question 1

You are assessing the performance of a Regional Operations Manager, Thomas. Thomas (and the

Regional Financial Manager, Roger) has a high staff turnover in his section, so he is frequently engaged in recruitment, especially for clerical personnel who look after product ordering. He usually conducts the interviews together with Roger, and the successful students are channeled to operations or finance according to their skills and current openings. The quality of the students employed by this process has been, in general, very good and this is partially responsible for the high turnover as these staffs tend to move on to other sections or locations. Unfortunately, both Thom and Roger have continuously failed to make their workplace diversity targets and there has been some grumbling about their unorthodox interviewing techniques. The regional personnel manager, Julia, has reported that Thomas and Roger usually start an interview asking applicants what rugby team they support and what they think about the latest test cricket match. Thomas says that this is just his way of getting students away from the standard, practiced interview responses – he doesn’t care which team they follow. Nevertheless, Julia is concerned that there might be gender, cultural and racial bias in this interview approach. Note your answers to the following questions below.

1. Bearing in mind national and state anti-discrimination, diversity and equal opportunity legislation, is there a problem with this interview technique?

2. Is there another approach to managing the recruitment interview process that you would recommend for Thomas and Roger?

question 2

Your performance assessment process is being assessed by your regional HR manager. She tells you that your last three years’ performance assessments have consistently ranked female employees as having lower performance than their male counterparts in the same jobs. This has resulted in a drift in relative salaries, to the point where, on a job-by-job basis, there are now no female employees paid as much as the lowest-paid male employee and that this is an indicator of strong gender bias. You respond that you have assessed performance systematically on evidence gathered from agreed KPIs and that any apparent gender bias arises coincidentally from the fact that your female employees are simply not performing up to the same level as the male employees. She replies that the KPIs themselves might be inducing bias. Discuss whether statistical analysis of performance that indicates potential gender bias is a reliable indicator of true bias, bearing in mind national and state anti-discrimination, diversity and equal opportunity legislation