본 연구의 목적은 2017년 7월 공공기관에 도입된 블라인드 채용의 효과성에 대하여, 옹호이론인 다양성 이론과 비판이론인 신호이론에 근거하여 실증 검증하고자 한다. 준정부기관 한 곳의 최신 인력데이터(2022년 1월 기준)를 블라인드 채용과 기존 채용으로 입사한 그룹으로 나누어 1) 그룹 간 조직의 다양성(D, diversity) 수치 그리고 공정성(E, equity)과 포용성(I, inclusion)에 관한 인식의 차이가 유의한지 비교하고, 2) 블라인드 채용이 조직구성원의 DEI 인식에 영향을 미치는지, 3) 블라인드 채용이 조직 구성원의 만족도나 이직의향 등 개인 차원의 조직 유효성에 영향을 미치는지 분석한다. 첫째, t-test분석 결과 기존 채용과 블라인드 채용그룹 간 다양성 수치 그리고 공정성과 포용성에 대한 인식 차이가 통계적으로 유의하지 않았다. 다만, 기존 채용 입사자와 블라인드 채용 입사자의 숫자가 유사한 30대만을 별도로 분석하였을 때, 블라인드 채용 입사자에게서 수도권 대학 비율이 감소하였고, 성에 대한 포용성 인식(차별인식)이 개선되었다. 둘째, 회귀분석 결과 블라인드 채용은 조직구성원의 다양성 수치와 포용성 인식에 긍정적 영향을 미치고 있지만, 만족도, 이직의도, 적극적 참여 등의 조직유효성 변수에 미치는 영향은 통계적으로 유의하지 않았다. 상기와 같은 본 연구의 실증 결과는 기존의 블라인드 채용과 관련한 연구가 주로 이론적 고찰이나 제언 방식으로 이루어졌던 점을 보완하였으며, 다양성 이론과 신호이론이 블라인드 채용 정책을 적절히 설명하고 있는지 이론적 논의의 실증적 기반을 제공하고, 더 나아가 블라인드 채용정책에 어떤 보완점이 필요하며 향후 블라인드 채용으로 입사한 직원들의 인사관리에 어떻게 접근할 것인지에 대한 실무적 시사점을 제시한다.
The Korean government announced the guidelines for blind recruitment in July 2017 and in response to the government’s policy, public organizations removed personal information from the job application form during the recruitment process and prohibited the provision of personal information of applicants to interviewers. This study analyzes and empirically evaluates the effectiveness of the blind recruitment policy in terms of diversity theory, which is an advocating theory for the blind system, and signaling theory, which is a criticizing theory against the blind recruitment system. Accordingly, the public organizations are implementing blind recruitment. However, as of 2023, about six years after the introduction of blind recruitment, there is much debate about the effectiveness of blind recruitment, with previous studies claiming positive or negative effects. Using the human resources data of one quasi-governmental agency with about 500 employees, this study divided the data into two groups of employees who are recruited by the blind system or the traditional recruitment process. With the data, this study comparatively examined 1) the statistical difference of diversity, equity, and inclusion between the two groups, 2) whether the blind recruitment affects employee’s perceptions about their organization’s DEI, and 3) whether the blind recruitment changes organizational effectiveness at the individual level, such as employee satisfaction or turnover rate. The results of study show that, first, when comparing the perceptions about diversity, equity, and inclusion between two groups of those recruited by the traditional processes or by the blind system, the differences between the two groups were not statistically significant. Second, the blind recruitment has positive effects on the employees’ perceptions of their organization’s DEI, particularly on diversity and inclusion. However, the blind recruitment does not show any statistically significant effect on organizational effectiveness, such as overall satisfaction, turnover intention, and job commitment, contrary to the theoretical expectations such as diversity claim. The empirical results of this study complement the existing studies on the blind recruitment system which were mainly conducted in the form of theoretical considerations or proposals, by providing an empirical basis for the theoretical discussions on whether diversity theory and signaling theory adequately explained blind recruitment policies. Furthermore, it provides practical implications by highlighting the points which are necessary to improve the blind recruitment policy and to guide the HR management of employees hired through the blind recruitment. Despite the significance of the study described above, the limitation of this study and future study tasks are as follows. First, in analyzing the impact of blind recruitment on organizational effectiveness, rely on qualitative survey results without quantitative data. Future research will be able to improve the strictness of analysis results by utilizing qualitative organizational performance data. Second, because the implementation period of blind recruitment was not long enough, there was a large difference between the number of people who joined the agency through traditional recruitment and those who joined through blind recruitment, resulting in a deviation in the respondent sample. Additionally, because the analysis was conducted at one quasi-governmental agency, there are data limitations. Lastly, the perception of organizational members will be different between those who have worked for 1~2 years immediately after blind recruitment and those who have worked for more than 5 years, and this time difference may have an impact on other organizational cultures.