Naveen M, Teaching Fellow, Marketing & Communication and Vidhya Satish Kumar, Teaching Fellow, OB & HR, under the guidance and support of Dr Pallavi Pandey, Associate Professor, OB & HR, all from IFMR GSB have authored an article published in The Economic Times – HRWorld.
The title of the article is Silent Gatekeepers: How Boss-Level Bias Shapes Who Gets Hired.
Brief about the Article:
The article critically examines how hiring authority in many organisations subtly shifts from structured HR processes to functional heads, where unconscious comfort-based preferences—related to familiarity, region, language, and accent—often override merit and interview performance. Drawing on global research and Indian workplace evidence, the article argues that hiring bias is not merely individual but structural in nature. It concludes with a practical, HR-led framework to redesign hiring systems so that merit, diversity of thought, and cultural contribution replace familiarity as default decision criteria.
