English
A new study shows discrimination is alive and well in the Australian recruitment industry - even down to a person's name.
The two-year study, from Monash Business School, submitted 12,000 job applications to more than 4000 job adverts in Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane, across 12 different occupations.
Lead researcher Professor Andreas Liebbrandt says the study was focused primarily on leadership positions.
“What we have done is we went deeper into this research and look at leadership positions and we looked at leadership positions in the Australian context. That is the largest resume study ever conducted in Australia. And what we do observe is that this level of discrimination, differential call back rates is more pronounced for leadership positions than non-leadership positions. So, you have a huge penalty of having an ethnic minority name and receiving a call because compared to a traditional white name.”
The results show that despite identical resumes, and all candidates being born in Australia, applicants with a name addressable to ethnic minorities received 57.4 per cent fewer call-backs than applicants with English names for leadership positions.
And for non-leadership positions, ethnic minorities received 45.3 per cent fewer call-backs.
Chief executive of the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia FECCA Mohammad Al-Khafaji says the results are concerning.
"The study is very worrying given that no more than 22 per cent of the population speaks a language other than English at home. And we expect that most organisations they reflect the community that we live in and that's a failure of organisations not having diversity and inclusion strategies in place. "
The study also found that ethnic discrimination in leadership roles was worse when the advertised job needed customer contact.
But that improved when the position underlined the importance of individualism, learning, creativity, and innovation.
Mr Liebbrandt says organisations may be concerned that their customers prefer to interact with white Australians.
He adds that the findings show there is substantial discrimination in recruitment for leadership roles.
"It does mean that recruiting agencies and the people who assess these applications use names as a proxy to estimate how suitable a candidate is. And that's very problematic because it's just the name and all other experiences are the same. In fact, it is really just the name and all of our candidates in the resume signal that they grew up in Australia and are Australians."
Timi Oladeinde is a talent acquisition and career transition specialist.
He says every person regardless of their background deserves the opportunity to thrive and reach their full potential.
Mr Oladeinde, a skilled migrant himself, believes that refugees and people of ethnic backgrounds offer various skills, abilities, and experiences that can strengthen the social, cultural, and economic fabric of their workplaces.
"A name shouldn't determine if someone is suitable for a role, which is why there's some few points that I've been able to highlight that would help increase the diversity in the recruitment industry. One of the biggest points is mentorship and mentorship programs that could be established for experienced recruiters to support and guide individuals from refugee backgrounds and also the recruitment process itself. So if the recruitment process can be adjusted, reviewed and modified it will increase and improve the recruitment practice. "
He adds that the skills shortage in Australia can be combated with better inclusion practices in the recruitment industry.
"We are not looking at the right places, we have people who just need to be given the opportunity. These little things are the reasons why we keep missing out on talent, we're not able to retain proper talent and we have people coming from overseas. We need talent without the opportunity, and they're forced to end up doing something else just to survive. And in doing so, they lose a lot of their momentum, they lose a lot of their confidence in their skills and just continue with that role. So it's our job to make sure that these talents and retained their sharpened You know as soon as a common board we have internship programs for training programs that will assist them, and they're able to express and utilize this, talent into the benefit of the greater good for the entire Australian community."
FECCA'S chief executive, Mr Al-Khafaji recommends that organisations need to have a diversity and inclusion plan in place and ensure that hiring managers are well trained to make sure that unconscious bias is avoided.
"We need to make sure that there are blind recruitment processes in place, meaning that you remove the person's name to make sure that you address that unconscious bias. It is unacceptable that you know, people from diverse backgrounds are being unconsciously discriminated against. I mean, this is a failure of the system. There is clearly structural racism here at play, and we need to address that."
Mr Al-Khafaji says organisations need to realise that diversity is an asset, not a risk.
Italian
Un recente studio dimostra che la discriminazione è viva e vegeta nel settore della selezione del personale, e arriva fino al nome proprio delle persone.
Per lo studio, durato due anni, della Monash Business School, sono state presentate 12,000 domande di lavoro per più di 4000 annunci a Melbourne, Sydney e Brisbane, per 12 diverse professioni.
Il caporicerca, il professor Andreas Liebbrandt ha detto che lo studio era principalmente focalizzato su posizioni manageriali.
“What we have done is we went deeper into this research and look at leadership positions and we looked at leadership positions in the Australian context. That is the largest resume study ever conducted in Australia. And what we do observe is that this level of discrimination, differential call back rates is more pronounced for leadership positions than non-leadership positions. So, you have a huge penalty of having an ethnic minority name and receiving a call because compared to a traditional white name.”
L’esito ha mostrato che, a dispetto di curricula identici, e con tutti i candidati nati in Australia, quelli con un nome collegabile a minoranze etniche hanno ricevuto il 57.4 per cento in meno di chiamate rispetto ai candidati con nomi inglesi per posizioni di vertice.
E per posizioni non manageriali, le minoranze etniche hanno ricevuto il 45.3 per cento in meno di chiamate.
Mohammad Al-Khafaji, direttore esecutivo della FECCA, la Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia, ha detto che i risultati sono preoccupanti.
"The study is very worrying given that no more than 22 per cent of the population speaks a language other than English at home. And we expect that most organisations they reflect the community that we live in and that's a failure of organisations not having diversity and inclusion strategies in place. "
Lo studio ha anche mostrato che la discriminazione etnica per posizioni di vertice era ancora peggiore laddove l’annuncio prevedeva rapporti con i clienti.
La situazione migliorava quando nell’annuncio veniva evidenziata l’importanza di individualismo, apprendimento, creatività e innovazione.
Liebbrandt ha detto che le organizzazioni potrebbero temere che i clienti preferiscano interagire con australiani bianchi.
Ha anche aggiunto che i risultati mostrano una discriminazione sostanziale nelle assunzioni per posizioni di comando.
"It does mean that recruiting agencies and the people who assess these applications use names as a proxy to estimate how suitable a candidate is. And that's very problematic because it's just the name and all other experiences are the same. In fact, it is really just the name and all of our candidates in the resume signal that they grew up in Australia and are Australians."
Timi Oladeinde è uno specialista in assunzione del personale e cambio carriera.
Ha detto che ogni persona, indipendentemente dal proprio background, merita l’opportunità di avere successo e di esprimere il proprio potenziale.
Oladeinde, a sua volta un immigrato con qualifiche, crede che i rifugiati e le persone con un background etnico possano offrire diverse capacità, abilità ed esperienze che possono rafforzare il tessuto sociale, culturale ed economico del proprio ambiente lavorativo.
"A name shouldn't determine if someone is suitable for a role, which is why there's some few points that I've been able to highlight that would help increase the diversity in the recruitment industry. One of the biggest points is mentorship and mentorship programs that could be established for experienced recruiters to support and guide individuals from refugee backgrounds and also the recruitment process itself. So if the recruitment process can be adjusted, reviewed and modified it will increase and improve the recruitment practice. "
Ha anche aggiunto che la carenza di competenze in Australia può essere combattuta con migliori pratiche di inclusione nel settore delle assunzioni.
"We are not looking at the right places, we have people who just need to be given the opportunity. These little things are the reasons why we keep missing out on talent, we're not able to retain proper talent and we have people coming from overseas. We need talent without the opportunity, and they're forced to end up doing something else just to survive. And in doing so, they lose a lot of their momentum, they lose a lot of their confidence in their skills and just continue with that role. So it's our job to make sure that these talents and retained their sharpened You know as soon as a common board we have internship programs for training programs that will assist them, and they're able to express and utilize this, talent into the benefit of the greater good for the entire Australian community."
Mohammad Al-Khafaji, direttore esecutivo del FECCA, consiglia alle organizzazioni di avere un piano strategico per la diversità e l’inclusività, e di assicurarsi che i dirigenti addetti alle assunzioni siano ben preparati per far sì che pregiudizi inconsci vengano evitati.
"We need to make sure that there are blind recruitment processes in place, meaning that you remove the person's name to make sure that you address that unconscious bias. It is unacceptable that you know, people from diverse backgrounds are being unconsciously discriminated against. I mean, this is a failure of the system. There is clearly structural racism here at play, and we need to address that."
Al-Khafaji ha infine detto che le organizzazioni devono comprendere che la diversità è una risorsa e non un rischio.
Report by SBS News.
