In today’s society, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) are essential aspects of creating a more harmonious and equal world. However, despite increased awareness and efforts to promote DEI in workplaces, unconscious bias remains a significant challenge in achieving this goal.
Unconscious bias is a set of assumptions and beliefs that are deeply ingrained and often subtle, affecting our behavior and decision making even when we are unaware of them.
Let’s dig a little deeper to explore what unconscious bias is, its impact on DEI efforts, and how organizations can mitigate its effects.
What Is Unconscious Bias Exactly?
Some Common Unconscious Biases and Their Significant Impact on DEI Efforts
Top 5 Impacts of Unconscious Bias on DEI Efforts
1. Recruiting
2. Performance evaluations
3. Promotions
4. Workplace culture
5. Customer service
How to Mitigate the Impact of Unconscious Bias
1. Education and awareness
2. Standardize processes
3. Diversify decision making
4. Monitor and evaluate
Want to Address Unconscious Bias at Work? Start from Here!
What Is Unconscious Bias Exactly?
Understanding unconscious bias isn’t difficult. Our experiences, socialization, and cultural upbringing shape our biases over time. Unconscious bias describes the attitudes and stereotypes that influence our judgments and decisions without us being aware of them. These predispositions can impact the language we use, the assumptions we make, and the behaviors we exhibit.
Suppose a hiring manager believes that people who attend Ivy League schools are more competent. In that case, they may be more likely to choose candidates from these schools, even if no evidence supports this favoritism. As a result, qualified candidates who do not fit the perceived mold may face discrimination.
Some Common Unconscious Biases and Their Significant Impact on DEI Efforts
Unconscious bias can take many forms, and each of these biases has a significant impact on DEI efforts. To get an understanding of unconscious bias and its impact on DEI efforts, let’s go through some of the most common types of unconscious bias at work that can have an impact on diversity, equity, and inclusion as follows:
Affinity bias is the proclivity to prefer people who are similar to us in some way, such as race, gender, age, or background. Affinity bias in the workplace can lead to a lack of diversity and perpetuate systemic inequalities.
Confirmation bias is the tendency to seek information confirming our pre-existing beliefs while ignoring information contradicting them. Moreover, confirmation bias can influence decision-making processes, resulting in less objective and equitable outcomes.
Stereotyping is the tendency to make assumptions about people based on their membership in a particular group, such as race, gender, or sexual orientation. With such unconscious bias, employees face unequal treatment and a hostile work environment.
The halo/horns effect is the tendency to form a positive or negative opinion of someone based on a single characteristic or trait. For instance, a manager may favor an employee who attended the same university as them, even if that employee’s performance is mediocre.
These are just a few kinds of unconscious bias, but the list continues. Now, it’s time to understand the effects of unconscious bias on DEI efforts. You can also discover more about how to incorporate equity in the workplace.
Top 5 Impacts of Unconscious Bias on DEI Efforts
Unconscious bias can significantly impact Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts in the workplace. Moreover, if left unchecked, it can perpetuate systemic inequalities and prevent organizations from achieving true diversity and inclusion. Unconscious bias in the workplace can manifest manifest itself in numerous ways:
1. Recruiting
From job postings to candidate selection, unconscious bias at work can impact every stage of the hiring process. Job postings that use gendered language may discourage qualified candidates from applying. And, interviewers may unconsciously favor candidates who are physically or mentally similar to them.
2. Performance evaluations
Unconscious bias can influence performance evaluations, resulting in unequal outcomes. When a manager has unconscious biases against specific groups, they may rate employees lower than others, even if their performance is comparable.
3. Promotions
All too often, unconscious bias takes the lead in promotion and appraisals. Unconscious bias can influence who is promoted and who is not. A manager, for example, may unconsciously favor employees who share their background or interests, even if they are not the best fit for the position. As in other crucial personnel decisions, the unconscious biases negatively affect the DEI efforts a company puts into making a more inclusive culture.
4. Workplace culture
Unconscious bias can harm your workplace culture by making some employees or groups feel excluded or undervalued. If your employees hear offensive or insensitive language, even when framed as “jokes,” it can create a hostile work environment that undoes your company’s diversity and inclusion efforts. To make sure you’re on top of problems like this, Pietential gives you the information you need to keep your finger on the pulse of your team across five elements of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, namely, self-actualization, self-esteem and contribution, love and belonging, safety needs, and physiological needs.
5. Customer Service
Unconscious bias can also affect the way employees interact with customers, leading to differential treatment based on race, gender, or other characteristics. With this, the organization has to face damage to the company’s reputation, resulting in lost business.
How to Mitigate the Impact of Unconscious Bias
Though it seems impossible to eliminate unconscious bias at work from its root, organizations are still fighting with this challenge to create a workplace where every employee can reach their full potential. At Pietential, we believe that once the problem is identified, significant steps can be taken to reduce its impact on DEI efforts.
1. Education and awareness
Addressing unconscious bias in the workplace requires a multifaceted approach. Start by raising awareness of the issue and educating employees on the impact of unconscious bias on DEI efforts. Organizations should conduct training sessions and workshops to help employees recognize their biases and learn strategies to reduce their influence.
2. Standardize processes
Another approach is to implement policies and procedures that mitigate the effects of unconscious bias at work. For instance, a company can remove identifying information from resumes and applications to lessen the impact of factors like race, gender, and age. In addition, they can also conduct structured interviews that prioritize job-related criteria over personal characteristics. In this way, companies can reduce the impact of unconscious bias and create a more equitable hiring process by taking these steps.
3. Diversify decision making
It’s important to create a culture that values diversity and inclusion. To do so, promoting diverse leadership and creating opportunities for employees from diverse backgrounds is a good decision. With this, the employees can share their perspectives and experiences. Moreover, companies can encourage diversity in their recruitment efforts by partnering with companies serving diverse communities while actively seeking out candidates from various backgrounds.
4. Monitor and evaluate
Organizations should regularly monitor and evaluate their DEI efforts to ensure they are making progress and identifying areas for improvement. This effort can assist them in identifying and correcting any unconscious bias that may impede their efforts.
Unconscious bias is a widespread problem that can undermine DEI efforts. However, organizations can mitigate the effects of unconscious bias and create an environment where everyone feels valued and included by understanding what it is and how it manifests in the workplace.
Pietential is an Employee Experience System (EXS) and Employee Engagement System (EES) that enables organizations to prove the efficacy of their internal DEI programs. This powerful benchmarking tool can measure the current effectiveness and impact of their wellbeing initiatives. By letting your employees tell you how they rate their work lives according to five key wellbeing metrics, you can make data-driven decisions for your people.
Want to Address Unconscious Bias at Work? Start from Here!
Businesses have invested both time and effort in creating diverse, equitable, and inclusive cultures because they know those cultures attract and retain top talent. Pietential helps companies see their blind spots, the subtle discrimination of unconscious biases that can affect hiring, promotion, and compensation practices. It also helps them regularly monitor and evaluate their DEI efforts to make sure they are delivering the desired results.
Let Pietential help you create a more just, inclusive, and successful workplace!