Selection, biased?

There's been a lot of comment on the internal workings of the RSGB of late, this time on Twitter.

Of particular interest in recent days is the process of filling seats vacated, sometimes under rather peculiar and not always explained circumstances, at Board and Regional Representative level.

A bit of digging around amongst the labyrinthine and often broken pages of the RSGB web site revealed that the application pack for those, brave enough to consider standing for these positions, didn't include any equal opportunities monitoring statement or questionnaire.

Such monitoring forms for applicants are not legal requirements.  But they do provide significant benefits to any organisation concerned with equality and its own future liability in law. Consequently, it is extremely unusual to find recruiters not including such monitoring questionnaires in application packs in the UK today.

First, they allow an organisation, if operated with an open mind and the right motivation, to evaluate how well its workforce (or volunteers) represent society at large, and thus whether there may be a problem of prejudice, intentional or otherwise, that needs correcting in how it selects people.

Secondly, montioring data on equality will help an organisation defend itself in the event that some claim of unequal selection is made against it.  Discrimination against protected characteristics, where proven, is unlawful.

For the effort involved, equal opportunities monitoring forms are clearly valuable and of essentially no effort in their issue, completion and recording.  That the RSGB doesn't seem to want to bother with, or perhaps not even know about equalities monitoring, could add weight to those who claim the average age for directors - now standing at 70 years - means that the Board may have lost touch with the modern world.

Then came the observation by Twitter-based, constructive critic of the RSGB, Ham Radio Gossip (@HamGoss), that a head-and-shoulders photograph of all applicants is required by the society.  This is not entirely unheard of, but it is a little troubling. 

Extract from RSGB application form (page 4), accessed 31/01/2021, 10:59UT.

 

@HamGoss, quite rightly, mocks the requirement with the following tweet:

For one thing, demanding a photo with an application gives the appearance, even if it isn't true, that the RSGB only wants the 'right kind' of people. Given the severe age, ethnicity and gender bias that is obvious amongst the current Board members, it's very disheartening to see that they fall for this avoidable trap.

Secondly, demanding a photo has the clear and obvious risk of allowing the RSGB selectors to be, consciously or otherwise, biased in their choices.  That is why equal opportunities forms - where they are actually provided to applicants - are never disclosed to those involved in the selection process.  A photo of someone reveals a multitide of information that, likewise, ought not to be revealed in the selection process.  

Personal appearance is entirely irrelevant to a position at the RSGB, so why demand a photo?