Give a Fair Chance to Job Candidates with Criminal Records

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A short article from the Harvard Business Review.

Don’t reject an applicant based on their criminal record alone.

Give a Fair Chance to Job Candidates with Criminal Records

One way to make good on your company’s commitment to improve its diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts is to implement a “fair-chance hiring” initiative. These programs grant everyone, regardless of criminal background, an opportunity to be fairly assessed for a given role: You only examine the candidate’s criminal record after the person has been interviewed and is considered qualified. To start a fair-chance hiring program at your company, coordinate with your leadership team, human resources, and legal department to make sure everyone is on the same page about the mission, and how you’ll implement the initiative. Then connect with local partners to identify talent. Look for community-based organizations that focus on workforce development for reentry. Conduct skills-based interviews with candidates, and focus on their transferable skills, potential, and willingness to learn rather than their work experience (or lack of it). Finally, when the time comes, assess candidates’ records by considering what they were convicted for, how long it’s been since the offense, and the nature of the job that they’re applying for. Giving everyone a fair shake is an important step in building a more equitable workplace — and society.

 

This tip is adapted from “Give Job Applicants with Criminal Records a Fair Chance,” by Margie Lee-Johnson

 

Make Better Group Decisions

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As your business grows, more team members will be involved in the decision making process.  From the Harvard Business Review, here is a short article on how to best use the different personalities and talents on your team to get the best results.

 

Make Better Group Decisions

When you have a tough business problem to solve, you probably bring it to a group. But there are risks to asking a team to collectively make decisions — namely, groupthink. Fortunately, there are behavioral science-based tactics that can help overcome the downsides. First, keep the group as small as possible. Having more voices in the room increases the likelihood that you’ll default to decisions that enforce the status quo. Next, make sure your group is diverse — in every sense of the word — in order to reduce bias. Try appointing a “devil’s advocate,” a person whose job is to test consensus. Watch out for blind trust in experts: While they can help you become more informed, making them part of your decision-making can sway your team’s judgments. So you might invite them to provide their opinion on a clearly defined topic, but position them as informed outsiders. And finally, make sure that the group shares collective responsibility. Everyone should feel accountable for the decision and its outcomes.

 

This tip is adapted from “7 Strategies for Better Group Decision-Making,” by Torben Emmerling and Duncan Rooders