Leadership Team Minutes - February 15, 2017
Alignment Progress
Michele Gorman reported to the group that she, Kay Bauman, and Tim Rogers finished the visits to libraries to launch the Alignment project. At least two more meetings will be scheduled for members of Collection Anywhere and the support departments at the Ronald J. Norick Downtown Library and the Service Center. The Alignment Committee met for the first time on February 3rd and will meet on February 16th to discuss the project's scope, milestones, specific activities, and the schedule. New Q&As, documents, and forum items have been posted.
Upcoming Conference Attendance
Michele Gorman announced that the Library will have a new approach for conference attendance in FY2017-18. For the remainder of this year, staff will continue to submit requests through their supervisor and bookings and registrations will be handled centrally. Available funding for the ALA conference will be determined after estimating costs for the Oklahoma and Texas Library Association conferences.
Hiring Processes
Michele Gorman and Kelley Hoffman described the hiring process that the Library will begin using. Applicants will record video answers to preliminary screening questions from which a panel of 5-10 individuals will select the best for in-person interviews. The Human Resources staff will coordinate all in-person interviews (not the hiring manager). Both the screenings and the in-person interviews will include behavioral questions. Because much of this process can be done asynchronously, the hiring process should be sped up considerably. Michele will communicate the full process to supervisors soon, including a training on the video system.
FY2016-17 Budget Review
John Rahhal and Tim Rogers discussed the budget report distributed earlier in the week. The shift to Intacct has been confusing for many, primarily due to the fact that there has been little training for staff. John and Michele will coordinate training in the next month. The LT may reallocate underspent funds in March, following a meeting that will include John, Kay Bauman, Michele Gorman, Anne Fischer, Curtiss Ray and Tim to verify what is likely to be spent this fiscal year and what is not.
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Comments
What were the reasoning behind having the applicants submit video answers to questions?
Hi Kim, thanks for the question ... The new process uses a product called Vidcruiter (https://vidcruiter.com/) which takes advantage of video capture technology to replace our phone and in person screening processes. The idea is that Vidcruiter will lessen the amount of time we spend performing the screenings, while also allowing participating staff to review the videos asynchronously, which should lower the impact to folks' schedules. Hope that helps.
--Tim
How do companies using Vidcruiter guard against the possibility of discrimination (or just the appearance of discrimination) based on applicants' age, race, gender presentation, visible disabilities, attractiveness level, etc?
And is it acceptable that qualified candidates may self-select out of the interview process because they just don't feel good about making a video? A couple of us at the Service Center talked about video interviews, and the consensus was "Yikes, no".
Basically, why did we decide against using Vidcruiter's audio-only product?
Hi Margo,
I understand how you feel. When I described our new process to my wife, she had a pretty similar reaction. I wasn't sure how I felt initially either. What I’ve found is that interviewing is an extremely complicated process. It doesn’t have any perfect answers, but based on my limited experience, I believe this will be an improvement for everyone and will help us do a better job selecting the best-qualified candidates.
I pulled up several articles about this subject. Two articles are from Ask a Manager, the first from 2013 about video interviewing specifically. The author agrees that it is awkward. The second is from 2017 about using video conferencing in the workplace generally. Here, the author says “Most jobs won’t mention [using video software] in the hiring process because it’s considered such an unremarkable thing, and even if they don’t use video when you start, it’s not unlikely that they could end up using it later on.”
Here are some other articles about the benefits and about how this is already pretty common as of 3-4 years ago:
I would also like to respond to your concern about discrimination. I should note, though I have done plenty of interviews in my role here, I am not a Human Resources expert. Nevertheless, video interviews don't seem have any greater susceptibility to discrimination than in-person interviews. I have a hard time seeing how one could argue that video interviews should not be done without also arguing that in-person interviews should not be done. So, to answer your question directly, we will avoid those biases when evaluating video interviews the same way we avoid those biases when evaluating in-person interviews.
That said, I think it is never a bad idea to take stock of our assumptions, work to reduce our biases, and improve our ability to hire the person who will do the best job. If you have questions or concerns about effective hiring practices and training to overcome bias, I think this would be a great conversation to have with the new Learning and Development Manager once that person gets hired.
I love Ask A Manager! Thanks for finding those.
Another librarian recommended our Business Source database. I found this study on the influence of VC tech on the process, and I thought it was really interesting.
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=90610670&si...