Human resources professionals and business leaders understand the power of a diverse and inclusive workplace that makes all employees feel welcome, and the research bears this out.
According to an article from the Harvard Business Review, diverse organisations are more innovative than average, and their creative thinking makes them 45% more likely to report market share growth and 70% more likely to report capturing new markets in the last year.
Unfortunately, unconscious bias remains a significant threat to many organisations’ diversity and inclusion efforts. Learn what unconscious bias is and how to recognise, address and reduce it in your workplace so your team can reap the benefits.
What is Unconscious Bias?
Unconscious bias, also known as implicit bias, is a collection of stereotypes and assumptions learned through socialisation but formed outside of a person’s conscious awareness.
Your subconscious mind holds beliefs, assumptions and attitudes about others based on specific traits they possess. As a result, you may not know or even believe you have these biases, and you may be unaware of how they affect your decisions.
Unconscious bias can be both positive and negative. However, it is typically pervasive and, when unaddressed, affects critical workplace decisions, including hiring, promotions, culture, and values.
HR and business leaders must be aware of how unconscious bias works. With this knowledge, they can identify and address it promptly to limit its unfavourable impacts on the organisation.
Types of Unconscious Biases in the Workplace
Unconscious bias is an umbrella term that encompasses several different forms of bias. Here are some that are commonly at play in the workplace.
Affinity Bias
Affinity bias involves showing favouritism or preference for people similar to oneself regarding background, personal traits or interests. This affinity can include anything from ethnicity to regional accent to schooling.
Confirmation Bias
Confirmation bias involves seeking out information that already confirms your existing beliefs. Those engaging in this bias may inadvertently ignore information that might challenge or contradict their beliefs.
Attribution Bias
Attribution bias is a tendency to use character instead of situational factors to explain a person’s actions, behaviour, or current status. This can make applying policies and practices less objective and downright unfair.
Halo and Horns Effect
The halo and horn effect occurs when one allows a single positive or negative trait to influence or overshadow other aspects of a person’s character or performance.
This is especially problematic in the workplace; the trait may be all that a manager notices about an employee, so it will form the basis of hiring, promoting, managing or disciplining them.
Gender and Racial Bias
It’s common to make assumptions or judgments about a person based on their gender or race, even unconsciously.
This perpetuates negative stereotypes and can increase compliance risks if it contributes to discrimination based on protected characteristics.
How Unconscious Bias Impacts the Workplace
Left unaddressed, unconscious biases can negatively impact the workplace in myriad ways.
For example, hiring managers may overlook qualified talent, favouring those with preferred traits. Organisations may miss out on candidates with critical skill sets that could have supported growth.
Unconscious bias can also affect how managers rate existing employees during performance evaluations.
Over time, this may create barriers to professional advancement, affect an employee’s mental health, or cause them to disengage and take their talents elsewhere.
Additionally, unconscious bias can lead to favouritism and exclusion. When some employees are routinely left out of projects and opportunities, this can downplay the importance of collaboration and negatively impact productivity. Employee morale may take a hit as staff realise they are being shut out due to factors they can’t control.
Ultimately, unchecked unconscious bias may create a culture of unfairness in your organisation. Unfortunately, this can create an uninviting work environment and decrease job satisfaction. If the bias leads to discriminatory behaviour, it can also lead to legal compliance risks.
Benefits of Addressing Unconscious Bias at Work
Addressing unconscious bias is vital to ensure you don’t inadvertently break laws preventing employment discrimination. Your efforts to curb it can also have positive effects across the organisation.
Improved Workplace Diversity
Understanding your unconscious bias makes you less likely to allow unfounded beliefs about others to limit your candidate selection.
This opens your mind to hiring a wider range of talent you may have previously dismissed as unfit for the role.
Enhanced Employee Engagement
Reducing unconscious bias in the workplace can ensure that all employees feel valued and respected.
These positive feelings can increase engagement, as staff are more enthusiastic about their jobs and contribute their best efforts when they see that their work truly matters.
Increased Innovation and Creativity
Employees who feel valued are more likely to care deeply about bringing their best ideas and creative problem-solving skills to work. This enthusiasm for what they do motivates some staff to acquire new skills to continue pushing the company forward.
Stronger Brand Reputation
Companies that are known for diversity and inclusion efforts often find favour with the general public and with highly skilled talent.
Data show that more than half of Gen Z employees prefer to work for organisations that understand how social issues impact employees and actively support the social causes they believe in.
Examples of Unconscious Bias at Work
Here are a few examples of what unconscious bias in the workplace looks like in practice:
- A sales associate misses her sales target for the month, and the manager attributes her performance to laziness instead of outside economic factors
- A hiring manager prefers to hire candidates who attended the same university he did, regardless of qualifications or skills assessment scores.
- An employee misses several days due to a family member’s illness, and a manager gives her a low performance rating despite years of perfect attendance.
- A hiring panel favours male candidates for engineering because the members believe men are better suited for science and math roles.
- A manager assumes that a candidate who attended a prestigious boarding school is smarter than another candidate.
- A manager misinterprets an employee’s assertive communication as a bad attitude because of assumptions about the employee’s race and gender.
These examples could prevent a job candidate or employee from reaching their full potential, which could hold back the entire organisation.
Strategies for Reducing Unconscious Bias in Your Organisation
Here are several ways you can address unconscious bias in your organisation and work to mitigate its potential negative impacts.
Awareness Training and Education
To build a strong training culture, include unconscious bias training for all employees.
This type of training aims to help people become more aware of their unconscious biases and learn how to manage them for long-term behavioural change.
Diverse and Inclusive Hiring Practices
Examine your hiring practices to ensure you’re not inadvertently introducing bias. Review all job descriptions, ensuring they use gender-neutral language and avoid terms that may exclude certain groups from applying.
Focus on skills rather than unnecessary qualities that can’t be directly linked to job performance.
Create inclusive hiring panels with individuals from different backgrounds, genders, ethnicities, and perspectives. Consider implementing blind recruitment tactics, such as removing biographical details from resumes and applications.
Structured and Objective Performance Assessments
When setting objectives for an employee’s performance review, it’s important to base any metrics on objective criteria, not subjective observations that may be prone to bias. This helps keep your performance assessments fair across the board.
It also promotes an effective feedback culture in your organisation, as employees know they’re being treated fairly and are more likely to see an assessment as legitimate.
If management struggles to keep assessments objective, consider working with a performance management consultant (PMC) to revamp company practices.
Promoting Inclusive Leadership
Leadership sets the tone for the entire organisation, so it is critical to ensure that the leadership team has diverse representation.
This not only supports a range of perspectives but it can also help employees of all backgrounds feel more comfortable.
Learn More About Unconscious Bias
Unconscious bias can hurt many aspects of your organisation, from hiring to engagement to overall performance.
Taking the time to address it with awareness, training, and revised policies and practices allows you to build a culture where all employees can thrive.
As you focus on the skills that really matter for success, Klara’s skills management platform can ensure that your workforce is up to the task.
Get in touch today to see how we can help you drive employee and organisational growth.