Rethinking the Hiring Process: Reducing Cognitive Bias to Build Diverse Teams
(This is Part 4 of a multi-part series by Passage Technology: Reinventing Your Business, Reimagining Your Salesforce — see Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. In other entries for this series, we’ll be going in-depth on topics such as how Salesforce Admins can employ new approaches and empower their business partners. In addition, how businesses can streamline operations and objectively evolve strategic decision-making, ensuring group buy-in, and product innovation. And finally how to execute efficient project planning in the Salesforce environment, to be agile while achieving your goals for reinvention.)
A problem people tend to experience when job searching is that it becomes more challenging to get hired as you age. For example, in the comedy-drama Younger, recently divorced single-mom Liza discovers how difficult this can be when she tries to re-enter the workforce at age 40 and is rejected for a publishing job. After this experience, a tattoo artist in his twenties tells her she looks younger than her age. Under pressure to find a job, Liza reinvents herself as a 26-year-old and returns to interview for the same job she was rejected for as a 40-year-old. She is hired on the spot.
Although the example is fictional, in reality, it’s tough for people on the receiving end of bias like 40-year-old Liza, because they can sense they’re not being evaluated fairly. In fact, according to a Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics study of more than 40,000 job applicant profiles, statistical evidence shows age discrimination occurs against men and women in hiring. Applicants who are 64 to 66 years old experience more age discrimination than those who are aged 49 to 51, and overall, women experience more age discrimination in hiring than men.
But if you’re on the hiring end, interviewing potential employees and compiling feedback and opinions from the hiring committee can be daunting. This blog post will take a closer look at cognitive bias by first, defining it, then, highlighting tools and methods to help you avoid it.
What is cognitive bias?
“Cognitive bias is a systematic error in thinking that occurs when people are processing and interpreting information in the world around them and affects the decisions and judgments that they make,” explains the website VeryWell Mind.
However, not all biases are bad. In fact, psychologists say that some cognitive biases help us adapt and make quick decisions, which is crucial when we’re in danger. What makes things tricky is when unconscious bias comes into play.
Unconscious bias begins when our brains experience information overload. At any time, our brains can be bombarded with 11 million pieces of information, which is simply too much for us to handle. Author and University of Virginia Psychology Professor Timothy Wilson explains that the brain can only process 40 of those 11 million pieces of information in his book, Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious.
As a way to handle all that information, our brains develop shortcuts, using past knowledge to quickly make assessments and judgments about people and situations. These assumptions can be influenced by our experiences, background, and environment, which leads to unconscious bias or implicit bias.
In an article that appears on Trailhead, UK-based business psychologists Tinu Cornish and Dr. Pete Jones researched bias in 2011, and found that almost 40% of people have unconscious biases against certain ethnicities and genders.
The Power of Diversity
Companies with diverse teams discover new innovations by empowering teams to consider multiple angles of problems and develop stronger solutions.
In addition, diversity improves other outcomes for companies, based on a study by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). The study, which appeared in Forbes Magazine, reported that when the diversity of leadership teams increases, companies see more innovation and improved financial performance.
“It looked at 1700 different companies across 8 different countries, with varying industries and company sizes. They have found that increasing diversity has a direct effect on the bottom line. Companies that have more diverse management teams have 19% higher revenue due to innovation,” writes Anna Powers in the Forbes article.
“This finding is huge for tech companies, start-ups, and industries where innovation is the key to growth. It shows that diversity is not just a metric to be strived for, it is actually an integral part of a successful revenue-generating business,” continues Powers.
But how can hiring managers and decision-makers overcome unconscious bias to improve diversity and ensure equal opportunity at their companies?
Train Your Mind
Researchers say that training our minds can be helpful in overcoming cognitive biases. A study showed that when they gave people training to help them understand biases, they reduced cognitive bias by 29%.
When you can step back and think about your decisions, and what influenced them, you get a better understanding. To improve your critical thinking, you can challenge biases by considering how much weight you’re giving to some factors over others, or if you may be overlooking information because it doesn’t match your viewpoint.
Facilitate Group Decisions and Reduce Bias in Hiring
As you reimagine your Salesforce as well as how your team is assembled, you can use technology to help reduce bias. Technology can facilitate business decisions, and help groups reach a consensus while understanding how decisions are made. For instance, Prioritization Helper uses pairwise comparisons, which are part of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). AHP is a method for organizing and analyzing complex decisions that help teams make decisions.
By understanding the influences that impact decision making, training your brain, and using a tool like Prioritization Helper to reduce bias in hiring, business leaders can build teams with more diversity while helping their bottom line.
To learn more about Passage Technology’s apps and services offerings including Prioritization Helper, Contact Us or visit the AppExchange.
Copyright 2020 — Passage Technology LLC — All Rights Reserved — Not for Distribution without Prior Written Approval by Passage Technology
Sources:
Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Forbes Magazine, “A Study Finds That Diverse Companies Produce 19% More Revenue
VeryWell Mind, What is Cognitive Bias
“Understand the Impact of Unconscious Bias on Employee Performance,” Trailblazer, Salesforce, 2020
“Recognize Bias in the Workplace,” Trailblazer, Salesforce, 2020
