Despite how difficult it is to admit, unconscious biases play a substantial part in all of our judgements. In our brains, we may harbour prejudices towards certain races, religions, gender identities, and so on.
The problem is that these preconceptions have a horrible habit of manifesting themselves in ways that are detrimental to the work.
Companies and the individuals who work for them may enable unconscious prejudices to effect their decisions in a way that negatively impacts workers based on their colour, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, and other protected features if these biases are not managed.
Recognizing and overcoming unconscious prejudice is one of the first steps in creating a more inclusive workplace.
What exactly is workplace unconscious bias?
We must first address explicit biases before diving into unconscious or implicit preconceptions. These are prejudices that we are aware of, whether they are directed towards an individual or a group. People who are blatantly racist or sexist, for example, are often aware of their bias. In fact, they may be open about it and accept it as a part of their identity.
Implicit biases, on the other hand, influence our judgements or behaviours without our knowledge. Many individuals find it hard to confront unconscious prejudices since they are difficult to recognise. Everyone, however, has unconscious prejudices.
Our brains arrange information in ways that contribute to unconscious prejudice because we are continually exposed to it. Because we are unable to assimilate all of the information that is presented to us at once, our brain develops shortcuts to help us organise what we are witnessing. This mental association-based classification allows us to process more information at once.
Common types of unconscious prejudice
The Employment Equality Act of 2010 protects employees against employment discrimination based on a list of protected characteristics, including gender, race, and sexual orientation. However, this does not imply that all employees are given equal chance. This might be due to unconscious prejudice.
Unconscious prejudice manifests itself in a variety of ways and may have a detrimental influence on your staff. Investigate the numerous forms of implicit bias in the workplace to see how various prejudices occur in the workplace.
Gender discrimination
Gender prejudice is defined as a bias against or in favour of someone depending on their gender. According to study, female employees usually receive less specific and pragmatic feedback from male managers, which may have an influence on their professional development and future opportunities.
Ageism
Ageism is a prejudice based on assumptions about the talents or work attitudes of persons of a certain age. An example of age prejudice is when a hiring manager rejects an older applicant for a digital role because they will be unable to utilise the most up-to-date software.
Name prejudice
Name prejudice, a kind of racial and cultural bias, is the habit of judging someone's identity purely based on their given name. Discrimination based on ethnicity, culture, gender, or age is a common cause. Hiring managers and recruiters, for example, generally pay less attention to resumes with conventional or complicated names. To minimise this type of prejudice, numerous companies use technology to remove personal information from resumes and applications, such as names.
Bias in Affinity
Affinity bias, also known as similarity prejudice, is a bias we have toward people who are similar to ourselves. We usually believe that getting along with others who share our characteristics will be simpler. A hiring manager, for example, may favour a candidate with similar hobbies or a history.
Bias in confirmation
Confirmation bias refers to the propensity for people to seek evidence or circumstances that confirm their previous views, even if such data or circumstances are just incidental. When management believes that an employee's poor performance on a task is due to impairment, this is an example of confirmation bias at action. In that situation, the management fails to do more research into potential contributing factors, such as insufficient training or direction.
Bias in attribution
Attribution bias is a prejudice that occurs when a person blames an incident on external sources rather than on his or her own actions. A employer, for example, may feel that a woman's success in completing a challenging task was due to other factors rather than her own efforts.
Bias toward conformity
Conformity bias refers to our tendency to be persuaded by and follow the majority. For example, if four of the five interview panel members have a similar background, the fifth panellist may agree with the majority rather than dispute with it on a particular issue. A more diverse panel can encourage minority panellists to express their concerns, preventing the majority's viewpoint from automatically assuming the lead.
The halo effect
The halo effect occurs when one characteristic that you perceive to be good outweighs all others. When a hiring manager likes a candidate because they attended their old school, even though it has no influence on their performance potential, this is an example of the halo effect in play.
The horn effect
The horns effect, like the halo effect, occurs when a negative issue influences your decision-making. The horns effect, on the other hand, might arise when a manager provides a bad performance rating to an employee based on a single poor performance.
The contrast effect
The contrast effect is a bias that commonly leads to the valuation of one object in relation to or in comparison to another. For example, if you have a top performer on your team, instead of evaluating other team members' performance against objective baselines, you may compare them to that performer.
Dos and Don'ts for Reducing Unconscious Workplace Bias
Don'ts
A single employee's promotion should not be announced randomly.
Others on the team, particularly those with equivalent credentials, experience, and duration with the business, would be irritated if they were not told of or given the opportunity to be considered for promotions.
They may wonder if their coworker's promotion was justified by genuine business considerations like performance, competence, merit, or expertise, or if the choice to promote was unjust or biassed. Thanking the same individuals for their efforts
Employees who do not receive your thanks as frequently as "the favourites" may feel neglected and undervalued.
Never commend personal characteristics to emphasise an employee's great achievement because this might cause animosity among other team members.
Distancing yourself from employees with whom you do not relate as well as others.
Employees may see this as being disliked, ignored, or unsupportive for unknown reasons.
Avoid selecting the same individuals, i.e. do not have a go-to list of personnel.
Other workers' potential that you haven't paid as much attention to may be neglected as a result. As a result, some members of your team may get resentful of others and question why others are given resources and attention that may help them develop in their careers.
If someone is frequently overlooked in favour of "the favourites," they will get dissatisfied and indifferent.
Do's
Stick to a strict method to avoid being accused of prejudice.
Establish a promotion policy that specifies the qualifications for each available job. This policy should include procedures for internally publicising available positions and describing the application process.
The promotion process should be open to all employees and transparent. Everyone should think they are competing on an equal playing field and be aware of the qualifications for promotions.
Ensure that more than one decision-maker participates in order to ensure impartiality in the process and prevent one person's hidden biases from tainting the outcome. (This is one scenario when having various leadership with a wide range of ideas is important).
Maintain ongoing, frequent performance evaluations so that everyone is informed of their standing.
Everyone in the team should receive appropriate recognition and appreciation.
Consider if you should praise someone overtly or subtly, and use the same strategy to each team member. Keep in mind that obtaining appreciation for one's achievements is almost as important as the assignment itself for many employees. The majority of individuals want to be recognised when they do well.
Create an employee recognition programme to establish objective guidelines for what counts as noteworthy behaviour and what recognition entails.
If you decide to provide employees actual prizes other than praise, such as a performance bonus or an extra day off, this must be specified in the recognition programme or policy. Everyone should be informed of the various incentives and the qualifications to qualify for them.
Keep track of the reasoning behind any prizes given to employees.
Distribute your attention evenly among the members of the team.
Because we're all just humans, there will always be those we're more drawn to. However, our interactions with others should be balanced in some way.
Create an open communication culture in which all staff members are encouraged to come talk to you about any difficulties or questions they may have, as well as to seek a face-to-face meeting with you.
When assigning staff to projects, prioritise expertise and project requirements over everything else.
Make a list of each team member's strengths and weaknesses, and then match it to the project's criteria and goals.
Inquire about the following:
Who will be in the best position to complete the essential duties and achieve the desired results?
Who has the most relevant experience?
Is there a specific business case for hiring someone with a unique skill set?
Create an environment in which all employees have access to resources that will help them progress in their careers.
Interact with your staff on an individual level to understand what they require. Leaders typically make the mistake of devoting less time to interacting with individuals with whom they do not connect.
Is training for Unconscious Bias the next big thing?
Bias is extremely difficult to eliminate on its own, but it is much easy to disrupt. We've uncovered strategies managers may employ to counteract bias without investing a lot of time—or political capital—in the years we've spent studying and counselling others on how to develop and maintain diverse work groups.
Effective Unconscious Bias (UB) training provides people with practical strategies for changing their behaviour. They have a better knowledge of other people's points of view and, as a result, become more ready to be inclusive.
Microsoft's online UB training, which is also available to the general public, includes videos depicting various common office scenarios. In one, the lone female team member seeks to express her thoughts but is frequently interrupted until someone notices and encourages her to speak.
Each section of Microsoft's training includes best practises for avoiding prejudice, such as "verify your assumptions." The next time you find yourself casting judgement on someone's history or preferred line of work, pause and evaluate whether it may be an asset. This is a simple approach for altering your perception of someone or anything.
Microsoft's online UB training, which is also available to the general public, includes videos depicting various common office scenarios. In one, the lone female team member seeks to express her thoughts but is frequently interrupted until someone notices and encourages her to speak.
Each section of Microsoft's training includes best practises for avoiding prejudice, such as "verify your assumptions." The next time you find yourself casting judgement on someone's history or preferred line of work, pause and evaluate whether it may be an asset. This is a simple approach for altering your perception of someone or anything.
Second, the results that organisations want to change must be tracked. Microsoft and Corning, for example, publish demographic employment statistics in yearly public reports to urge changes. Starbucks tracks customer interactions with staff members in various locations to see whether their efforts are improving customer experiences.
Leaders can determine whether meaningful change is occurring by asking workers who are directly affected by prejudice to report their experiences before and after company-wide UB training. Surveys performed before and after the training are one method for accomplishing this.
When confronted with unconscious bias, ensure that:
Employees should feel empowered and at ease enough to report any bias they encounter.
Ensure that the prejudice is recognised and addressed with an acceptable plan.
Set up a standard method for services like recruiting, meeting procedures, feedback mechanisms, and so on to assist simplify and, eventually, eradicate prejudice.
Bottom line: All enterprises have a responsibility to improve humanity.
While it is hard to completely eliminate these established inclinations, the above-mentioned awareness efforts and training initiatives can assist to reduce unconscious prejudice in the workplace.
By doing so, we may help to create a more just and fair corporate method and workplace. Who knows where that may lead a person, an employer, or society as a whole?