Facebook Is Looking Into Systemic Bias in Recruiting

Apr, 2021 - By SMI

Facebook has made a public commitment to combat racism, but there are concerns that this commitment isn't being reflected in its hiring practices.

Systematic bias in companies is giving preference to the white people and suppressing the other communities working in the work place. Recently Facebook has publically announced that it will be investigating into the systematic bias which takes place in the company and take action against it. However, the policy doesn’t seem to be implemented well on the recruitment procedure of the company. So, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is looking into allegations of "systemic" bias in Facebook's recruiting and promotion practices. The EEOC officers took each and every case of the company and evaluated it critically. While the EEOC denied to confirm any formal action against the company once enough evidence was found, Facebook also passed a statement that they will take discriminatory accusations seriously and they will also investigate from their end.

The commission caught one such hiring policy of the company in which systematic racism was being followed. In the policy if the referred candidate gets employed then the employee who referred will get bonus. It was found that even after this policy in the company white people were getting more preference in the employment opportunities.

This was not the first time that the hiring policies came under fire as in 2017, also many executives working in the company claimed that there were culturally favored hiring process in the company. Many employees accused the company of creating biased policies at the time of recruitment and incentives, which were based on their culture and from where they have completed their education. At that time Facebook maintained the diversity in the company but the company was not providing incentives solely on the basis of the employee’s work, there were bias in who was to get the incentive.