Manchester-founded business group, Inc & Co has partnered with recruitment platform Team Tailor to remove unconscious biases from its hiring process as part of its commitment to further championing diversity across the organisation.

Team Tailor, which is used by more than 4,000 companies across the globe, will work with Inc & Co to develop a recruitment pipeline that hides all personal information from candidate applications when applying for any Inc & Co role. Inc & Co already ensures all job adverts currently advertised are written in a gender-neutral way, further emphasising that everyone is welcome.

Inc & Co has significantly expanded its recruitment efforts in the past 12 months, and the Talent Team has successfully filled over 60 jobs in 2021 alone. The group handles all recruitment for its more than 15 brands and this new system will allow every candidate to have the same opportunity, regardless of race or gender.

Lynne Makinson-Walsh, Head of People at Inc & Co, said, “Since the beginning of Inc & Co, we have handled 90% of our recruitment efforts because we believe we know what the perfect candidate “looks like”. But, every company needs to do more, and we want to further strengthen and promote diversity within the group. We feel that we’re always fair and offer everyone the same opportunity. Still, unconscious bias is what it says, unconscious, and we want to avoid any shred of doubt that anyone applying has the same chance of a position. Candidates can be safe in the knowledge, that regardless of race or sex, that each and every candidate will be treated as a person, as they should.”

Team Tailor will go live mid-November, and all personal data will be blurred out; the candidate’s name is replaced with a unique and anonymous pseudonym. By using a combination of colours and animals, Inc & Co’s recruitment team will refer to the specific candidate by using the particular combination unique to the person.

Elen Jones, Talent Manager at Inc & Co, said, “Using Team Tailor allows us to be as fair as possible to all candidates, removing all unconscious bias. My team and I are excited to have integrated Team Tailor fully into our hiring processes and we can be sure that we are now treating everyone with the fairness they deserve.

Inc & Co has 15 brands across the U.K, and the Talent team is based full-time at their Manchester office.