Redesigning how we work: A case study on hiring
Late last year (2020), the QuakeLab team grew rapidly. This meant I was simultaneously integrating team members into the organization at the same time that I was refining, designing and implementing the QuakeLab Method.
Our team knows firsthand how difficult it is to create equitable organizational structures. When we ask our clients to engage in this process, we recognize how difficult it is because we have had to construct these processes ourselves, and we continue to do so.
It has taken a while for me to put pen to paper on this last part of the QuakeLab Method series because I had a choice. I could go the way of the high horse, and pretend I ran this process perfectly. Or, I could be honest, messy, and hang our dirty laundry.
If the QuakeLab team ran an audit on our recruitment process in January 2021, they’d find:
Little to no documentation - meaning everything was ad hoc and difficult to replicate or hold anyone accountable
An unwritten process that grew out of crisis. We needed people, and we needed them fast
Systems and structures that were either missing or lived completely in one person’s brain
Our experience is likely shared by most start ups, small businesses and large organizations who have not invested in building a strong and equitable recruitment process.
That is why we built the QuakeLab Inclusive Recruitment Guide.
Not having a roadmap in a moment of urgent need meant that we fell back on what we as an organization needed rather than what the human beings who we were looking for needed from our organization. QuakeLab’s greatest resource is the intelligence, creativity, expertise, critical thinking and empathy that every one of our team members brings to the table. I guarantee, that is also your organization’s greatest resource. So, your team’s entry needs to be peppered with two simple concepts.
1. Autonomy is critical for equity
When you are recruiting, interviewing and making offers you must understand that you are not the only one making a decision. The power dynamics in a recruitment process are skewed in your favour as the recruiter, which means you need to be actively working to ensure every candidate has as much information as possible to make an informed decision.
Consider this, during the recruitment process, you ask candidates for an extensive and curated breakdown of their education, work experience and skill. You ask that they give you up to three references who validate the information they’ve shared. You ask that they perform free labour by writing tests, give samples of their work etc. You ask that they take time out of their day, possibly pay for child care and transport, to speak to you within your timeline. You demand all of this because you want to ensure you have all the information you need to make the right call.
Don’t candidates deserve the same level of information?
Candidates deserve to know the environment they are coming into, who they are working with, and what their managers or supervisors leadership style is. They should have information about what your organization is doing well, not so well, and any controversies or conflicts that exist. Finally, and this is non negotiable, they deserve to know the monetary and non monetary compensation they are signing up for.
This is all with the understanding that it is inherently inequitable to lean into power dynamics that rob candidates of the necessary details to make an informed decision about where they are going to be investing their time, labour and expertise.
2. Justice is part of recruitment, whether you acknowledge it or not
This is neither radical nor controversial; the model of paying a person for their labour will never be equitable. There is no price high enough to properly compensate a person for the profit they will make for your company or organization, whether that is measured in dollars and cents or successful grant applications. Integrating justice into the recruitment process is particularly important when you are considering hiring folks from marginalized communities who:
Are underrepresented and undercompensated
Face systemic oppression that makes them more likely to live in poverty and have no generational wealth
Are more likely to be responsible for loved ones (financially and otherwise)
Are part of communities who have been oppressed and disenfranchised for the benefit of your business, industry and work.
Once you have this knowledge as a pillar of your recruitment process, you will need to embed justice into your recruitment process. What does that look like in practice?
Running an environmental scan to understand which communities in your ecosystem have been silenced and underrepresented. With this information, you can explicitly state who you are prioritizing for your recruitment. This will allow you to build long term relationships with the communities you’re prioritizing instead of just reaching out to them when you need candidates.
Release yourself from this idea that by prioritizing marginalized candidates, you are choosing diversity over skill and expertise. Not only does this idea perpetuate a dangerous myth that the most qualified and skilled candidates are white by default, it is also just plain wrong. Women of colour are the most educated population in Canada (StatsCan ethnic- and gender-based analysis of the 2011 National Household Survey.), yet they are the most underrepresented and undercompensated in the job market.
Incorporate social determinants into your analysis about who you hire, how you compensate them, and the benefits you offer. For instance, Millennials have the highest debt to after-tax ratio among generations measured at any point in their life course. So including debt relief programs and student debt payment into your non monetary compensation is necessary.
Every single member of your organization should be obligated to intimately understand the ways in which marginalized populations are kept from being beneficiaries of your work and being part of your organization. Unless you bring in a staff member whose mandate is clearly, and explicitly focused on equity, any new staff member who is from a marginalized community should not under any circumstances bear the sole responsibility of identifying and reducing barriers in your organization. If you continuously have conversations about bringing in marginalized folks to “bring a different perspective”, include that in your job ad and in their compensation. If you are not asking that of all your staff, it is unethical to be asking new marginalized people to do that work for free.
Building equity into recruitment is important! Recruitment that is equitable means everyone, including folks who look like you, will have a better chance of illustrating their talents, their skills and their contributions. But we must also acknowledge that where there is smoke, there is fire. If there are barriers to access and discriminatory policies, procedures and practices within your recruitment process, they probably also exist in the ways your organization functions. Identify those challenges, solve for them, and communicate them in your job ads and interviews.
If you’re looking for a clear road map on how to build inclusion and equity into your recruitment process, check out QuakeLab’s Inclusive Recruitment Guide. This guide is meant to give you a practical breakdown of every part of a traditional recruitment process. Not every aspect may be relevant to you, so you can work with the guide to integrate the guides tools and methods in the way that makes sense to you.