As a tech firm it’s natural for us to get excited about things like Predictive Analytics (PA). But to successfully implement emerging technologies like PA will need a thorough review of the potential implications for your company culture. For example, how might predictive analytics impact your corporate inclusion policy?
What are predictive analytics?
Predictive Analytics has surfaced as an emerging trend in recruitment and HR recently. On one hand, PA can help organisations to plan for seasonal resourcing peaks and troughs. By predicting what kind of candidates you will need ahead of time, PA can allow recruiters to kick-start recruitment campaigns ahead of time, reducing time to hire and smoothing out traditional staffing shortages.
On the other hand, PA has the potential for ‘forensic level’ profiling. By identifying the traits of successful hires, recruiters may be guided to seek these specific traits in future candidates. But is that necessarily a good thing?
At Odds With Inclusion
This profiling technique is at odds with many corporate inclusion policies which are designed to prevent discrimination, even if unintentional, in the recruitment and selection process. So, it’s important that any application of Predictive Analytics in the hiring process is not using candidate information such as age, race, gender etc. within its algorithms.
One Solution
Many forward-thing recruitment teams have implemented a ‘name-blind' recruitment process. Name-blind hides any identifying information from a candidate’s initial application. It is widely recognised as one of the most powerful methods to prevent against discrimination and unintentional bias in the early stages of the recruitment process. Essentially, name-blind removes any identifying information from a candidate’s application. It means that each candidate is assessed on merit alone.