Breaking down unconscious bias in the workplace

It turns out his instinct was correct. A study of hiring practices conducted by the University of Toronto revealed that candidates with foreign-sounding names on their resume were 28 percent less likely to receive a call for an interview compared to candidates with names that sounded “Anglo,” despite having equivalent experience and education. This is just one example of unconscious bias in the workplace. The good news is that human capital management professionals are in a position to thwart unconscious bias and help positively change corporate culture.

What is unconscious bias anyway?

While most unconscious bias isn’t this flagrant, it’s ever-present and leads to certain groups being treated differently than others. Unconscious biases, sometimes called implicit biases, are assumptions and prejudgments about groups of people that we aren’t even aware we are making.

Unconscious bias occurs when we make snap judgments about people based on their age, nationality, accent, skin colour, sex, sexuality, marital status, maternity, where they went to school, weight, physical attractiveness, disability or socio-economic status.

Unconscious bias comes from a combination of our personal experiences, social conditioning and the way our brain tends to categorize information to help us make decisions quickly. Being biased is a part of the human experience, and denying this doesn’t help anyone. Acknowledging this bias is the first step toward action. Taking an implicit association test can help you gain awareness of what some of your own biases are.

Exploring different types of bias

There are many ways unconscious bias can come into play in the workplace, including:

Affinity bias is when people tend to gravitate toward those who share qualities similar to their own. Unfortunately, it can lead to hiring practices that exclude diverse candidates.

Confirmation bias is when people seek information that confirms their beliefs and viewpoints, often ignoring information that contradicts them. It is problematic in the workplace because it can impact a person’s recollection and interpretation of professional experiences.

Conformity bias, also known as groupthink, is when people mimic the behaviour and actions of those around them instead of relying on their own judgement. This can be problematic during meetings when they agree with the ideas of others without fully considering all the implications and outcomes. It can result in missing out on opportunities and ignoring potential issues.

The halo effect is when people think highly of someone in one way (whether it be their looks or expertise in a particular field) and automatically assume they are intelligent and qualified in other ways that they may not be. This can result in the “haloed” employee receiving opportunities and promotions that other staff are better suited for.

Microaggressions are thinly veiled discriminatory statements or behaviours toward someone who belongs to a marginalized group. These statements are sometimes not noticed by other people, except for those impacted, making them even harder to speak up against or point out. When unchecked, they can make the most vulnerable people in the workplace uncomfortable or unsafe.

AI and unconscious bias

There was hope that automated hiring and decision-making processes employed by artificial intelligence (AI) would eliminate unconscious bias in the workplace, particularly surrounding employee screening and hiring decisions. Gwen Elling, a Certified Human Resources Professional, notes that while AI presents future opportunities to mitigate unconscious bias, there are limitations. She says that because these systems learn to make decisions based on past training data, there's the potential for them to pick up on legacy-biased decisions and, in turn, recreate past biased decisions. It's important to put mitigation measures in place to prevent this from occurring.

Professional applications

Elling says after recognizing your own bias, it’s critical to take some time to determine how biases are likely to impact your company and workplace policies, with a focus on who is being shortlisted, getting hired and receiving raises and promotions, as well as who receives what project opportunities.

Stepping back and completing an in-depth analysis of various touchpoints of an employee’s time within the organization will make it easier to pinpoint areas where people may be more vulnerable to unconscious biases from colleagues and management.

After these identifications are made, employees can be trained to:

• Identify and mitigate unconscious biases
• Empower and normalize speaking up against organizational bias (such as when someone in a leadership role talks over a more junior employee)
• Hold people accountable and apologize for unconscious bias
• Update company-wide hiring processes to:

              - Make job descriptions and advertisements more inclusive to appeal to a broader                                population of applicants

              - Standardize interview processes

• Avoid gender stereotyping by creating a rotation for certain workplace activities such as taking minutes, ordering food for meetings, making coffee and cleaning up after meetings
• Create metrics and decision-making processes and processes that include detecting and mitigating unconscious bias, particularly for senior leadership

Conclusion

Unconscious bias is deeply rooted in our culture and day-to-day life. That isn’t going to change; however, by leading by example in education and awareness, human capital management professionals can have a company-wide impact.

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