Government Operations Committee on April 19th, 2018

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Okay. So the same candidates were run through the parallel process and there was a lower screen-in rate. That is definitely an interesting outcome.

Minister Brison, either at this committee or another committee, had talked about the name-blind hiring process. He had pointed to information from other jurisdictions where name-blind hiring had a salutary effect on the hiring of candidates from visible minority groups. Do you guys have any sense as to why this pilot program didn't produce comparable results? Do you think that this is a strong counter-example to other research out there or that this doesn't really speak to the authority of research done in other jurisdictions?

[Stan Lee]

That's a terrific question. In fact, when we looked at the research, we saw a mixed bag of results. Sometimes you see a beneficial effect. In other instances you'll actually see an adverse effect. There is a paucity of research as well. We looked at maybe 10 to 12 serious studies on the issue. That's not many.

What we can say is that so far, researchers are pointing to two things. One is that whether you see positive or negative effects will depend largely on the organizational context. That is, is there systemic discrimination currently in the system? If there is systemic discrimination, in all studies you tend to see a positive effect with anonymized recruitment.

The other one is whether or not you have positive policies in place. If you have positive policies in place and you hide information as to the employment equity, it prevents the application of these positive policies. That's when you'll see a decrease of the effect.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

I think that speaks to my next question. On the one hand, some of the arguments for a name-blind or anonymous hiring process come from the point of view of wanting to reduce discrimination in the hiring process. There's also a positive argument. If we say we want to foster a more meritocratic hiring environment, then we want to remove things that are not based on performance and see people go through.

I'm just wondering if there isn't a positive argument for anonymous hiring based on trying to leave out factors that aren't related to performance, and then how that interacts with any programs or principles that would have to do with purposely trying to hire equity-seeking candidates. Do you have policies in place? Have you looked at how you weigh those different values against each other in the hiring process?

[Patrick Borbey]

The Employment Equity Act provides a certain number of tools that managers can apply to the hiring process when they're trying to, as you say, effect positive change. There are some departments, and some parts of departments, that are struggling with representation, including of women. For example, one of the areas we're concerned about is women in technology. Through our post-secondary recruitment campaign this year, we gave preference to first consideration of candidates who self-declared as women when we were referring for new positions, because we know we have a significant shortage there: 25% of our computer scientists in the government are women. To try to bridge that gap, we can use the Employment Equity Act to bridge some of those measures.

Again, on the other hand, there are some organizations that probably could benefit from using name-blinding, because at the end of the day, when they look at their representation, there's clearly a problem; there's an issue. Even when we looked at some countries where name-blinding seemed to be positive in terms of its impact, these were countries where there was a significant amount of systemic discrimination against the group that was being targeted.

In terms of where it didn't work, as Stan was saying.... For example, in Australia, when they were looking at the impact on the hiring of women, there was the opposite effect. In fact, managers were actually predisposed to giving consideration to women in the screening decision, and anonymizing did actually have a detrimental impact on that.

These are all the factors that we have to look at, and I think case by case we have to determine whether using this technique is the right approach to address whatever circumstances may exist in a particular organization.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you. Your time is up.

We'll have Mr. Peterson for seven minutes.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, everyone, for being with us once again.

I want to take a higher look at this. Before the name-blind process, the department was clearly committed to the goals of diversity and inclusion. A number of tools were already in place, including universal design and employment equity programs. I want to focus on the training to avoid bias during selection processes.

So there's already training built into the system. Can someone briefly explain to me what the nature of that training is?

[Stan Lee]

The training around diversity and inclusion is training for hiring managers to find a way to put aside their biases. Part of that includes concrete things like ensuring that you have what we call an “inclusive selection” committee. By having visible minorities sit on the selection committee, for example, you'll actually work through the various selection criteria together, collectively. That's one example.

Another example is allowing for what we'll call cultural sensitivity. Some hiring managers may not be aware that looking someone in the eye may be considered offensive in some cultures. We try to get hiring managers to make abstraction of that and to focus on the answers that are provided by the candidate.

These are examples.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Looking at the results of the study and what existed before, can the inference be drawn that the tools already in place were adequate to achieve the goal that a name-blind process also achieves? Is that a correct inference, or is there not enough data to make that inference?

[Patrick Borbey]

I don't think we can conclude that the tools we have, the approaches we have, are sufficient. We're constantly testing new approaches, seeing what works and what doesn't work.

We've also been in consultation with the employee groups that represent visible minorities, indigenous people, and persons with disabilities, and they have a number of recommendations that they've directed at us in terms of how our systems or processes can be further improved. For example, we listened to some pretty substantial feedback on how accommodation requirements were addressed at the recruitment stage and we were able to see that our processes were actually acting as barriers. Last year we did a “lean” exercise where we reviewed our accommodation approach, and we reduced about half of the steps. As a result, we were able to assess candidates for post-secondary recruitment who declared that they needed an accommodation, at the same time as we assessed other candidates.

There's an example of continuous improvement. We're not claiming that we're perfect.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

No, no; it's just another tool.

We know you report to Parliament. If Parliament asks you whether PSC's hiring practices are bias-free, are you able to give an answer to that question?

[Patrick Borbey]

Under the Public Service Employment Act, absolutely that is what we have to pursue—bias-free selection processes according to merit, non-partisan principles, and all of the principles associated with the act. That is what our mandate is. Are we there? Do we do it on a consistent basis across the system, which is talking about 200,000 employees across more than 80 organizations? No, we're not perfect. That's why we want to continue to improve. That is also the reason we said we're going to do an audit now to see what else we can find out about what's going on and how these various groups are affected through the recruitment process.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

On that audit framework that I think you said is being designed right now, we're not in a position to know exactly when—

[Patrick Borbey]

Yes. It will take about a year after we complete the design. Probably in late spring of next year we'll be able to report on the findings.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you for that.

Were there any shortcomings or limits to this test itself? The participants knew they were participating. They were voluntarily participating. Could this skew the results? Is there any way to test that? If there is, I assume it has been tested.

[Patrick Borbey]

We acknowledged the limitations. Our methodology was reviewed by three outside experts, and the results were also reviewed. They confirmed that these are the limitations. However, in our study, we also addressed some of the limitations of other projects previously. I mentioned, for example, using real processes, real candidates, real applications, rather than fictitious ones, in some cases, where it was just a paper exercise. We've gone beyond some of the limitations, but there are still some limitations in terms of our methodology.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Okay. You were initially calling it the name-blind pilot project, and then you changed it for the obvious reasons. Did the scope of the pilot project change when you got under way? Were all these features, such as name, address, languages spoken, and all that, already meant to be excluded, or was it a process as you were working through it?

[Patrick Borbey]

In some of the previous research projects or experiments that were done elsewhere, only a certain number of fields of information were removed. We felt that it still allowed the assessor, the hiring manager, to guess or find out the origin of the individual. That's why we went a bit further. We looked at all the different factors and we decided to anonymize all of the information. In the example of the CV and application at the back of the research study, you can see how much of the information is blacked out as a result.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Right.

How is my time, Madam Chair?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

You have one minute.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Perfect.

Some of the characteristics, if we can call them personal characteristics, are perhaps key competencies of the role. How do you factor for that when you're doing these?

[Patrick Borbey]

That's a very good question, and we struggled a little with this. For example, if somebody went to Harvard University, one might say, well, that's probably a feature that we would like to encourage in terms of staffing. However, because you went to Harvard University does not mean that you are a white person. You could be a visible minority. You could be from another country and you just happened to attend the university. At the end of the day, we had to take out that information in order to be fair, because again, if somebody has a diploma from a university in another country, where typically they might guess that this is a person who is a visible minority, obviously that becomes a factor in the decision, so we had to apply that element universally.

In the future, when we have technology that allows electronic screening, the fact that you have a master's degree in biology should be all that counts.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

We will now go to the five-minute round.

Mr. McCauley will be sharing his time with Mr. Blaikie.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thank you.

I have a question, Mr. Borbey. When you were answering either Mr. Peterson or Mr. Blaikie, you talked about problems or circumstances that might exist. How are you determining circumstances that might exist when you don't know they exist?

I appreciate what you're trying to do here, but the results are very clear that the government is doing a very good job. I'll give you compliments, but it almost looks like this was $186,000 of taxpayers' money just to prove the government is doing a good job. We've discussed it already. It almost looks like some of this project is searching for a problem that doesn't exist. It's almost like you're trying to prove something exists that may not.

I'm wondering if the focus should instead be more on known hiring problems we might have as opposed to looking for circumstances that might exist.

[Patrick Borbey]

I'm not sure, Madam Chair, what the question is. I mean, I'm referring to the fact that—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Well, it looks like a solution looking for a problem. Again, the government has done a great job, and I compliment you. The current government and the previous administration did a very good job of hiring for the target equity groups. We've heard that the project shows that there is no real issue, so it looks like you are continuing to try to find a problem that may not exist. I just wonder if that is the best use of your resources or your best focus.