Tangible Progress in Topic 4?

Improvements

As I am given formal feedback on my blogs, I thought I’d see if I addressed these in this weeks edition.

Here are a few points I have been given in criticism of my previous blogs:

Poor grammar, No Links to Images, Improved structure of blog, No clear ending to blog.

I obviously tried to address these, with proof reading of my blog to check for grammactical errors. I linked my images and used licence free images. I also used sub-titles and tried to clear up the structure of my blog also. With a less ‘open-ended’ ending to my blog.

Thoughts on my blog

My blog – on discrimination, has made me wonder whether the fact I am a white male, has helped or hindered me in applications and in professional circles? It also has made me think: Do I really want people to know my thoughts, opinions jobs ect.? Will this affect me in the future when applying to jobs?

Also, it has made me question my unconcious… When put in a situation of hiring, I cannot say I wouldn’t use the unconcious bias as described in the blog.

Thoughts on other blogs

https://holliekinch.wordpress.com/2015/11/16/online-privacy-is-still-important/

I thought she raised good points and importantly – different points. So it was good to see different ethical issues in business raised.

https://bryonykeen.wordpress.com/2015/11/21/i-spy-with-my-little-eye-everything-about-you-online/#comments

I liked the link between last weeks blog and to see progression with the topic of privacy and how it related to the workplace.

image source:
http://media.photobucket.com/user/mani_sos3xy/media/untitled.jpg.html?filters%5Bterm%5D=progress&filters%5Bprimary%5D=images&sort=1&o=127

 

Social Media – A Business Class Weapon of Discrimination

Today, I’m tasked with discussing ethical issues of Social Media in the Education or Business realm. I chose the issue of Discrimination – both positive and negative.

How do Businesses use Social Media?

We know from Mr Blythes’ Blog from last week, 94% of employers have admitted to using social media website LinkedIn in recruitment. Also, 1 in 5 of jobseekers have professional information on their Facebook profiles. Which is also used by recruiters to check the suitability of a job applicant.

My LinkedIn profile – I reveal my University, Ethnicity, Gender, Job. Can this make me a victim of discrimination?

 

 

What is the Ethical Issue?

The issue I’m raising is that of ‘Discrimination’. This is how recruiters can discriminate against candidates by their race, gender, religion, style, marital status, disability and so on…

Although clearly, a recruiter can go on someones LinkedIn page, see that the candidate is black and decide not to recruit the person based on their identity – this is just racism.

But do we discriminate without thinking about it?

A lot of research has gone into this – called Unconscious Bias. Asking whether we discriminate without being conscious to it.
As humans, we process 11 million bits of information per second, but are only conscious of 40 bits. (source) So we make many unconscious decisions each second.

Studies have also shown that people, using information gathered through our lives, place instant judgement on people, whether we try to or not. Here take the Harvard test on Implicit Bias.

So What?

This shows, that regardless of who you are, you will probably be guilty of unconscious bias. UCAS are now going to go name-blind in recruitment to stop racial bias. (source) So it raises questions that with recruitment using LinkedIn, revealing a lot about our identity – how do we know we aren’t being discriminated against? So should Social Media be used by businesses?

Maybe they should just be more careful like UCAS…

 

 

The best video to explain unconscious bias and what it means in the workplace.

 

Image Source: http://media.photobucket.com/user/RobertOak/media/stop_discrimination.jpg.html?filters%5Bterm%5D=discrimination&filters%5Bprimary%5D=images&sort=1&o=33 Licence free on photobucket.