This post originally appeared on Forbes on June 20, 2020.
LinkedIn News recently reported that the traditionally male-dominated fields of entertainment, finance and technology have lost some of the ground they have made in creating a more gender-balanced workforce. That same report states that the percentage of female hires has dropped from 46.94% before Covid-19 to 44.86% after Covid-19. This begs the question: why is this percentage dropping?
Many hiring managers believe they arrive at their decisions via reasoned and balanced consideration. “He was the best person for the job.” “Competition was tight, but he rose to the top.” Yet even the most seasoned executive can fall prey to making poor decisions because they were simply following intuition instead of logic. While intuition can be impressively accurate in some, it can also be marvellously flawed in others. Following intuition does not inherently mean somebody is consciously making hiring decisions based on gender. However, even those lucky enough to be blessed with good intuition can still fall prey to common decision-making biases. The addition of a pandemic only exacerbates this flawed reasoning. Hiring biases are well-discussed, but there are three in particular that Covid-19 amplifies the effects of. Read the rest on Forbes.