Breaking Bias: Unpacking Unconscious Bias in the Workplace
Despite our best efforts, unconscious bias can negatively impact recruitment, business morale, and employee retention. That is why employers and managers must hold employees accountable by teaching them to identify and eradicate biases to create a more welcoming and successful work environment.
In this article, we’ll uncover how unconscious biases may be impacting your workplace and strategies for combating their effects.
What are Unconscious Biases?
Unconscious bias, or implicit bias, is an unintentional belief in favor or against a person or group. These biases are influenced by factors like childhood, background, family situation, culture, and experiences. As the name suggests, these biases can impact thoughts, attitudes, and actions, even if not conscious.
In the workplace, unconscious biases can lead to discrimination, harassment, bullying, and exclusionary behavior in employees and managers, affecting recruitment, morale, and low employee retention rates.
Addressing these biases is crucial for a healthy work environment. Reducing unconscious bias fosters a respectful and friendly workplace, increasing employee satisfaction and retention.
Prevalence of Unconscious Bias
Unconscious bias is pervasive and affects everyone, regardless of their intentions. It thrives in environments where quick decisions are made, such as the workplace, where time constraints and cognitive overload can amplify these biases.
In one survey, over 60 percent of participants reported a presence of bias in their workplace. Research indicates that even individuals who actively reject stereotypes can still harbor unconscious biases, emphasizing the widespread nature of this phenomenon.
Examples of Unconscious Bias
Awareness of common prejudices in the workplace is key to combating unconscious bias. The following are the most common forms of unconscious bias in the workplace:
Gender Bias
When someone forms an opinion based only on a person's gender, that is an example of gender bias. Gender bias in the workplace usually targets female employees. Women are often being passed over when bosses who prefer men defer to their ideas, assign jobs to men first, and assign caregiving responsibilities to women. However, male employees are also affected by gender bias since they can be passed over for "soft" tasks or denied parental leave.
Conformity Bias
Conformity bias is an employee's inclination to agree with anything a group of people says, regardless of their own thoughts or judgments. This prevents staff members from speaking out or expressing original ideas that diverge from the group.
Beauty-Based Bias
When workers make judgments or assumptions about others based only on their looks, this is known as beauty bias. This may lead to preferential treatment of some workers based on appearance rather than qualifications, experience, or output. A manager may be influenced by beauty bias to select the more attractive candidate over someone who is more qualified.
Affinity Bias
Affinity bias is when someone favors an employee because they have something in common with them. For example, a manager might select another applicant for a job just because they attended the same college and are aiming for the same post that the manager held when they were that age.
Confirmation Bias
Confirmation bias involves two phases: initial judgment formation and seeking proof to support it. It's easy to ignore additional data that challenges an initial belief when seeking confirmation, leading to a flawed process.
Techniques for Addressing Unconscious Bias in the Workplace
You can develop initiatives and HR guidelines that lessen the effects of unconscious biases. Among the techniques to eliminate such influences are:
Acknowledge Your Biases: The first step is awareness; you cannot alter your biases if you are unaware of them. When you think you could be biased, try to catch yourself.
Give Diversity Priority: A diverse and inclusive workplace can minimize unconscious bias by exposing employees to a wide range of ideas and opinions. To achieve diversity, restructure hiring and interviewing procedures, assign objectives to hiring managers, and implement “blind recruitment” by removing applicants' private information from resumes and applications. Ensure leadership personnel are qualified and diverse. This promotes inclusivity and ensures diverse voices are heard.
Adopt Bias-Free Policies: Businesses can promote a more inclusive workplace culture through policies like standardized promotions, pay equity audits, open discussions, and a zero-tolerance policy for prejudice. By implementing bias-free practices like blind recruiting and mentorship programs, they ensure equal opportunities and improved financial performance.
Train Your Employees: Last but not least, you can invest in unconscious bias training for all employees to help identify and eliminate bias. Implement strategies for a positive work environment and incorporate implicit bias training into onboarding to ensure new hires are prepared with better self-awareness.
Get Trained With 360training
Unconscious bias is not just a trendy buzzword. To move forward and ensure that your workplace is a friendly and welcoming environment, we encourage you to learn to be more aware of the places you fall short.
Carefully consider how you handle people who are different or similar to you. Examine your personal conduct carefully by slowing down and asking challenging questions to enhance your business and help others. Keeping your unconscious biases in check is your social responsibility. Step back and consider how prejudice affects your life, work, division, and organization.
You can do your part to combat unconscious biases with our online Respectful Workplace: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Training. This comprehensive program raises awareness, provides essential education, and equips participants with practical strategies to foster a more inclusive environment. Invest in your team's growth and create a workplace where everyone feels valued. Purchase our training course today to embark on the journey towards a more respectful and inclusive workplace!
