Call Centre Jobs: Is Blind Hiring Best for Business?
Blind hiring has seen a surge in the past few years, as companies attempt to eliminate their biases. According to Adecco, 35% of UK businesses use some form of blind hiring during their recruitment processes. Whether this is hiring for call centre jobs such as at Kura, or for other roles, reducing your bias can help achieve a better and more diverse workforce.
Here, we will explore what blind hiring is and how to start implementing it into your own processes.
What is blind hiring?
Blind hiring involves removing personal information which could be used to identify a jobseeker’s ethnicity, sexuality, religion, socioeconomic background or any other factor which doesn’t impact the quality of work produced. This can mean removing the name, address, and education from a resume. Instead, recruiters are focused on the experience and transferable skills of potential employees.
This process removes bias, including any unconscious bias, from the recruiter, allowing them to choose the best fit for the role based on previous work and the job specifications. Women are 123% more likely to experience gender discrimination during recruitment than male applicants – raising the need for non-biased recruitment. Studies have found that companies with “above-average diversity” profit from 19% higher revenues. So reducing your bias can actually profit your company financially.
However, blind hiring practices don’t guarantee a more diverse workforce. While it might reduce and prevent bias during the application stages, the same unconscious bias could cause a problem during the interview process.
How do I implement blind hiring processes?
To implement blind hiring processes, you can use systems which remove personal information before the recruiter can see it. This can also be done by adding information too an Excel sheet and deleting the relevant columns. You can also ask applicants to apply through your website. Here you can use specialised questions tailored to the work and the applicant’s experience, rather than the traditional resume information. Diversifying your recruiters could also cut down on the levels of bias within your application review processes.
You should also consider training your HR department on unconscious bias, and the dangers and complications of it. Educating your teams on the values of diversity and instilling this as a company policy is important for the inclusion and comfort of all employees and new recruits.
You also need to be mindful of your job descriptions. The language you use can indicate contributions from different genders, ages, etc. and can make the process biased before it has begun. Inclusive job descriptions welcome all applicants. Avoid using gendered language in job titles and descriptions. Gender-neutral verbiage can attract up to 42% more applicants.
Whether you are looking to improve your diversity or educate your employees on the pitfalls of bias, understanding blind hiring processes and how they can be implemented into your current recruitment methods is important.
Find out more about Kura’s values or contact us.