Labor & Employment Law

Algorithms in Employment Decision Making

By Michael Fitzgibbon

I saw an article yesterday in the Globe called The algorithm method: Programming our lives away.  According to the article:

"Some companies now use algorithms to make decisions around hiring and firing. At Google, which boasts that ?almost every [personnel] decision is based on quantitative analysis,? engineers have developed an algorithm to identify those employees most likely to leave to work for a competitor or strike out on their own. Employee surveys, peer reviews, evaluations, promotion and pay histories feed into the algorithm. It helps us ?get inside people's heads even before they know they might leave,? a Google manager told The Wall Street Journal last year."

I recall having a call with a company that developed computer decision making software, presumably based on algorithms, to assist employers make better decisions. The context of my call was to look into options to help a client make better decision in a downsizing.   Who should stay and who should go, that sort of thing.  Feed information into a computer, press a button and out comes information to assist the employer with its decision making.  

In the end, no matter how you slice it, the one constant in employment related decision making is people.  People make the decisions and people are impacted by them.  Trite to say, of course, but so important in understanding the area we work in.  All decisions, whether in employment or otherwise, involve a degree of uncertainty and risk.  We decide by trying to whittle down the uncertainty to a manageable standard (whatever that is for the individual), but without entirely eliminating it - especially where decisions involve people.  

If algorithms and mathematical models help us make better decisions, why not? I would not be a supporter of a purely scientific application of a mathematical model in employment decision making to the exclusion of "instinct" and the other human aspects, but whatever helps make better decisions I'm in (recognizing that "people" decisions require a personal touch above all else).   

Full post as published by Thoughts from a Management Lawyer on November 27, 2010 (boomark / email).