MGMT 453 Blog

I took an implicit bias test that compared European Americans and Hispanic Americans with ‘Good’ and ‘Bad.’ According to the results of the test, I was faster at sorting out ‘European Americans’ with ‘Bad’, and ‘Hispanic Americans’ with ‘Good’. With that said, I would highlight the Scientific American article that specifically highlights that “the stability of the test is low, meaning that if you take the same test a few weeks apart, you might score differently. And the correlation between a person’s IAT scores and discriminatory behavior is often small.” By no means do I dispute the existence of implicit biases. However, I seriously doubt the usefulness of this type of test when writings about them highlight their lack of stability. When you deal with economics, economists typically find survey material to be the lowest form of data and prefer to use other numerical methods to distill a person, or group of people’s behavior based on their actual actions, rather than how they report their actions and beliefs to be. While this test is not a direct survey, I view its reliability as the lowest form of data available surrounding this topic, especially when the results of these tests do not even correlate to discriminatory behavior. Because we live in a world of patterns, our minds are made to generalize in order to streamline operational processing in our brains and to survive better in a world full of millions of individual stimuli. Since implicit biases are connected to generalizations, I think that being aware of your beliefs and how they affect our day-to-day decisions is important. Once again, because of how we are wired, no one can live this way all the time, but we can try to bring a level of intentionality to the things we do and the decisions we make. I find it useful to try to understand the underlying assumptions and motivations behind many of the choices I make in my life. Looking back to the hiring and interview process we focused on this week, I think the better strategy here, and in a lot of other key areas within HR management is not necessarily to try and eliminate all forms of implicit biases. Rather, as our lecture and reading materials highlighted, I believe it is more effective to create standardized processes that work to minimize or eliminate the ability for present biases to impact the results of key decisions. When you take the ability for bias to influence the final decision, I believe you end up with a better hire when it comes to the interview process, and a better decision, when it comes to other parts of the business.

I’ve been involved in numerous interviews over the years. Most of the time, it follows a traditional multi-step process of interviews designed to whittle out candidates and gradually distill who my employer felt was a good fit for the position. Sometimes the multi-step process included a group interview as well in front of a panel of future co-workers. Depending upon the level of skill and the value of the position, the amount of competition and effort I saw that the employer put forth to find applicants varied greatly. Without knowing too much behind the scenes, the lines of questioning from each hiring manager were conversational and relaxed and did not seem to follow a particular line of questioning. From our readings this week, Iris Bohnet highlighted how the common perception of most hiring managers is that unstructured interviews are the most effective way to understand the relevant and interesting traits of an applicant. She continued by highlighting that “while unstructured interviews consistently receive the highest ratings for perceived effectiveness from hiring managers, dozens of studies have found them to be among the worst predictors of actual on-the-job performance — far less reliable than general mental ability tests, aptitude tests, or personality tests (Bohnet, 2016, How to Take the Bias Out of Interviews).” As previously stated, I’ve seen this reality play out consistently across my interview experiences. In the experiences I’ve had, the most notable interview process was for a real estate agent position on a large well-established team. In that process, I was required to take a personality test that was incorporated into conversations and referenced during job placement. Later, as I was involved with hiring, I saw how we used an applicant’s test to help craft more direct questions. That was a useful baseline, but I’ve come to see from the readings this week how valuable it is to have a standard question set that is applied across all applicants in a pool, with answers ranked numerically. Not once have I knowingly encountered that process and I really see the value that that can bring to the table. It not only can help eliminate bias but create opportunities for candidates to be judged equally on their merits, likely resulting in a better overall candidate choice in the end.

The use of clear job descriptions within a company is foundational to having a successful HR management function. Jill Bidwell from Job Worth Doing discussed how she preaches “to all our mangers and HR staff that the job description is the mother of all HR processes. Everything from recruitment and training to performance evaluations and compensation all stems from that document (Tyler, 2013, Job Worth Doing: Update Descriptions).” The document by itself is important, but the process and the conversations that stem from trying to create it help to make it even more useful. I’ve experienced the challenges that come from leaving a job undefined firsthand. I work for my Father-in-Law within his construction business as a project and office manager and have been here for over 4 years. During that time, I’ve worn and continue to wear many hats. This is common in ours and many other family businesses because the company is not large enough to support an inordinate amount of job specialization. While I understand my job clearly, we have never taken the time to officially write out my responsibilities. When something needs to be done that falls within my sphere of influence, I take care of it. However, this lack of clarity sometimes causes miscommunication. For example, where there are job overlaps between me and other members of our team, the lack of clear boundaries has sometimes caused tasks to fall through the cracks, leading to mistakes and issues that could have been avoided if our roles were better defined. At the same time, we are beginning to move in a new direction. Part of this year’s goals are to clearly describe the roles and responsibilities of everyone within our organization. In doing so, it will create a launch pad for discussions around job performance, compensation, mission and vision. Simply quantifying what it means to be successful in each role will create standards by which managers can hold their employees accountable. Just as described in our readings, for this work to be effective on a ongoing basis, it will be crucial to refer back to this information regularly. Some businesses reported changing it three times in the same year. No business is perfect, but ours is striving to improve and make clear changes like this to position us for future success.

For my review I chose three fascinating companies, Delta Airlines, Power Home Remodeling, and Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. Though these companies are all large, many of the employees describe their various company cultures as very caring and family-like. Many reported a similar view that “when you join the company, you are made to feel welcome” and that they “want to work here for a long time.” The ability for a big company to feel small is just one of the “new HR” strategies described by Breitfelder and Dowling that these companies are using in their innovative talent management systems (Breitfelder & Dowling, 2008, p. 42). When employees feel like they are part of a team, connected to their workplace and coworkers, they are far more likely to stay longer and report greater job fulfillment. At a base level we know from our readings that the “Base Camp” level of questions cover the essentials of personal work expectations and the ability to have the materials and equipment to do the job right (Buckingham & Coffman, 2016). As a manager in any large corporation, having clearly defined roles for employees is most likely already established. The greater task here I believe is knowing how to encourage individual employees about the unique role and value that they bring to the organization. For employees to feel like they belong, there must be a sense that the work they do matters, and that they as individuals are recognized for that work. While there are plenty of other aspects of management, I think I want to be a manager that clearly communicates employee expectations, gives them the basic tools they feel they need to succeed, and finally, can encourage them of the unique value they bring to the table. As I can encourage people under me to be confident in who they are and what they can achieve, it begins to lay a foundation that future development can be built from.        

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