Can blind hiring guarantee fair and effective recruitment?

For recruitment to be truly ethical, should information in a CV, that could trigger bias (conscious or unconscious), be removed?

Some firms have adopted blind hiring in some form in their early career programme. Names are not disclosed until a certain stage of the interview process and education is not known until a job offer has been made.

Others use a totally blind recruitment process where even the interviewees voices are marked by special technology and a faceless avatar is used in place of the candidates on screen

The other argument of course is that it is still important that an employer knows about a candidate's experiences and transferrable skills in order to get the very best match for the company and the candidate's career.

Many talent consultants believe that it is highly unlikely that a fully diverse workforce would eventually come from the use of blind hiring methods so maybe there is a good balance in there somewhere.

There is an escalating battle as many businesses are trying to get people back into the office, but will this tougher stance succeed?

Many organisations are setting stricter limits on remote working as a looming recession is putting pressure on business owners and CEO’s to boost productivity. Companies are facing many challenges and amongst them is trying to work out how to get the best from their staff. Some are reporting lower levels of productivity in their newer hires and are suggesting that these employees need to come back into the office for coaching / training.

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The four-day-week 6mth trial results are published today, and it has proved to be a success amongst many businesses that took part.

61 companies took up the trial in the UK and 56 of those intend to continue with the four-day week at least in the short term and 18 companies are making the change permanent.

There has been a positive impact on work-life balance for staff but critically for the companies concerned their productivity was unimpacted and in many cases improved. Other areas of the business such as staff retention, recruitment and absenteeism also improved greatly.

However, the transition has not been without its challenges. Staff adjusted very quickly to the change and there is now an expectation that this is the norm. Many have said that they would require a salary increase to go back to a five-day working week. Other working situations proved difficult such as accounting for bank holidays (leaving a three-day week), staff missed team socials after work on Fridays and managing cover / holidays was also harder

( Information taken from Raconteur article dated 21st February 2023 by Sam Forsdick. Further information can be found at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64669987 )