Some of the UK’s largest employers have signed up for a new government initiative that aims to remove the danger of discrimination occurring during the application stage of the recruitment process.
Under the Business Compact, companies such as Barclays, Coca-Cola and Tesco have agreed to use application forms that will allow the candidates to omit their name or school details to ensure requirement is done “fairly and without discrimination.”
The agreement is part of Nick Clegg’s social mobility strategy to create a recruitment culture of “what you know, not who you know”.
The Deputy Prime Minster said the agreement marks the beginning of a shift in the recruitment culture among major UK employers. By signing up, they are agreeing to put drive and ability before privilege and connections and this should lead to a fairer and more open society.
More than 100 UK firms have already signed up and Clegg intends to write to another 50 of the largest firms asking them to agree to the Compact.
An employment law editor from XpertHR believes the Compact is a step in the right direction. Anonymous CVs will remove the risk that a candidate is passed over for interview simply because of his or her national/ethnic origins. However, it will not remove the conscious and unconscious discrimination that could take place when candidate and interviewer come face to face.
It sounds like a good idea in theory but will it work in practice? Is discrimination rife among recruitment professionals, and if it is, what should we be doing to combat it?
The news that David Cameron intends to streamline health and safety regulations will no doubt come as a welcome relief to a lot of UK employers.
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