Kia Toipoto: Case Study Summaries
These case studies are featured in the Kia Toipoto resource on eliminating bias and discrimination in recruitment. For more case studies on this, see Expand recruitment reach, including, including with support and partnerships.
The Police: Taking an intersectional approach and being data-driven in diversifying recruitment
“Tāne Māori were being recruited above their population level, but wāhine Māori were not. Police rolled out the Puhikura campaign, developed by wāhine Māori for wāhine Māori. This campaign includes online advertising and specific events held in communities across the country.”
“Police collect diversity information at application, enabling a review of success rates of different groups at each stage of the recruitment process… Taking this approach, Police can show that the chance of an applicant being selected is no longer affected by gender or ethnicity. Police will continue to monitor for potential bias in the process. Since 2017, Police have been recruiting at levels never seen before even in the tight labour market, which has been achieved largely due to enlarging their potential pool of recruits to previously underrecruited groups.”
Statistics NZ: New templates and tools to relaunch recruitment
Stats NZ overhauled its recruitment processes with the help of a DiversityWorks audit, and made the following changes:
Redesigned application template: “Their existing job ad template focused a lot on the organisation and demanded a list of 'must-haves'. To make job advertisements more inclusive, the template was redesigned to focus on the candidate and to encourage people from all backgrounds to apply. Candidates were encouraged to include non-work information, transferable skills and experience, community involvement, or anything else they consider relevant.”
Redesigned the landing page for job applications to focus on inclusivity.
Implemented a new ‘Screening Matrix’ for hiring managers to help them make decisions that are free of bias.
Department of Internal Affairs: Focus on Pasifika recruitment and progression
They They identified that their Pacific people are clustered in lower-paying jobs and have a significantly lower average salary compared to other ethnic groups, and made the following changes:
Reviewed recruitment guides, flagging for managers where bias can affect decisions
Developed and ran locally relevant unconscious bias workshops for managers
Diversified places where jobs were advertised
Held face-to-face talanoa session with Auckland Pacific staff, leading to:
Physical changes to the interview room/ environment (e.g. using a round instead of a square table);
Offering interview questions to candidates pre-interview;
Option to start/finish the interview with karakia, prayer, or waiata;
For internal candidates who were not successful, offering them learning and training opportunities (e.g. shadowing and secondments);
A feedback template was created to help managers give meaningful feedback to unsuccessful applicants, including identifying potential development opportunities for internal applicants;
The creation of a successful Pacific Career Broker role focused on supporting progression and advising managers on better recruitment practices.