Community Employment Assistance Network – CEAN

by: Nathan A. Farr

  

I believe that we all have biases in one form or another. The real question is, are we aware of our biases and how do they affect our recruiting processes?   Does language fit into this equation?  Is language a protected class?  Does speaking English with a lisp, stutter or accent qualify as a disability?  Have you ever said, s/he sounds like a redneck from XYZ state? If so, you may have an accent bias.  Now, take a moment and try to think about a person who speaks with a British accent. Do you make any assumptions about her or him? Do you automatically assume that this person is educated, well informed, cultured, a tea drinker with crooked teeth? What type of job do they have, banker, professor or graduate student at OSU?  Now try to think of someone that speaks with a heavy Spanish accent? Do you make any assumptions about them? Are they a laborer, undocumented, or uneducated? 
 
Managers make decisions regarding someone’s qualifications for particular job and decide whether or not to continue the hiring process.  Some, not acquainted with Latinos, may wrongly assume that everyone who speaks Spanish is from Mexico and is illegal. When this happens, a language bias may prevent an otherwise qualified candidate from being considered.  In some cases, the applicant’s intelligence or abilities may be judged solely by their ability to speak American English.  Contrary to popular belief, many immigrants in our community make a tremendous effort to learn to speak English proficiently. Nevertheless, they may always speak English with a “foreign “accent. On one occasion I heard a limited English speaker complain that she was not granted a promotion into an exempt position with a large local bank.  The HR manager informed her that she had been the most qualified candidate to apply for the positing, but was not chosen because her accent would “offend the company’s clients”.  Clearly her abilities had been misjudged.  She may have spoken with an accent, but did not think with one.  Several months later she was offered the job because another qualified and native English speaker had not been found.  She went on to perform a national rollout of a unified operating software platform ahead of schedule.
 
Sometimes a limited English speaker is presumed to be uneducated because of the jobs they accept when coming to this country. A recent survey of one manufacturer’s workforce, that received less than $10 per hour, turned up many degreed professionals. They were educated in the fields of Engineering, Accounting, Medicine, Law, and journalism among other fields that required certification or advanced command of the English language to practice in the US.  One employee had operated a very successful business in his home country before being forced to leave for political reasons.   He maintained his manufacturing job to have medical insurance for his family and operated a legitimate, part time business that netted between $1000 and $1500 each weekend.  He was probably making more money than any of his immediate supervisors who did not have college degrees.  The resourceful entrepreneur was an attorney in his home country. 
 
I am not saying that communication ability is not relevant.  Clearly some positions require higher levels of English proficiency that others.  I guess my question is: do your hiring practices create an artificial disadvantage for the non native English speaker based only on accent?  When evaluating two candidates for a position, where one is a native English speaker without a noticeable dialect and another speaks with a “foreign accent”, are you able to listen past the accent and judge the candidates based on his/her merits? Or are your personal unrecognized accent biases influencing your decisions?