Culture eats Strategy for Breakfast; and Processes for Lunch and Dinner

The simple truth is that everybody is bias in some sort of way. This is not because we inherently want it to be that way, but the way we are brought up and the environment we are brought up in, gives us a certain perspective of the world. Our upbringing gives us certain values which we carry with us throughout our lives and we associate symbols with those values to identify whether or not somebody else cherishes the same kind of values. Biases in this sense are basically short-cuts to get to know somebody and what they represent. However, as with all things in life, taking short-cuts means involving risks. In this blog I will talk about the 6 most common recruitment biases and how they can affect your business negatively. In the conclusion you will find a link to how you can overcome these biases.  

Confirmation bias

The confirmation bias is the idea that you have a certain idea about a candidate and you are trying to look for hints which ‘confirm’ that idea, while (actively) ignoring signals which might disprove that idea. Often it is linked to a first impression which is either positive or negative and after that you try to confirm that impression by looking for clues which indicate that the impression was correct. This can either be a positive idea about the candidate or a negative idea about the candidate. Both instances can actually be hurtful to the recruitment. For instance, if you have a certain negative idea about the candidate, the confirmation bias makes it that the candidate can hardly prove him- or herself otherwise. This way you can overlook qualities and miss out on good candidates, just because you are looking for the wrong clues. But a positive confirmation bias is also not good. Unfortunately, this implies that you know something positive about the candidate and are looking for ways to confirm your suspicion, ignoring all clues which might prove you wrong. This way you might send the wrong candidate through to technical interviews, or even worse; you might up hiring the wrong candidate. Do you want to learn more about the confirmation bias? Watch this short video on confirmation bias.  

Heuristic bias

The heuristic bias is a fancy way of saying: ‘judging a book by its cover’. It has strong similarities with the confirmation bias as it is based upon first impressions. In contrary to the confirmation bias, it does not look for extra clues and remains just one set image, which often involves physical appearance. This has the advantage that it does not get reinforced the way the confirmation bias does (by looking for clues), but it has the disadvantage that it is quite difficult to overcome the set image you have of a candidate. German scientists have looked into it and questioned 127 HR professionals who often make decisions about recruitment and promotion. They basically gave them pictures of individuals and the outcome was that the test candidates continuously underestimated the prestige of obese individuals and overestimated the prestige of the normal-weight individuals. The test candidates in this sense quite literally judged the content of an individual by his or her appearance. Read more about their research here.  

Halo and Horn effect

The halo and horn effect is the idea that you attribute certain traits to a person based upon some traits that you already know. Quite simply put you see a person either in an entire positive light (as a saint with an halo) or in an entire negative light (as a sinner with horns) based upon a couple of known traits. In this sense you might see an attractive candidate and assume that they are also successful and competent as well. That is the halo effect. On the other hand, you might find out that a candidate has had a criminal record in the past, which might make you assume that they are unsuccessful and incompetent. That is the horns effect.  

Similarity attraction bias

The similarity attraction bias has no fancy name, but it is a very important bias to be aware of as I believe that a lot of recruiters make this mistake. Simply put, the similarity attraction bias makes you more bias towards persons who are similar to you and your colleagues. This leads to more candidates further down the pipeline which are similar to the people that already work at the company. Now you might be thinking: well, what is the big deal? I need people who are similar because they work better together. Well, that myth has been debunked and it turns out, if you are looking to build quality teams, then you need to be aiming for diversity. That is why the similarity attraction bias is quite dangerous. Do you want to find out more common myths about the perfect workplace?

Conformity bias

Conformity bias is quite an interesting one and often happens when recruitment processes are hiring in teams. Firstly, I want to point out that every company should hire in teams. Why? Secondly, there are some dangers with hiring in teams as well, and the conformity bias is one of them. Basically, it revolves around the idea of peer pressure and that people suppress their true opinion about a candidate to conform to the general opinion of the panel. This often happens in groups which are too large for effective hiring (another lesson that Google teaches us: the magical number for hiring teams is four persons). It is important to address and apprehend this bias as each and every team member might prove to have crucial information as to why or why not you should hire a candidate. You need to be aware of these insights and not have them be suppressed just because everybody likes to adhere to the opinion of the team.  

Expectation anchor

Expectation anchor is the idea that you have first impression of a candidate or a first piece of information a candidate, and that you basically make decisions based upon those first impression or first piece of information. The idea is that we have a very difficult time to shake our idea of somebody once a first impression or idea is established and that we will make decisions based upon those impressions and ideas accordingly. It is very hard to sway somebody and their future actions from that first impression or piece of information, and can often lead to hasty and wrong decisions.  

In conclusion

Firstly, I would say that a lot of these biases overlap in terms of definitions and effects. The expectation anchor for example, is more or less intertwined with the halo effect. Secondly, I would argue that a lot of recruiters are unaware of their own biases and how to overcome them. I myself even find it hard to critically reflect on how I base my decisions and if they are bias-free, but there are solutions to solve these biases. Want to find out more? Get in touch with us and see how we can get your recruitment process bias-free, starting tomorrow.  

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AI is a broad term of all forms of demonstrated intelligence by machines. It encapsulates everything from simple customer-service queries to sophisticated deep learning networks. It has been around since the 1940’s and has become a real hype in the last ten to twenty years. The problem with AI is, is that it is something like the internet in the 1980’s: everybody is talking about it, little people actually know what they are talking about, and even less people are getting business value out of it. Today we find AI in: self-driving cars, chat-bots answering questions, email spam filters and more. In this blog I will try and make an attempt to belong to the second category and show you where AI stands right now in HR and where I believe it will go to.  

Firstly, let’s start off with a quick note for sceptics towards AI and their idea that robots will take over the world, as Hollywood shows us in movies like ‘I, Robot’, ‘Terminator’, and ‘The Matrix’. Experts themselves have no idea when we can achieve Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), as in the movie robots, and are guessing somewhere near the end of this century or even after that. Furthermore, they argue that it is simply impossible for us to create beings which think like us because of one simple reason: we know very little our own brain. In other words; we almost know nothing about our brains, let alone reproducing them. Now that’s out of the way, let’s see where we are today in HR.  

Where we are today

Today AI is being used within HR on a limited scale, let’s start of by looking at recruitment. There are already algorithms who help recruiters source the right candidates and there are also applications which can scan resumes and search for certain key words and sentences indicating that he or she has the right profile. Another feature of AI which is currently being used is in the first stages of contact with a candidate. You can think of automated messaging, scheduling interviews, providing ongoing feedback about the recruitment process and answering their questions in a chat function. The main idea behind these simple tasks is to reduce bias and save recruiters time which they can spend on more important tasks, such as: assessing cultural fit, holding technical interviews and finding qualified referrals.  

AI is also being used within HR as a chatbot for general HR-related inquiries (such as Una from Unilever). These bots function as first-line HR support for all your employees. Another interesting development is the use of VR (Virtual Reality) within HR. It is being used to simulate real-life scenarios and test, measure and improve behaviour. VR is and will be an integral part of training for real-life situations and how your employees will handle them. The idea behind these developments is to, yet again, relieve your HR employees from simple tasks, assignments, and recorded training sessions and let them focus on the harder tasks, such as talent development and culture building.

Finally, there are also early signs of applications which analyse the data and computer activity of employees to predict who is thinking about leaving the company and when. The idea behind it is that with big data analysis you can see which digital office behaviour indicates that somebody is thinking about quitting the company. This will allow your HR employees to take up contact with the individual to see if there is anything that can be done to change the individuals mind or if you need to think about a mutual agreement on ending the employment and start looking for a replacement. In this sense it is important because these early signs can let you be ahead of the curve so you can have a smooth transition from one employee leaving and a new one taking his or her place.  

Want to find more on where AI stands in HR today? Have a look at this article from the HR Exchange Network.  

Where we will go in the future

In the short term the abovementioned methods will become more sophisticated. So automated sourcing, resume scanning, messaging, chatbots, VR training and employee data analysis will be able to direct you towards more specific answers. We all know the frustration of a chatbot which just keeps you sending to the same general page on the topic from the FAQ, while the info you really need is somewhere else. Just as anything in real life, that on its own will take time. The AI will need time learning from the input that we give it.  

More interestingly, I believe that AI will also have a place in face-to-face contact with the first interviews. I think that companies like Future Robotics will also introduce their life-like customer service robots in the realm of HR. This can be via a digital setup or even in person. The robot will deal with the basic questions which get asked in a first interview. Algorithms will then analyse the answers given to see which candidate made the best first impression. Additionally, I also think that VR sessions can be used to test candidates on their capabilities into handling different situations. The upside here is that it takes out all personal bias from a recruiter’s perspective towards the candidate.  

Another thing that AI will bring HR is new jobs. Up until now I have only described AI as a possibility of downsizing activities and how it might replace jobs in the future. On the other hand, it opens up opportunities for HR to be a real tool to increase the productivity of your company. The future of HR will be more focussed towards behaviour, culture, ethics and values and how these can be pointed in the direction which makes sense for your business. Those areas of focus are, not unimportantly, also the main reasons of motivation on how you motivate somebody to JOIN and STAY in your company, so therefore it should be the main focus of your HR department.  

Want to find out more about present and upcoming trends of AI in HR? Have a look at this article from Forbes.  

In conclusion

For now, I am not ready to board the hype train about scientific robots who think and act like humans. I do think however that AI will clear up routine tasks for us which will leave us in HR time to deal with more important issues, such as creating the right culture, stimulating and describing right behaviour and increasing productivity. Do you not want to wait ten to twenty years until AI clears up your HR department’s time for these issues? Contact us and see how we can help you to develop the right culture, motivate right behaviour and increase productivity.

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Times are changing, not the products, not the machines, but our human capital is our unique selling point. So why then is the most important function in a company not occupied by a HR-professional?

In this blog I want to open a new discussion. The highest functions in companies are often occupied with professionals who often have their specialization in a certain occupation, these are often specialities in: sales, productivity, the product itself, and sometimes even finances.

However, it is very rare that we see an HR professional on the highest seat of a company (read: never). Why is that? I would argue that HR has the most important role in a company in the 21st century and therefore it only seems natural that somebody with HR-affinity holds the highest office.  

The highest office – a brief history

Historically the highest functions in previous societies were either ranked by ‘birth right’ or age. A prince was born to be a king and a farmer’s son was born to be a farmer. Additionally, the elder brother (because in those times we are not even talking about equality between genders) often held the highest regard in the family.

When we transformed from a feudal society to a capitalist society our order of who holds the highest function and why also changed. Birth right and age made place for private property and capital. In the beginning of our capitalist society, it was the people who were most skilled in their profession (artisans, craftsmen and guildsmen) who held the highest offices in their organizations.

With the industrial revolution in full force, these professionals had to make place for the people who knew most about machines and production. After the second world war these mass-producing professionals had to make place for productivity professionals. Average output and efficiency became the drive of many companies to outperform the competition.

Shortly thereafter the golden age of capitalism required professionals who knew how to handle flows of money. The highest occupation became related to financial specialization. Fast forwarding to current day, the highest office is often related to specialization in terms of sales, productivity, the product itself or finance. CEO positions are, more often than not, occupied by somebody who has a technical skill.

What is important?

Let’s do a recap, what have we had so far; we picked our leaders based upon: birth right, age, artisanry, skills related to production, productivity, finance, sales and the product itself. Are we missing something? Well, I believe we do.

Now in the 21st century human capital seems to be the most important asset for most companies. The people who walk in our hallways, sell and produce our products, facilitate finance, logistics and purchasing, it’s the people who are the beating heart of an organisation. They are our unique selling points. That has not gone unnoticed. More and more companies are busy trying to retain and develop their talent, and more and more companies are started to provide the means of doing so. Especially in niche industries, any industry remotely dealing with software and industries which require specific skills (I think this captures our entire economy), employers know how important it is to retain and develop their talent.

From this I can only conclude one thing, the most important focus of our companies now should be the people working in them. This means that we need leaders and CEO’s who not only understand HR, but who are also proficient in the HR world.

Shifting focus

Why would you go through the trouble of finding a CEO who has a focus on HR? Why do we require such emphasis? Well, because every time before us also required change and new ideas based upon what was important at that time. Now we entered the era wherein the most important part of our company is based on our people and their, often irreplaceable, talents. Society is focussed on letting each and everybody develop their talent to maximise our output. Schools, universities, training centres, they all know the importance of a development focussed approach. Therefore, it is time that companies adopt the same focus, which requires the same type of leaders.

It is therefore important that our future CEOs not just understand a recruitment process, but that they are able to build up an entire talent acquisition strategy. That they are not only able to see the value of teambuilding exercises, but that they understand how to shape and create cultural change. That they are not only concerned with training their employees to stay up to date with technologies, but that they can shape trajectory and development plans to provide opportunities for growth.

In short, it does not suffice anymore that our leaders know and do the basics. It is time that HR takes its rightful place in the centre of a company whose main unique selling point is its people. It is time that we accept that the centre stage of our time belongs to HR and development, but that also means that it is time for our HR professionals to step up to the plate. It is not enough to stand in line and to ‘offer service when asked’, HR departments need to transform themselves from administrators to proactive managers.

We need to find value which we can contribute to our employers. Find cultural problems and solve them, develop training and development strategies and empower our co-workers to be co-champions. It is only by doing so that HR will be lifted to strategic importance and that we get leaders who understand and are proficient in the realm of HR.

In conclusion

For me it is only clear that the next generation of new leaders has a background in HR. We are broadly agreeing that our human capital is in the widest sense the most important aspect of our company. We are recruiting, coaching, training and developing our employees, but to truly stand out for our employees, HR needs to be lifted to strategic importance. Therefore, I believe that we need leaders who understand this importance and have the capabilities to do so.

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