Newsletters: Two questions to ask every job applicant

Two questions to ask every job applicant

DELIVERING ON DIVERSITY, GENDER EQUALITY, AND INCLUSION

In this issue, we look at how companies can signal to applicants that they’re committed to transgender inclusion and at how accelerating technologies are shaping societies, economies, and the global balance of power.

THE FACTS

Two questions to ask every applicant

The executive order signed by President Biden in January to prevent and combat discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation marked a signal moment in the LGBTQ+ rights movement and in the history of America as a whole. Corporations have also stepped up their public support of LGBTQ+ rights in recent years—but their efforts to promote workplace inclusion often overlook gender identity, gender expression, and the experiences of trans employees in particular.

In fact, transgender Americans continue to face major barriers to employment, professional advancement, and wage equity. Transgender respondents to a recent McKinsey survey were nearly twice as likely as cisgender respondents to be unemployed. Half of trans respondents said that they could not be their full selves during the job-application process (compared with one-third of cis respondents). And trans respondents were nearly two-and-a-half times as likely to work in the food or retail industries, in which a large share of entry-level jobs pay the minimum wage. (The US federal minimum wage stands at $7.25 per hour, and $2.13 for tipped labor.) McKinsey analysis of federal data reveals that transgender Americans’ annual household income is on average about 25 percent less than that of cisgender Americans, even when the former have similar—or higher—levels of education. What’s more, as noted in the January executive order, discrimination against trans and other LGBTQ+ Americans “often overlaps with other forms of prohibited discrimination, including discrimination on the basis of race or disability.”

Tackling these issues will take serious commitment on the part of employers and initiatives aimed at addressing the specific challenges that trans employees and job applicants face. One potential starting point: amending what personal information is gathered on a job application. By offering candidates the ability to select gender identities beyond the traditional binary, and by adding two new questions—asking the candidate’s pronouns and preferred name—employers can signal to applicants that their workplace is truly inclusive.

THE VIEW

“There’s a power dimension to this: solar energy is much more equitably distributed than oil is. The countries with the most oil reserves have a million times more oil per square mile than those with the least. When you look at insolation—that is, the energy that comes from the sun—the most well-endowed country only has four times as much as the least well endowed. So that’s disruptive in and of itself.”
— Azeem Azhar

In a recent edition of McKinsey’s Author Talks, Azeem Azhar, the creator of the Exponential View newsletter, discusses solar energy and other technologies that are advancing at exponential rates—and the questions of power that emerge around them.

— Edited by Julia Arnous, an editor in McKinsey’s Boston office

Follow our thinking

Share these insights

Did you enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to colleagues and friends so they can subscribe too.
Was this issue forwarded to you? Sign up for it and sample our 40+ other free email subscriptions here.

This email contains information about McKinsey’s research, insights, services, or events. By opening our emails or clicking on links, you agree to our use of cookies and web tracking technology. For more information on how we use and protect your information, please review our privacy policy.

You received this email because you subscribed to the Intersection newsletter.

Manage subscriptions | Unsubscribe

Two questions to ask every job applicant

No comments: