How tech is tackling the diversity challenge By Tom Starner

04 Aug How tech is tackling the diversity challenge By Tom Starner

Dive Brief:

– Employers are willing to try almost anything to solve workplace gender bias, and the latest new trend involves technology-driven apps and training programs to give diversity its due, according to SHRM.
– There is good evidence that diversity helps boost bottom lines. Unfortunately, managers may not even understand their own biases, so employers look to consultants, tech firms and other HR-related diversity solutions.
– For example, the article cites Blendoor, a San Francisco-based app that matches candidates to jobs based by leaving candidate photos and names out of the equation – a trick that causes recruiters to choose talent on merit alone.

Dive Insight:

Even with the obvious business advantages, employers are a long way from getting diversity right in a broad sense. Science and technology industries wrestle with gender-diversity problems in particular. For example, the National Center for Women & Information Technology reports that women hold 57% of U.S. professional jobs, but just 25% of computing jobs and 17% of Fortune 500 CIO positions.

On another front, with artificial intelligence-driven solutions like Textio or hiring app startup Unitive, technology wants to help employers produce “bias-free” job descriptions. Others use game technology to match job candidates to employers. For example, Mercer created an online game platform, Mercer Match, in an attempt to give hiring bias the boot.

In the end, the fact that so many solutions keep appearing is testament to how difficult the issue is to solve. Some of the solutions are not new, however. This example of blind hiring from a while back shows that the strategy can work – if it’s given enough of a chance.
SOURCE