How to Address Implicit Bias in Nonprofit Hiring: Tips to Distinguish Between Culture Fit and Bias
Culture fit is often used to disguise bias. This blog post by Dr. Joanna Shoffner Scott offers one way to know the difference between culture fit and bias in hiring.
Culture fit versus Implicit Bias
Every so often while scrolling LinkedIn, the following question - “is culture fit a real thing?” will pop up in my feed.
Sometimes, I agree with the responses offered. Sometimes not. But, culture fit is real. I’ll explore it more here (hopefully), adding nuance to the conversation. In a prior blog post, called Nonprofit Execs, Are You Constantly Losing Staff of Color? I wrote about how nonprofits get stuck in a repeat cycle of hiring that often undermines their diversity aspirations and perpetuates whiteness as a systemic feature of their organizations.
When I talk about whiteness (as a system) in nonprofits, I am referring to existing norms that value “ways of thinking, behaving, deciding, and knowing – ways that are more familiar and come more naturally to those from a White, western tradition – while devaluing or rendering invisible other ways."
This tendency is real in many nonprofits and other organizations, too.
In that blog, I offered three steps nonprofits can take to create (and implement) an equitable hiring process.
Let's Unpack Organizational Culture
Organizational culture refers to the norms, values, and expectations of your nonprofit's operations. Culture is a powerful force in organizations. Every organization has a culture that is unique and specific. Once established, it's hard to change an organization's culture.
Change at this level is not organic and only happens with great intentionality.
Many times, newly hired executives struggle because they inherit a culture that was there long before they were hired, and it is baked in.
Too often, cultural norms and expectations don’t work for every applicant -- for example, heightened social activity, personal sharing expectations, working “like a family”, or an absence of work boundaries.
Hence, these very true words from reality television icon Nene Leakes:
The Link Between Culture and Your Hiring Process
Your nonprofit’s norms appear throughout the hiring process. They are reflected in the job description, the interview process, and the candidate selection process. Undefined words, like “professional,” “effective,” and “efficient,” can become weapons against those who present authentically but in ways that don’t align with the cultural footprint of the organization. To me, these terms can be race-coded.
People ask me, “Well, what is wrong with asking staff to be professional?”
My response is always, “By whose standards? Who defines what professional means? In my experience as a Black woman working in White spaces, these words mean showing up to work in a certain way, which is rarely objective. Do you know where I see this language most? Employee handbooks and job descriptions.
Now, I ask a critical question for HR Directors:
How do you know when the reason for not hiring someone is truly the candidate is "not a culture fit" and when it is implicit or other forms of bias?
Drumroll, please.
If you can document it.
When clients hire me to help them build an equitable hiring process, one of the first tasks I ask them to do is to describe their organizational culture. I encourage HR Directors (and others who hire) to write it down and be specific. The description of a nonprofit’s culture should be measurable, meaning someone can aspire to it.
For example, Organization X is a fast-moving organization, and you will be asked to juggle several pieces of work simultaneously.
Or…
Organization Y is an organization of people who are unapologetically ourselves -- we are outspoken, care about helping people, and are loud and talented.
If you can’t articulate the culture and the rejection of a candidate is based on hunches, feelings, and vibes, then I would think hard about what norms you are attempting to sustain through the hire.
(Whispers: sameness). Without clarity, “culture fit” is a hazy concept and is a hiding place for bias.
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