Workday faces lawsuit over alleged AI bias
HR SaaS company Workday is facing a collective lawsuit from several job seekers claiming its HiredScore AI service discriminates against workers over the age of 40.
The case started in February 2023, when Derek Mobley – a black ,disabled man over the age of 40 – filed a lawsuit alleging the screening tools on Workday’s platform “allow its customers to use discriminatory and subjective judgments in reviewing and evaluating employees for hire.”
“If an individual does not make it past these Workday screening products he/she will not advance in the hiring process,” the claim continued.
The case has since bounced around the courts, but now Mobley, who said he had applied for over 100 jobs via the Workday platforms, has been joined in his legal action by another four job candidates after a judge ruled the claims could be considered together as a collective action lawsuit.
According to The Independent, another plaintiff – Jill Hughes – said she also submitted hundreds of job applications via Workday for which she was rejected.
Hughes said responses were “often received within a few hours of applying or at odd times outside of business hours”. She also claimed some rejection letters wrongly said she didn’t meet the job’s minimum requirements when she did.
“A human did not review the applications,” she claimed.
AI hiring remains controversial
The use of AI and automation in hiring processes is a controversial one. On the one hand, for employers and recruiters it ostensibly cuts down the time taken to sort through CVs by removing candidates whose salary expectations are too high, don’t meet the requisite experience or education levels, or otherwise fail to meet basic requirements for the role.
On the other hand, they can manifest ingrained bias even of the kind they’re supposed to remove. For example, in 2018, Amazon reportedly pulled the plug on a “sexist” hiring algorithm that favored men over women despite attempts to address the problem.
“The truth is AI systems are always biased in some way, so there’s a chance of lawsuits about allegedly discriminatory practices or simply poor hiring styles that leave out great people and irritate job candidates,” Josh Bersin, CEO and HR analyst of the Josh Bersin Company, told ITPro.
For its part, a Workday spokesperson told ITPro: “We continue to believe this case is without merit. Central to the Plaintiff’s allegations is that Workday products make hiring decisions on behalf of our customers, which is not true. This is a preliminary, procedural ruling at an early stage of this case that relies on allegations, not evidence – Plaintiff has not supported his allegations with facts.
“The Court has not made any substantive findings against Workday. We’re confident that once Workday is permitted to defend itself with the facts, the Plaintiff’s claims will be dismissed.”
MORE FROM ITPRO
Source link
