Introduction
Discrimination is the process of creating a certain group differently and negatively making them vulnerable in society. This discrimination is felt in workplaces especially in the process of hiring workers. The discrimination is done consciously or unconsciously by the panel recruiting and hiring the workers. The dual theory has supported the claim of the panel having to rule against candidates with the subconscious and conscious mentality. Several factors have resulted in discrimination while recruiting and hiring workers. These factors include attractiveness, age, gender, race, extroversion, unconscious, and the effect of similarity between the recruiter and recruitee. These factors have mostly affected those being hired in either a negative or positive way but both are in favor of those recruiting. These factors contributing to hiring discrimination will be discussed below.
Discrimination based on attractiveness
Generally, research undertaken by different researchers has shown the favor following attractive in the society without them trying too hard thus they are associated with being successful and traits that appease other people. The attractiveness nature is not only portrayed in the society but a workplace where unattractive but highly qualified performers are less preferred than attractive who are lowly qualified in the job description especially during hiring, promotions, and salary addition (Biljana, 2018). In an aspect where women are getting hired in masculine oriented careers like engineering, unattractive women are highly preferred since the attractive ones are considered less qualified to these jobs. When considering managerial positions, men were considered since the position is more masculine while attractive women were considered for non-managerial positions which are less masculine, since they seem more feminine. These outcomes have made it hard to pursuit attractiveness in the hiring process.
Positive outcomes of beauty is not a recent occurrence but have grown over time since the history of beauty. The Greeks praised beauty to a point they had a goddess of beauty while Aristotle claim that beauty is God’s gift, and Plato shows that beauty is a natural superiority. The Aphrodite effect showed unattractive people were less considered in the labor market for the favor of the attractive ones. The concept of beauty not only affects the labor market but also friendships, marital relationships, and elections. Researches conducted by sociologist and psychologists in the 20th century have proved unequal opportunities are award concerning beauty. There is a growing obsession of beauty in the 21st century thus making sense in society (Biljana, 2018). Discrimination against some minority groups such as race but little researches performed has proven there is great discrimination for both below average and average people with regard to beauty.
Audit studies of the discrimination due to the level of attractiveness have led different experiments performed by different researchers to prove the dual theorem. These experiments are undertaken through the creation of fictional characters with different levels of attractiveness and these characters yield high performance in their work experiences and educational backgrounds ( Biljana, 2018). The calculation of the rate of discrimination is measured through the characters’ callbacks for the hiring interviews. Carlsson and Rooth undertook an experiment by taking thirteen applicators who were female and male. The results showed that no matter the level of beauty, females were considered in female-dominated careers and males considered in male-dominated occupations. Also, the halo effect with regard to beauty was researched by several researchers including Karen Dion among others. In this research, sixty students half of them male and the rest female. They were provided with three pictures containing people with different levels of beauty ranging from high, medium, and low levels of attractiveness. These students were asked to assess the people according to their professional and social traits. After the experiment, the classification of results was in two groups. First of all highly attractive people regardless of their gender were classified with better social traits (Biljana, 2018). Secondly, in the professional traits, a high level of attractiveness people was considered to be successful in the hiring process and professional sense in comparison to people of low and medium level of attractiveness. Hence, the level of attractiveness with regard to male or female-dominated occupations and regardless of gender has highly affected the hiring process.
Ageism discrimination
Ageism discrimination occurs where older or younger people are considered for job opportunities with preference to the type of work and position of the vacant post. A Mercer survey conducting in 2015 around Europe and the United Kingdom showed that managers are hiring younger people than them and discriminating against the older ones, with comparison to the large population of older people in those countries. In most developed countries, people are urged to work until they gain the benefit of pension due to the high life expectancy in those countries (Drydakis, 2017). Efforts to retain the older people at work have been futile since the employers believe that employee’s productivity at the workplace decrease with age. Stereotypes suggest that older people’s power of adaptability, motivation, and health are low, and they easily get distracted by family responsibilities. Meta-analysis disagrees with the suggestion of a decrease in job performance with age and also views through stereotypes showed that older people are more motivated than younger people.
A research methodology was undertaken where a fictitious 19, 28, and 50 years old including males and females applicants were sent to several job interviews. Most of the employers hired the 19-year-old applicants with no experience indicating negative discrimination against the older group of people (Drydakis,2017). In the current situations, the private sectors offer vacant situations with a specified salary, which is relevantly low. Older people tend to have family responsibilities thus require jobs with higher income while most younger people don’t have responsibilities thus the low salary offered to them is not a big deal.
According to EEOC, age discrimination involves treating employees differently due to their age either younger or older. ADEA is against the age discrimination for applicants over forty years, and this discrimination could be encountered during promotion, hiring, firing among other occupation’s benefits. Hiscox Workplace Harassments Duty written in 2018 has classified different harassment issues affecting workers due to factors such as ethnicity, gender, religion as well as age, and these harassments are considered unwelcomed behavior in the workplace which should be ended (Hiscox, 2019). A Hiscox survey showed that forty- four percent of the people experienced or know people who experienced age discrimination, one out 3 workers think they didn’t qualify for a certain position at the workplace because of their age, one out five were affected directly by age discrimination, and a quarter of employees live in fear of losing their job due to their elderly age.
The law has actively responded to complaints of the applicants who have experienced age discrimination. Only a few people file cases of age discrimination to agencies or the government and several factors including fear of creating an awkward working environment and knowledge impairment of the case filing process. Not only are the people who experience the age discrimination directly should report these cases but also the witness, but among the witnesses only fifty percent file these cases. Gender is another factor affecting age discrimination, where older women are more discriminated against since women are seen as sexual items in society (Hiscox, 2019). Several myths have affected the employment of older people where the myths state that older people are unmotivated, hard to manage and they are not ready to embrace change in the workplace. There are several effects of age discrimination on both the employer and employees. To the employers, there is demotivation of employees, loss of talented workers when they decide to leave the workplace, and employees missing the experienced candidates. In addition, the employees are also affected where their career growth has been stalled due to their age.
Gender discrimination
Employees will always prefer a certain gender over another at the workplace or during hiring, promotions, or even salary addition. Researches performed have proven there is an increase of women in paid occupations. However, traditionally there has been a great gap in employment of women or men since women were viewed to be housewives and take of the children as the men worked to provide for their families (Eric,2015). Female sociologists have focused on the ongoing challenges facing women in the field of employment and this has resulted in tackling roles performed by men and women. The division of labor according to gender runs in the history of human beings but through economic revolution and development, this concept has faded away. Claims from sociologists traditionally, the society was male-dominated and men controlled women sexually, socially, and economically and even sharing of the labor force where men worked to be paid and women worked to fulfill their maternal duties at home. This domination still exists where men want to work in high paying jobs and of high status while women are expected to work low paying jobs and occupations of low status in the society.
When hiring employees, discrimination against applicants with regard to their gender has been experienced. Employers should base the recruitment of workers on their work experience and production potential. Unfortunately, they find themselves basing their decisions on gender consciously or unconsciously. One of the reasons employers tend to discriminate against a certain group of people is due to there taste favoring the group. The employer would choose to lose economically and socially but fulfill the taste of the group of employees. Especially in male-dominated careers, women are discriminated thus they are forced to look for alternatives of low paying jobs while men get hired in those vacant positions where they receive high salaries (Eric,2015). Secondly, employers experience statistical error and error discrimination toward job applicants. According to statistical error, employers will average applicants with the desire to hire those likely to have high production. An example of a statistical error is an employer hiring a man in a mechanical job regardless of qualifications and experience of a man in the job, and denying a woman the position with all the qualifications in the occupation. The third reason is the group monopoly, where men think a certain occupation is meant for then and not the women since they are more powerful.
Traditionally, jobs like managerial positions men got hired since women were regarded as subordinates while the positions required authoritative people. This would be a result of negative judgmental of employers towards a certain group of people especially women who are perceived as to be weakly in the society (Fiona, 1989). An experiment performed that included 73 participants, forty-one male, thirty-one female and OK me unspecified person, showed that an employer would bend the rules to hire a male applicant over a female who has all the position’s qualifications. Where the male applicant lacks the required educational background or the experiences, the qualifications would identify are less important in favor of the man over a woman who has all the qualifications right. In consideration of family responsibility, a woman would be advised to take those responsibilities rather than the job to favor the male in the job. The favoritism criteria used is a judgmental way of hiring male species to certain occupations and discriminating against women.
However, in female-oriented occupations, the employers’ decision of recruitment tends to lean female thus judging the male applicants. To prove this, an experiment was undertaken with one hundred and twelve applicants, forty-nine of them being male and the rest female. The recruitment participants considered activism and education excellency. Most males and females had the educational qualification but when women lacked the activism quality, it was considered less important in favor of women over the male gender. Thus in both experiments, the judgmental of whom to recruit was traditionally viewed on which gender dominated certain occupations (Fiona,1989). Lastly, the third experiment was carried out and stereotypical standards against any gender were unobserved. However, women were viewed to be more feminine thus lacking qualities such as assertiveness and control. Current studies have shown there is fair hiring of both men and women since the employers preference lean towards the qualities and experience of the applicant in the job market.
Racial discrimination
Racial discrimination involves preference of one race over the other and these races include the blacks, whites, Hindus among many others. This preference is experienced in the workplace especially when hiring workers. A survey performed by 185 Chicago area-firms shows the effect of employer’s strategies affects the inner-city blacks. In whites areas, the employer will hire whites over black people with regard to the type of job. The less prioritized jobs like cleaners or house help employers tend to employ the blacks to serve the Whites while the Whites will get the jobs, which people are highly paid and are the bosses over Blacks (Kathryn, 1991). Shreds of evidence have proved that blacks perform poorly in hiring interviews due to lack of work experience, and this lack of experience is brought by lack of employment due to their color hence the black’s race. As evidenced higher level of qualifications in job entry for blacks is set in skills testing and experiences and racial bias can be eradicated through the use of different and more effective methods to test skills of applicants.
In America, racial discrimination has been part of their lives against blacks. Lately, discussions about migration, rights among others have been ongoing. Yet the Americans claim that racial discrimination doesn’t define a person’s life. Thus the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published an analysis done through meta-analysis for racial discrimination (Quillian,2017). The publisher focused on research performed in 1990. Field experiments used the two access methods to identify racial discrimination. These methods are resume audits are sent through mails, which are fictitious with equivalent qualifications and names of a certain ethnicity, and in-person resume audit, where a pair of people are trained, a white and non-whites person are applicants for a job. The measurement of rates of racial discrimination is done through callbacks and invitations for interviews thus providing results of high quality. The results from the meta-analysis showed discrimination towards black and Latino, however, the discrimination against Latino has decreased over twenty-five years while for the blacks there was no change in the hiring rates.
In the experiments, the researchers thought other factors like educational background, work experience, gender, and the labor market would have affected the recruitment and after changing these they verified since 1990, racial discrimination against blacks has not changed. The discrimination against blacks only happened during the hiring and not other job relationships such as salary addition and promotions. Black people are highly discriminated over white people regardless of their qualifications in certain occupations (Quillian,2017). The surveys have shown employees get biased conscious or unconscious. Twenty-five years is a long time, thus racial discrimination against blacks may appear not to end in the near future during hiring.
Discrimination according to extroversion
In a society, there exist two kinds of people, the very social ones known as extroverts and antisocial ones known as introverts. The extroverts are very interactive and express their views without fear of being judged and introverts are directly the opposite of the extroverts. “ There is no second chance to make a first impression”, the saying contracts with the impression created by applicants to the employers even before meeting. Thus recruitment decision is based on snap judgment and gut instincts, and irrelevant data is mostly used to justify claims of the arbitrary based decisions (Kelly, 2015). Change has taken place over time, and currently, predictive analysis is being used but factors like educational background and work experience were used as well as the physical testing where a person is required to explain themselves in less than six seconds to predict whether the applicant is worth hiring.
Introverts have faced a challenge in the labor market where half of the working population is affected by this bias. This bias has exceeded the EEOC data, and applicants are adversely affected. Being an introvert especially with the myths that accompany introverts sucks and these myths include shyness, anti-social, followers, and lack of leadership skills am ng many other (Kelly, 2015). However, these myths don’t apply to all introverts and they are neither sociopaths nor avoid interactions and should not be applied to people unwilling to be bosses. The difference between introverts and extrovert is that they interact differently, and introverts can also speak in public. Interviews are a broken hell for introverts and this applies to extroverts where they feel awkward and uncomfortable. The energy and enthusiasm of candidates about the experience in a certain gig have proved to be significant when hiring them.
Unconscious bias
Unconscious bias occurs when the recruiter or employee favors candidates who share certain things like interests, educational background, or religion. For example, a manager unsuccessful in education would tend to favor a candidate who hasn’t graduated because it reminds them of the difficulties they underwent to rise to the managerial position (LSE, 2019). The same would happen if the manager was a university graduate, where a candidate probably from the same university as the manager and would favor such a person with the feeling that the person toiled in school. Halo effect, a part of unconscious bias occurs without the employer knowing details but having a positive attitude towards an applicant. An example of the halo effect is the illusion that a person dressed conservatively would be seen to fit in an office because of the dress code.
Unconscious bias tends to be with everyone since the brain receives information from what we have experienced in our lives, read, and heard from the media. A by-product of hurried decision making is an unconscious bias that is made through several shortcuts. Speeding in decision making would be useful in case of an emergency while it would be dangerous in case of hiring and promotions of workers in an organization. The unconscious bias would be termed to be discriminative when an employer tends to protect candidates by hiring them because they are of the same race and not considering the education and experience qualifications of another candidate because they are from a different race (LSE, 2019). Unconscious bias is based on stereotypes and prejudgments of employers towards a certain group of people with regard to their similarities with the candidates.
Similar to me effect
Researchers have proved human beings are imperfect unlike computers especially when it comes to information gathering and later making decisions. Especially when it comes to employers, their judgment towards applicants is flawed thus the creation of issues at the workplace for both the workers and organization. Perpetual bias is a general term for the many systematic biases including similar to me effect, halo effect, first impression errors among many others. Similar to me effect states that people tend to like people they look or think alike since they act similarly. Research shows that the rating of employees with similar personalities with the employer has high ratings ( Penn State, n.d.) These similarities dimensions include values, beliefs of how work should be performed, and variables such as age, religion, attractiveness, and ethnicity.
Trust issues at the workplace are affected by the similar to me effect. Supervisors are confident and trust supervisors who are perceived to be similar rather than those who are dissimilar, thus the development of a positive attitude and relationship between the employer and employee. Interviews are platforms for recruiters to hire workers after evaluation of education and experience of the position but the similar to me effect is a major drawback in the hiring process. Where the interviewee and interviewer pose similarity in education and demographics there is the development of accurate perception between the two. This kind of bias is the hardest to overcome but interviewers should identify qualities that overlap them with the interviewee.
How to reduce personal bias during the hiring
Discrimination when hiring workers has been a major challenge to most people especially in their career development. Several steps have been taken to eradicate the discrimination, thou the change has not been instant but gradual over time. One of the steps is the acceptance of the employers that they are biased. Before tackling an issue, the first stage is always accepted, and once this stage is over the rest will follow gradually. Affinity bias is the tendency if favoring a certain person because of race, religion, similar personalities, and age during the hiring of workers in am organization. Secondly, employers should create a personal learning list like reading books that tackle bias at work or during the hiring of workers like “Women at Work”. They should also seek relevant resources, which include journals, articles, and books which uncover bias during the hiring of workers and how to eradicate the discrimination (Tulyshyan, 2019). Acknowledgment of the bias and creation of space of calling out discrimination is the only way of holding people accountable.
Also, the reduction of influence from peer’s opinions in decision making is another way if reducing personal bias. Microsoft allowed the recruiting managers to listen to other manager’s opinions before an interview. This leads the hiring manager’s view about a candidate to be influenced by the rest. Microsoft decided to change the opinion loop until all the managers had assessed a candidate thus the creation of independent decision and opinion during an interview thus reducing peer influence (Tulyshyan, 2019). Therefore, hiring managers should ensure they write down their opinion before sharing the feedback opinion and as a result, the feedback won’t be influenced by peers. The fourth way, employer understanding the advantages of reducing the bias at the workplace thus benefitting them. When an employer hires a qualified candidate without any discrimination, the production outcome will increase since the employee is experienced. Also, people of different races and ages, there will be healthy competition in the workplace.
Last but not least, the use of an approach known as “flip it to test”. In a TEDx talk, Kristen Pressner admitted to having performed gender bias against women leadership in the Fortune 500 organization despite her gender being feminine. Hence, she developed a technique to reduce bias, where people were supposed to ask themselves if they were to swap candidates of underrepresented platforms with a typical person during hiring. An example of such a situation is a dark woman who talks passionately but the employer doesn’t hire her because of her skin color and gender ( Tulyshyan, 2019). On the other hand, a white man who is incapable of expressing himself gets the job because of his masculine nature and color. Kristen states she was once in a hiring process, a black woman who was already working in the organization was requested to apply for the vacant position, but the manager thought the woman would skip the early hiring process since they knew of her excellent performance but some panelist thought they were bending the rules. Kristen flipped question if the candidate was a white man or generally a white person would they have reacted in the same way and through this were recognized their discrimination.
Conclusion
In conclusion, hiring discrimination has affected a lot of people career-wise since they are unable to grow by lack of experience. This hindrance of career-wise has been affected by several factors such as age, race, level of attractiveness, unconscious among others. Some employers have taken steps to eradicate hiring discrimination at their workplace. These strategies include employers’ acceptance they are biased, employers creating learning list, reduction of peers influence in hiring decision, employer identifying advantages of reducing bias, and use of flip test approach.
References
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