PDT is delighted to announce that we will be part of this year’s illustrious London Tech Week, talking all things unconscious bias and recruitment – and you can join us for free!
Helen Krag, PDT’s Head of Training, will be joining TechXLR’s Diversity & Inclusion stage on June 15th to present an engaging, interactive session on the impact of unconscious bias in the recruitment process. “Hiring the Best for Your Team: How to Reduce Bias in Recruitment” is a 40-minute exploration of those all-important ‘first impressions’ that will help recruiters and hiring managers not only understand the hidden biases in the recruitment process, but will also equip participants with the skills and confidence needed to make better hiring decisions and get the team you need. A more inclusive recruitment approach will help you get the diversity of thought and perspective that tech-driven businesses need to innovate!
If you are interested in joining PDT’s session at London Tech Week on Thursday June 15th at 13:10 simply register for your free visitor ticket here on TechXLR8’s site!
But for now, to get you in the mood for London Tech Week, here is some insight into the dangers of unconscious bias in the recruitment process…
What is Unconscious Bias? And why can it be so damaging when recruiting talent?
Unconsciously, we tend to like people who look like us, think like us and come from backgrounds similar to ours. Everyone likes to think they’re open-minded and objective, but research shows that beliefs and values gained from family, culture and a lifetime of experiences heavily influence how we view and evaluate both others and ourselves.
In the recruitment process, it is usually this underlying unconscious bias that exists within an organisational culture that can be so costly, resulting in decisions that are often not objective. In order to attract and retain the best talent, organisations must create a climate of inclusion where everyone has the space to excel; a culture where employees are recruited and progressed purely because of their ability.
Denying that biases influence us all is one of the key reason why biases continue to affect important hiring decisions. Through forcing decision-makers to consistently explain and document the decision process in relation to the job analysis, a structured approach is created, encouraging HR professionals and recruitment professionals to be aware of the power of biases.
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On average the cost of replacing a member of your organisation is over £30,000 per employee |
The overall financial impact of staff turnover amounts to around £4.13bn per year | The cost of replacing a senior executive or project manager was on average 213% of their first-year cost | 75% of all major HR professionals commented in a CIPD survey that once they had attracted talent they struggled to keep it in their organisation |
Diversity in Tech – The Stats…
59% of employees in the 13 largest technology companies in the world are white…
…and only 37% of all employees are women.
Women occupy just 17% of tech jobs in the UK – and fewer than one in ten of these women are in leadership positions.
