Unconscious Bias & Stereotypes: Understanding, Identifying, and Mitigating These Within Your Workplace
In today's world, we are experiencing a defining moment as many cultures grapple with societal issues related to bias and stereotypes. This is particularly relevant for HR leaders, managers, and business leaders in general. Unconscious bias and stereotyping are not only present in most workplaces and are considered be pervasive. To create a more positive culture that encourages engaged diversity, inclusivity, and fairness, it is key to understand these issues and how to meaningfully combat them.
What is Unconscious Bias?
Unconscious bias is a notion held outside of one's conscious awareness, made about different groups of people. While some obvious biases deal with clear group distinctions like race and gender, unconscious bias is applicable to really any type of group, as it is related to our human inclination to categorise. One of the greatest challenges associated with unconscious bias is that it is just that: unconscious. Thus, it takes an immense level of willingness to learn, humility, and introspection to ascertain unconscious bias. Further, one must be careful to try to prevent bias from influencing one's actions.
Unconscious Bias vs. Stereotypes
Interestingly, bias and stereotypes are closely related and overlap in many ways. However, there are some slight differences. Bias is considered to be a certain "tendency or preference towards a particular perspective" that interferes with the capability to be objective. On the other hand, stereotypes are preconceived notions applied to an entire group of people, and is often used in a negative connotation. Stereotypes tend to present themselves much more consciously, while unconscious bias is more involuntary, making it more ominous in some ways.
Unconscious Bias in HR & Recruitment
It is not uncommon for unconscious bias to take hold in both HR policies and throughout the recruiting process. There are many examples of this; however, these are four of the most prevalent examples of unconscious bias.
Halo Effect: This refers to letting one outstanding quality about an individual completely color your opinion of them. An example of this is presuming a candidate is a perfect fit solely because they went to a more prestigious university; this is not necessarily the case, and may result in a poor fit in a new hire.
Similarity Bias: When we see people with similar attributes to us, we tend to bias ourselves towards them. This may mean that a woman is more likely to be forgiving of another woman who is constantly late to work and not following policy, or something similar.
Beauty Bias: Unsurprisingly, many people are more likely to be biased towards those who are considered objectively attractive in society's eyes. For example, this bias and societal norms would dictate that a highly-qualified, overweight job candidate may not be hired over a physically fit, average candidate, purely due to appearance.
Confirmation Bias: Particularly challenging, confirmation bias means that we try to find evidence that will validate our existing opinion. This may find a manager looking for unrelated/irrelevant information to try and unfairly fire someone that they don't like, or even protecting an employee who is not performing because they think they are pleasant or friendly.
Stereotypes in HR & The Workplace
Stereotypes are also highly pervasive in the workplace, though they tend to be slightly more obvious to the individual, the recipient of the treatment, and even the observer – reinforced by the words we choose. Stereotyping behavior in the workplace can be in an official (i.e. between a manager and subordinate) or unofficial (between colleagues) capacity; nonetheless, it is all equally problematic, as it creates a negative environment that is detrimental to good work and employees feeling comfortable and safe in their work environment. Here are a few examples of workplace stereotypes at work.
Gender Stereotypes: Stereotypes based on gender are exceedingly common and tend to be more problematic for women (though they can be held against both genders). When it comes to parity in the workplace one set of assumed differences is that women negotiate poorly, lack confidence, are too risk adverse or value family more than their careers. While on the other hand women are also believed to be more caring, cooperative or mission driven – qualities integral to the success of a company. Both lenses are problematic, there are wide variations among men and women and in truth we’re more alike than not.
Racial Stereotypes: Like gender stereotypes, racial stereotypes are prevalent in many workplaces. For example, it is unfortunately not uncommon for someone to attribute certain stereotypes to anyone of a certain race (i.e. all black people are from Africa, or all Indian employees should only be in tech roles). This can result in discomfort, lack of opportunity for underrepresented racial minorities, and increased anxiety at work.
Educational Stereotypes: While educational stereotypes are starting to diminish with the rise of new, in-demand competencies (for example, software engineers don't need a degree), it is still a challenge for many employees based on their educational level. In many fields managers or recruiters will stereotype against people who did not go to college or university, and won’t consider individuals for promotion if they have not obtained a specific level of education.
How Do We Combat Unconscious Bias in the Workplace?
So now knowing what we do about stereotypes and unconscious bias, what are the best steps for us to combat unconscious bias in the workplace?
Focus on being friendlier to everyone. This is particularly important when dealing with those who may be different from you; having a positivity bias and being friendly to all may help to combat unconscious bias.
Create standardised hiring processes. The more standardisation you have in your recruiting and hiring processes, the less likely that unconscious bias will be able to sneak into them.
Set diversity goals for your organisation. Work towards specific goals related to hiring, promotion, and HR practices in order to help your organisation benefit from more diverse leaders and voices.
Educate yourself. Work to understand your own potential biases via introspection, self-education, and seeking out mentors/friends that are "different" from you whom you can learn from.
Create a meaningful feedback loop for your employees. Ensure that there is an opportunity for employees to give feedback, and listen to it! This is a fantastic way to help the organisation be introspective and continue to improve.
While there is no perfect answer to the problem of unconscious bias, it is a great first step to understand it, work to identify it, and find ways to mitigate it. In doing so, you will help embed greater inclusion, improve positivity in the organisation, and increase employee engagement and loyalty to the organisation at large.
