Majority of leaders across Asia considered biased in their hiring process, hays Diversity & Inclusio

Organisations across Asia have been ramping up their efforts to mitigate bias in their recruitment selection process in the last year. However, the latest Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) report by leading recruitment experts Hays revealed that most employees across Asia still believe business leaders carry a bias towards hiring people who look, think or act like them.

The findings of the 2019/2020 version of this annual report are based on survey responses from close to 2000 working professionals based in China, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia. 87 per cent of respondents were born in Asia, 54 per cent were female, and 67 per cent were involved in recruiting new staff (either as a hiring line manager or in HR/recruitment functions). The survey covered personal experiences of the respondents with D&I in their workplaces, as well as their perceptions of its practice within and impact on their organisations.

A need for unbiased and diverse leadership

47 per cent of respondents across Asia felt that greater D&I practices in the workplace could have the most positive impact on the ‘recruitment of best talent’. However, the implementation of this is still lacking, with 52 per cent of respondents having felt that their age, gender, ethnicity or other D&I factors had led to their changes of being selected for a job being lowered. This discrepancy could be attributed to bias in leadership, with 59 per cent of respondents strongly agreeing or agreeing that leaders in their organisation has a bias towards hiring people who look think and act like them. 72 per cent of employees considered unconscious bias training for leaders to have a positive impact on the selection and hiring of more diverse talent, yet only 49 per cent of companies provide such training – a figure that is skewed by the high 64 per cent in China.

An overall trend of improvement

However, individual indicators of organisations applying D&I practices to employee selection have been positive and mostly in line with the expectations of their employees. For example, 75 per cent of respondents believed that ensuring interview panels are diverse would positively impact diverse hiring, with 62 per cent or organisations already practicing this. Similarly, 74 per cent of respondents voted for involving a range of diverse stakeholders for the review and selection of CV or application forms; which is practiced by 66 per cent of organisations. An interesting addition was the capturing of workforce diversity data (i.e. ethnicity information) of those hired, which was voted to have positive a positive impact on hiring by 69 per cent of respondents and is being implemented by 56 per cent of organisations.

In China:  Awareness on the rise but bias remains

While employees and organisations in China are increasingly aware of the importance of D&I in the workplace, there appears to be growing disquiet amongst candidates applying for jobs. 44 per cent of respondents said their age was a factor in not being selected for a job, which was the highest figure across Asia. A further 25 per cent of respondents said their gender was the cause of not being selected for a job, also the highest figure across Asia. The latter comes after 35 per cent of respondents saying that to better reflect today’s society, their organisations should attract, select and retain more women.

Although 81 per cent of respondents in China agree that their company is proactive in sourcing diverse candidates (up from 61 per cent in 2018), the majority still believe that those with the ability to recruit staff possess a bias when hiring. 73 per cent of respondents, the highest number in Asia, felt that leaders in their organisation had a bias towards hiring people who look, think or act like them, amongst whom 19 per cent strongly agree. However, an impressive 70 per cent also indicated that their leadership team was diverse, including 19 per cent who strongly agreed – the highest number to do so in Asia.

Simon Lance, Managing Director at Hays Greater China commented, “While there have been many promising improvements in hiring practices to include more diverse talent, a top-down approach is vital in ensuring widespread implementation and success. Those in managerial positions could help promote diversity amongst leadership and the larger organisation by setting individual diversity recruitment targets, undertaking training to mitigate unconscious biases, and actively working to develop under-represented groups, specifically into leadership roles.”