymie diversity, recruiting and retention efforts, and unknowingly shape an organization’s culture. Unconscious bias can skew talent and performance reviews. It affects who gets hired, promoted, and developed— and this unwittingly undermines an organization’s culture.1

- Archana Jerath

It is no secret that organizations and businesses often rely heavily on the proficiency of their respective human resources departments to execute critical hiring decisions. Selecting suitable candidates from a sea of applicants to take up a position in a company can be challenging, to say the least. That being said, there are I undoubtedly key factors that determine the hiring process. The business and its HR department should comprehend and appreciate the same values and considerations to ensure that the new recruits meet the requisite qualifications, are able to uphold performance standards, and equipped to adapt to the company culturally. Recruitment is of critical importance in any organization since it affords the company and departments a window of opportunities to align employees’ skill sets with their plans and targets, and for overall growth.

In addition to bringing a valuable resource on board, a well-thought-out hiring decision offers several other benefits and advantages. It safeguards the organization, helps it avoid legal issues, and keeps the costs of hiring like advertising, time consumed to conduct interviews, and the cost of training a new employee from growing rapidly. A bad hiring decision can lead to an increase in these costs since the entire process has to be started and completed again to find the replacement. This causes a glaring escalation in the turnover cost for the company and increases the HR department’s workload. A bad hire can also bring down the overall morale and cause stress in the long run and possibly cause loss of business due to myriad reasons such as inefficiency and lack of proper attention. The long-term effects of a hiring decision on an organization are undeniable, which is why it is important to watch out for the factors that may affect it. One such factor is bias.