How to Reduce Bias and Discrimination in Hiring with Oliver Hauser

In this talk, Professor Oliver Hauser will present the result of two large-scale field experiments with the goal of improving diversity in organizations. The first study with over 8,000 participants demonstrates how applicants can re-design their resumes to reduce the likelihood of being discriminated against after taking a career break, which has previously been documented in the case of mothers returning from maternity leave. In the second study, with over 10,000 participants, a global telecommunications and engineering firm designed a new diversity training to improve the diversity of their hires. While previous diversity trainings have failed to change organizational diversity, our field experiment demonstrates how a short, timely, and company-relevant diversity training can lead to behavior change and improve the diversity of hires. Taken together, these studies show some success in how both the supply (applicant) and demand (firms) side of the market can reduce the likelihood of bias and discrimination and improve the diversity of employees in companies.

Oliver Hauser is a Professor of Economics at the University of Exeter and Deputy Director of the Institute for Data Science and AI. He leads the £1.4m BIG IDEAs project, focusing on workplace equality using randomized controlled trials. He is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and a former WAPPP Fellow. Professor Hauser is a Faculty Affiliate at Harvard’s Sustainability, Transparency, and Accountability Initiative and advises various organizations, including the Cabinet Office, HM Treasury, the Behavioural Insights Team, and the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology. He also serves on the advisory boards of MeVitae and Beacon Collaborative, and is Vice-Chair of BBC Children in Need’s South West Advisory Committee.

He has held fellowships at the Alan Turing Institute and Harvard, and taught at Harvard Business School and Kennedy School. His research, published in leading journals like Nature and Science Advances, focuses on behavioural economics and leadership. He has received several awards, including Poets & Quants’ “40 Under 40” and Pacific Standard’s “Top 30 Thinkers Under 30.” Professor Hauser holds a PhD in Biology from Harvard and a B.Sc. in Physics from the University of Innsbruck.

This virtual seminar is part of the Women and Public Policy Program's weekly spring seminar series, Make Work Fair, which gives participants an opportunity to engage with research related to the topics discussed in the book 'Make Work Fair' by Iris Bohnet and Siri Chilazi. Attendance is open to all.