If you ask a child if all people have an equal right to work, the answer is unambiguous. The reality of adults seems more complex, but is it?
Findings from The Hamilton Project and The Independent show that diversity in people's backgrounds creates more innovativeness and economic growth.
That economic growth comes from companies making more sales, a US study states that more diverse companies have 19% more sales growth compared to their less diverse counterparts. But there's a catch: enforced diversity can actually negatively impact the effectiveness of teams and even entire organizations. So just making a big shift in the workforce is not recommended; stimulating awareness, making it open for discussion and putting your money where your mouth is are recommended. Help with this balancing act is now available on the market in the form of training courses, consultants and software.
The field of 'diversity and inclusion' is on the rise, where inclusion means that diversity is embraced in the workplace. More and more research is being done in this area, also in the field of artificial intelligence. It is well known that artificial intelligence learns from the past and can copy past mistakes. It is also known that artificial intelligence has no values of its own, so it will not easily correct itself for 'undesirable' outcomes, such as a preference for male IT staff at Amazon. The computer science faculty at MIT in Boston is working on self-correcting algorithms; other research groups are looking for solutions to detect words that have a bias or could be perceived as such, for example in job advertisements. Prejudice can put some people off and therefore needs to be neutralized. It's hard to imagine missing out on the perfect candidate because you went a bit overboard when spicing up your text.
CorTexter focuses on the detection and neutralization of bias and applies the latest insights. This software is available in the 'bias-free vacancy tool' for recruiters and as a plugin for ATSs and thus makes the toolbox of recruiters bigger, the labour market fairer and innovation and economic growth increases.