De-biasing recruitment
Alison Smith is programme lead for modernising HR processes and de-bias recruitment and selection in the NHS England and NHS Improvement London equality and inclusion team. Alison also works as assistant director of equality, diversity and inclusion at Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust supporting the delivery of the trust’s equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) strategy which was relaunched in 2021.
Alison started working in the NHS over 30 years ago and has had a special interest in EDI work throughout her career. She is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). In this blog, she shares how equality, diversity and inclusion leads and heads of recruiting in the NHS developed a toolkit which aims to help NHS organisations de-bias recruitment practices.
The De-bias recruitment and selection toolkit was developed in partnership with equality, diversity and inclusion leads and heads of resourcing in the NHS in London. The purpose of the toolkit is to ensure all those involved in recruitment and selection of NHS staff in London are aware of how bias exists within these processes and what actions they can take to reduce or eliminate such bias.
This toolkit was developed in response to one of the 15 key recommendations in the London Workforce Race Equality Strategy published in October 2020. This strategy examined the performance of London NHS trusts against the Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES). The standard contains one measure that looks specifically at the likelihood of white staff being appointed to a post after shortlisting in comparison with staff from a Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic background. This is WRES Indicator 2 - currently in London the average score for WRES 2 is 1.61. This means staff from a white background are 1.61 times more likely to be successful at interview.
The London equality and inclusion team worked with a small group of resourcing and equality specialists to identify the different stages of recruitment, selection and onboarding processes. Within each stage potential areas for bias were identified and solutions for overcoming this bias were suggested. Where possible solutions were evidence based from academic research and accepted best practice.
The toolkit has been designed as an interactive PDF to enable users to access different sections easily depending on their particular area of focus for improving recruitment practice. The toolkit is available to use via this link on the Future NHS website - you will need to register on Future NHS if you don’t already have an account (click the link and it will ask you to sign in or register). For full interactivity you can download the toolkit from the website.
We will be reviewing the content of the toolkit on a regular basis and are always appreciative of evidence of good practice that can be shared more widely.
If you have any questions about the toolkit or wish to contribute any material for future versions please contact the NHSE/I London Region equality and inclusion team by email london.racestrategy@nhs.net.
