By Alex Nikotina

Discrimination is not welcome in the workplace. It creates a bad organizational image, repels customers and business partners, and can result in legal action. Despite this, discrimination remains one of the most discussed topics in HR. Surprisingly, it can start with the first line of your resume—your name.

Discrimination and Implication
Legal action is the most serious implication for a company involved in discriminatory practices. Employers are legally prohibited from discrimination during the employment process and candidates are protected by Section 13 of the Human Rights Code. The code clearly states that an individual cannot be denied employment or discriminated against on the basis of race, colour, religion, family status, disability, sex or sexual orientation. Neglecting to adhere to these practices can result in a human rights complaint against the employer.

Even the rumour of discrimination can taint an organization’s image. With the rising influence of social media, just a couple of posts about a company’s malpractice can have far-reaching consequences: loss of sponsors, customers, and even potential employees, since the reputation of the organization is naturally investigated by candidates prior to submitting an application.

It is in the interest of employers and hiring managers to apply a strict set of guidelines for an interview, and do everything they can to ensure a fair and non-discriminatory hiring process.

Does Name-Based Discrimination Really Happen?
What’s in a name, you ask? Let’s find out.

A study by Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan (2003) revealed that individuals with English-sounding names are more likely to get a call-back for a job interview than applicants with less Caucasian names. The authors suggest that Emily and Greg are more employable than Lakisha and Jamal, even when they have similar qualifications for the job.

Even more telling is that higher qualifications on a resume for individuals with white-sounding names elicited a much higher increase in callbacks, as opposed to individuals with African American names (30 per cent increase for Anglo names, compared to 9 per cent increase for other applicants).

Since the publication of the above study, there have been several examples of applicants struggling to get a job in an English speaking country if their name sounded ‘exotic.’ For example, Colleen Rzucidlo from the USA confessed in 2009 that she believed her hard-to-pronounce last name negatively impacted her job search. In Australia, after multiple unsuccessful attempts to land an interview in 2011, a Sudanese man changed his last name to one more English-sounding, and received five callbacks from six applications. Even Canada, the country that claims to stand by diversity and multiculturalism, has a lower percentage of callbacks for individuals with ethnic-sounding names.

The conclusion that we can draw from these examples is that, unfortunately, name-based discrimination is still prevalent in the modern workplace.

Education Key to Change
This is not to say, of course, that hiring managers are consciously engaging in discriminatory practices; they may, in fact, be unaware of their decision making. For instance, as one hiring manager suggests, they may habitually infer that individuals with ethnic names may not have sufficient English skills for the job, or Caucasian recruiters may unconsciously be leaning towards more familiar, English-sounding names.

According to Tamara Reid, a human resources coordinator at Ashton College, this lack of awareness could be attributed to lack of education. “There have been many changes to society in the last 100 years, and even more so in the last decade or two. HR regulations and practices are created to reflect those changes. Many of the current practices value an organization’s diversity and focus on equal opportunity hiring. Human resources professionals should be aware of those regulations and the legal and social implications of breaking them. This is why education for HR staff is essential,” she shares.

A Clear Slate of Opportunity
Some organizations and individuals apply more creative methods to prevent hiring discrimination. For instance, in some cases HR professionals may take the name off a candidate’s resumes completely to ensure that they remain unbiased. Reid shared a story she heard when taking her HR management program:

“My instructor at the time was working with a manager who had a tendency to hire applicants with English names. To prevent this from happening, she encoded applicants’ names on their resume and cover letter so that she was the only one who knew the correct name. In this case, the manager had to base his judgement solely on the person’s experience and qualifications.”

The UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, recently announced that a similar practice will be adopted in Britain. The names of recent graduates will be hidden on their job applications for large UK companies starting in 2017 to prevent discrimination during hiring.

It is clear that HR professionals need to take care and recognize their own potential biases to avoid conscious and unconscious discrimination during the hiring process. A candidate’s personal and professional values should be assessed rather an inherited name.

Alex Nikotina is an online marketing assistant at Ashton College in Vancouver, BC. Originally from Russia, Alex loves to travel and experience new countries, having previously spent time in Japan before moving to Canada.