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This week’s reports have focused on interrupting workplace bias.  According to Harvard Business Review, hiring and maintaining a diverse workforce comes with many proven benefits.  To get an inclusive staff you must start with hiring.  Here are two ways to adjust your practices.

• Limit referral hiring.  Hiring from within or from employee’s social networks can perpetuate homogeneity. Instead, actively seek relationships with historically black colleges, Latino-serving institutions and industry organizations focused on people of color and women.  
• Use skills-based interview questions.  Give candidates a problem to solve. Or present a relevant task and ask them to describe how they’ve managed similar tasks in the past. 

Some previous recruitment and hiring “best practices” have actually resulted in less diversity.  To interrupt the impact of implicit bias, develop an un-ending willingness to learn and adjust what you do.

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