The affirmative argument would appear to be that in almost
any field of human enterprise there will be occasions where an attractive
person has an advantage over an unattractive one. There are professions where
this effect is exaggerated or even central to performance – acting, dancing,
modeling, some forms of customer service or sales, travel (tour guides and
flight attendants, for example) and so on, but even in purely white-collar
business there will be occasions that favor a visually attractive employee.
Again, this is supported by the research. If we accept that the role of any
manager is to maximize performance and thereby increase profitability, and that
the odds of achieving higher performance are better with a good-looking
workforce, it seems reasonable that we should attempt to hire one. It could
even be argued that we have a fiduciary responsibility to the owners of our
company to improve its financial performance, if not in fact an ethical one as
well…
The negative argument is somewhat more complex, as being
visually unattractive does not yield any particular advantages in and of itself.
In a broader sense, however, one could argue that such a hiring policy will
almost certainly be viewed as elitist and/or discriminatory by other
individuals and groups, since visual attractiveness is usually associated with
economic class distinctions. There could also be issues with employees being
insulted or even threatened by the idea that they were hired for their looks,
and not because the hiring manager also believes that their abilities and
skills were at least comparable to any other candidates. Whether this external
resentment and internal erosion of confidence would be sufficient to offset the
advantages of such a workforce would depend on a large number of variables, of
course, but should not simply be ignored…
In reality, of course, it is highly unusual to find any two
applicants for any position with identical skills and abilities, let alone
experience, personality, networks and connections or other factors to the
extent that the only identifiable difference between them is their visual
appearance. Most of the time a hiring manager will have the unenviable task of
assigning values, or at least priorities, to each of the assets that a given
applicant could bring to the job, and trying to determine which of those
applicants would be the best fit for their organization. There is also the
issue that visual attractiveness is a matter of personal taste, and what
appeals to the hiring manager may or may not be the appearance best suited to
gaining a competitive advantage in the future circumstances. In fact, even
factors such as charisma, leadership ability or management skills may be
completely subjective – which is what leads me to today’s question:
Do we, as hiring managers, have an ethical responsibility to
make personnel decisions based entirely on the objective skills, abilities as
assets an applicant has, leaving aside all aesthetic criteria? Or, to look at
it another way, does our responsibility to be fair and impartial in all
management decisions require us to ignore a possible source of competitive
advantage simply because possession of that resource is beyond the applicant’s
control? Basketball teams hire tall players over ones of excellent moral
character or with wonderful personalities, to take the obvious example. And
certainly no question would exist in cases where a give applicant’s skills and
abilities are clearly superior, regardless of his or her appearance. But do we
have an ethical responsibility to ignore everything else about an applicant?
It’s worth thinking about…
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