Are some recruiters discriminatory?
The Equality and Human Rights Commission* (EHRC) has a priority aim of ensuring that people have equal access to the labour market and are treated fairly at work.
You probably know about the protected characteristics as identified by the Equality Act 2010**. They include age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.
Recruitment of workers into low-paid occupations and industries
In December 2019, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research*** (NIESR) studied the recruitment of workers into low-paid occupations and industries in England, Scotland and Wales.
- Industries = cleaning, construction, food manufacturing, hospitality, social care and retail
- Low pay = defined on the basis of two-thirds of median hourly
- Earnings, as used by the Office for National Statistics**** (ONS)
- Low-skilled = defined using the ONS 2010 Standard
- Occupational Classification
They found evidence of discriminatory behaviour by recruitment agencies.
It seems agencies are facilitating employers’ requests to shortlist only certain applicants for interview.
Unconscious bias
There is also evidence of unconscious bias, focusing on softer skills in interviews and making assumptions by filtering out applications on the basis of physical capability and mobility.
Direct discrimination
And they found evidence of direct discrimination during applicant shortlisting, with unequal outcomes on the basis of age, disability, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation, as well as for women during pregnancy, maternity and when returning to work after time out for caring.
Because of this, one of the recommendations was increased enforcement activity against discriminatory job advertising.
What can you do as a recruiter?
We’d say that you have to avoid unconscious bias, but if you could do that, it probably isn’t unconscious, is it?
You definitely need to avoid direct discrimination, of course.
So, if you’re in recruitment and your position requires you to write job ads and descriptions, it’s probably about time you looked at our copywriter training.
Further reading
*The Equality and Human Rights Commission
***National Institute of Economic and Social Research
****Office for National Statistics
If you would like more thoughts and musings on recruitment, you might want to download Mitch’s free book “On Recruitment”.
