More organisations are adopting blind recruitment to help eliminate unconscious bias.

Hays Recruitment says many organisations are adopting blind recruitment models, which involve omitting personally identifiable information such as name, gender, age and education from CVs.

Unconscious bias during the recruitment process can be counterproductive to a strategy to improve workplace diversity, says Yvonne Smyth,  head of diversity at Hays.

“Everyone has an unconscious bias,” she says. “At its most basic, it is about whether you see someone as part of your ‘in group’… unconscious bias comes into play because you are exercising personal judgement.”

Blind recruitment can improve workforce diversity, says Nick Deligiannis, managing director of Hays in Australia and New Zealand. “This technique can help organisations ensure a diverse flow of talent into their selection process. It can also boost your employment brand since jobseekers say they have the opportunity to better position their strengths in an interview.”

Organisations are increasingly aware that businesses with more diverse workforces outperform their less diverse competitors. McKinsey’s ‘Diversity Matters’ report found that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity and ethnic minority board representation became 15% and 35% more likely, respectively, to financially outperform those in the bottom quartile. A 2012 Deloitte study which captured the views and experiences of 1550 employees at three large Australian businesses operating in manufacturing, retail and healthcare identified an 80% improvement in business performance when diversity and inclusion were high.

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Further reading

• The diversity dollar: marketing’s new frontier »
• When will diversity break into mainstream marketing? »

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