- 51% of Irish professionals believe their career progression opportunities have been limited by an identifying factor, like race, gender, or mental health status
- Almost half of all Irish female professionals believe their chance of selection during the interview process has been hampered because of their gender
- Half of professionals look for a potential employer’s diversity and inclusion policies, but 61% struggle to find evidence of them
- Hays Ireland Director Maureen Lynch: “Organisations that harness the new dynamic of diversity are more innovative, better at decision-making, generate more revenue, and attract the best talent.”
Almost 8 in 10 Irish professionals believe their hiring managers would benefit from ‘unconscious bias’ training. However, only a third of Irish professionals say their organisation currently provides this kind of training in new research released by Hays Ireland.
Unlike explicit bias or prejudice, ‘unconscious bias’ is a subtle, learned stereotyping behaviour that forms subconsciously and can influence a person’s attitude towards a group of people based on a characteristic, such as their race, age, gender, or sexual orientation.
The Hays Ireland Diversity & Inclusion Report 2019 which surveyed more than 770 employers and employees, shows that a significant proportion of professionals (44%) think that their organisation’s leaders have a bias towards hiring people who look, think, or act like them. While the number is high, it is a marked improvement on 2018 when 55% had the same thought.
Concerningly, however, more than half (51%) of professionals believe that their career progression opportunities have been limited because of an ‘identifying factor’, such as their ethnicity, disability, age, gender, or mental health status. In these cases, unconscious bias may have been a contributor.
More than half of all professionals (52%) believe that their chances of selection during interview have been reduced because of their age. Women are more than three times as likely to feel their chances of selection have been lowered because of their gender than men (46% vs 14%).
Diversity and inclusion are important during the hiring process
Nearly all professionals (90%) believe that actively working to build a workplace which encourages inclusion and respect for all will have a positive impact on employee retention.
Half of all professionals say that they look for an organisation’s diversity and inclusion policies when researching a potential new employer, but 61% find it hard or extremely hard to find evidence of any commitments.
Over a third (37%) of professionals believe that greater workplace diversity and inclusion will positively impact the recruitment of the best talent; 29% believe it will help an organisation keep the talent they already have; and 22% said it will improve an organisation’s reputation.
Solutions
Speaking on the report findings, Maureen Lynch, Director of Hays Ireland, said:
“A diverse workforce represents a diverse Ireland. We are a multicultural, multi-ethnic, equal-opportunities society that respects different opinions and outlooks. Organisations that harness this new dynamic are more innovative, better at decision-making, generate more revenue, and attract the best talent.
“However, most Irish professionals don’t think their organisation is doing enough to make positive changes. Unconscious bias and diversity training represents an important start. Many candidates feel like one or more of their defining characteristics, like their race or gender, are unfairly hampering them during the interview process.
“Hiring managers and organisation leadership can create a more inclusive workplace by ensuring that job adverts and other recruitment materials are more diverse. During the interview process, a diverse panel of interviewers should be set up to ensure that a greater range of opinions, perspectives, and life experiences are represented.
“Blind recruitment is also beneficial in this regard. By removing age, gender, ethnicity, and even names from application forms, hiring managers can focus solely on skills and ability.
“Ultimately, organisations have to truly value diversity and inclusion—they must be engrained in their culture. That requires senior leadership to set out diversity and inclusion goals and policies, undertake unconscious bias training of their own, and be visible to staff as vocal advocates for more progressive recruitment and employment practices.”
ENDS
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About Hays
Hays plc (the "Group") is a leading global professional recruiting group. The Group is the expert at recruiting qualified, professional and skilled people worldwide, being the market leader in the UK and Asia Pacific and one of the market leaders in Continental Europe and Latin America. The Group operates across the private and public sectors, dealing in permanent positions, contract roles and temporary assignments. As at 30 June 2019 the Group employed 11,500 staff operating from 265 offices in 33 markets across 20 specialisms. For the year ended 30 June 2019:
– the Group reported net fees of £1,129.7 billion and operating profit (pre-exceptional items) of £248.8 million;
– the Group placed around 81,000 candidates into permanent jobs and around 254,000 people into temporary assignments;
– 18% of Group net fees were generated in Australia & New Zealand, 27% in Germany, 23% in United Kingdom & Ireland and 32% in Rest of World (RoW);
– the temporary placement business represented 57% of net fees and the permanent placement business represented 43% of net fees;
– Hays operates in the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Chile, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UAE, the UK and the USA