Recruiting a Diverse Workforce: Throwing Out the Labels Ken Witt – City of Olympia Jeremey Ferguson – King County Meg Safranek – King County

Recruiting with a Purpose Ken Witt City of Olympia, Water Operations Lead

Key Points One size fits all Job Hopper Supplemental application score

This is regards to the "Job Hopper" label This is regards to the "Job Hopper" label. Not staying at the same job for years is viewed by some as a negative. I'm going to discuss the pros of a diverse background. When reviewing resumes labels like this can keep people from even getting to the next step in the process etc. The other slide is the talking point leading into the "one size fits all" approach to the supplemental application. Are questions being asked going to dock points if they don't even apply to the position? I am staying with labels leading up to the interview and how to drop them to make sure you get a diverse pool to choose from

King County Department of Transportation Implicit Bias Jeremy Ferguson King County Department of Transportation

What is Implicit Bias? An implicit bias is the unconscious attribution of particular qualities to a member of a certain social group. Also known as unconscious bias We won’t be discussing explicit bias / conscious bias. These are the things we admit. You may hear many different terms related to bias. For the purposes of our conversation, we can boil it down to two types of bias. Unconscious bias (also known as implicit bias) The “stuff” we are not aware of, but should be Conscious Bias - (also know as explicit bias) The “stuff” we are willing to admit to – when at war, we have a bias against the enemy or team. We openly talk about a bias towards a lifestyle (country vs city living) or a make of car….

Think about a bias you may have Think about your first reaction to descriptions of people – do you lean towards preferring a particular race, sex, people from a geographic area, sexual orientation – religious background – liberal vs conservative? We each can identify some known biases and work to overcome them. **If asked - Jerome Singleton – US Paralympics champion

Implicit Bias Video https://youtu.be/dVp9Z5k0dEE?t=6s This video will briefly describe Implicit Bias and review the steps we have been taking (at KC Roads Maintenance) to help overcome Implicit Bias. The actual training is over an hour and we use different examples – but this video from the Royal Society, an independent science academy sums up in less than three minutes what we often spend hours trying to convey. https://youtu.be/dVp9Z5k0dEE?t=6s

Mitigating Implicit Bias Slow down decision making. Reconsider reasons for decisions.   Question stereotypes. Monitor each other for implicit bias. Here’s the 4 takeaways from the video I really want you to take back. If you can do this, you are on the right track. But how do you discover your Implicit Bias? How do I begin to know what I don’t know?

Implicit Associations Realizing that you may have an Implicit Bias is the first step in awareness. The Implicit Associations test is a tool that was developed by Harvard university to study bias that people have subconsciously. **It is important to be aware as you are taking these tests, that even though you may harbor a bias, that does not necessarily mean you're prejudiced or discriminatory. Once you (and others) have taken some Implicit Associations tests, it becomes something you do – a habit. This will assist you in creating a diverse workplace. https://implicit.harvard.edu

Implicit Associations Realizing that you may have an Implicit Bias is the first step in awareness. Currently there are 14 different Implicit Associations test The Implicit Associations test is a tool that was developed by Harvard university to study bias that people have subconsciously. **It is important to be aware as you are taking these tests, that even though you may harbor a bias, that does not necessarily mean you're prejudiced or discriminatory. Once you (and others) have taken some Implicit Associations tests, it becomes something you do – a habit. This will assist you in creating a diverse workplace.

Integrating the knowledge Ways to mitigate implicit bias at decision points: Hiring Work relationships Policy (drafting, interpretation, implementation) Community engagement Customer service Personnel supervision Talk about panel interviews – pre-training received. Hiring is just one of many areas we can apply the mitigation of implicit bias… discuss how it folds into Competency based hiring. And pass over to Meg!

So How Do You Really DO It? Meg Safranek King County Human Resource Manager

So, What’s Next? How do we move from talking about it to making it a reality?

Think differently about recruiting Job/Position Descriptions Application Review Interview Processes

Competency Based Process A competency is the underlying characteristic of a person which enables him/her to deliver superior performance in a given role, job or situation.

Job Descriptions Replace education/experience objective barriers with competencies whenever possible Expands your pool of potential candidates

Example – Supervisor II - Roads

Screening Screen in vs Screen out Think about competencies as transferable skills Recognize value of non-work experience Broaden pool of screeners

Interviewing Behavioral based/Competency based interviewing Explore competencies & potential, rather than total focus on previous experience

The STAR approach S - Situation: Describe the situation that you were in or the task that you needed to accomplish. T – Task or Target: What were the specifics of what was required, when, where, who A – Action: What you did, skills used, behaviors, characteristics R – Results: Outcome, what happened?

But wait there’s more! Competencies can be used for-- Staff Development Performance Management Performance Appraisals

Ask your Panel/Open Discussion

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