Workplace biases can have negative effects on both employees and organizations. They often lead to decreased productivity and employee satisfaction, which impacts the overall work environment for everybody. Additionally, workplace bias can impact an individual’s career development and opportunities for advancement within a company.
Organizations need to be aware of the potential for bias in the workplace and take the necessary steps to eliminate prejudice. This includes educating employees about bias, how it can play out in the workplace and its damaging impact, as well as creating policies and procedures that promote and protect diversity and inclusion.
What Causes Unconscious Bias?
One of the most common forms of discrimination found in the workplace is unconscious bias. Unconscious bias occurs when we treat others differently and unknowingly due to our background, personal experiences, and the societal stereotypes that we’ve been exposed to throughout our lives. Although this type of bias does not occur intentionally, it can often lead to feelings of isolation among employees that can impact their mental health and well-being..
These biases can be based on race, gender, sexual orientation, age, appearance, or any other factors. Many people are exposed to discriminatory stereotypes and biases at a young age. As people grow older, these biases can shape their attitudes and behaviour in ways that are harmful to themselves and others.
Regardless of whether or not these biases occur intentionally, they are damaging and do not belong in any professional setting. As a first step to correcting these biases, it is important to understand where and how these biases were formed to reflect on our distorted beliefs and reduce prejudice altogether.
Negative Impacts of Unconscious Bias
Even though businesses are aware of the need to combat unfair stereotypes and prejudices in the workplace, they may still occur. When unconscious biases exist within an organization, they can cause high levels of employee stress and mental health problems, which have a negative influence not only on individuals but on the whole organization.
How unconscious bias can play out in the workplace:
- Barrier to professional growth: Often employees will become unmotivated and lose trust in their organization when workers are rewarded with promotions or bonuses over more deserving candidates due to affinity bias.
- Alienation: Employees who are the targets of workplace bias frequently feel alienated from the group and as though they are not considered a vital part of the team. This often results in lower levels of productivity or even a complete departure from the organization altogether.
- Missed recruitment opportunities: Unconscious bias can play an unfortunate role for many organizations in the early stages of the hiring process. Applications are routinely rejected without regard to an applicant’s competence, but rather due to implicit biases that exist in the minds of the hiring managers. For example, even if an applicant has all of the required qualities and experience for the position, a hiring representative may subconsciously disregard them due to their foreign name or native language that appears on their resume.
Eliminating Implicit Bias From the Workplace
Reducing unconscious bias in your organization can be a lot more challenging than it seems. Before any changes can be made, you must identify and be willing to admit that implicit prejudice does indeed exist within your workplace.
Once you have identified the problem, there is no single solution for weeding out unconscious bias within your organization. It is important to listen to your employees and implement a detailed action plan to begin building a healthier and more accepting workplace. Unfortunately, even though work is meant to be a safe space for all your employees, many of them may be hesitant to speak up about their concerns regarding workplace culture.
Here are a few strategies that HR leaders have found to be helpful in the past when it comes to identifying and addressing implicit bias:
- Confidential employee surveys (facilitated by a third party)
- Third-party facilitation of employee focus groups (not attended by management)
- Action plan to improve workplace inclusion developed based on input (e.g. policy development, more inclusive health benefits, implementation of blind recruitment practices, unconscious bias education/training)
- Set and build awareness of the corporate diversity, equity and inclusion goals and stay accountable with KPIs.
Unconscious biases are ingrained inside the minds of everybody and can be very detrimental to workplace culture and employees’ mental health. The first step is always acknowledging it exists in your organization and mapping your way forward to creating a healthier work environment where everyone can thrive.
For more information on how we can partner with you to strengthen your DEIB strategy, chat with our iHealthOX Care Team.
Sources:
https://www.knowledgecity.com/blog/how-does-unconscious-bias-affect-the-workplace/
https://hbr.org/2019/11/how-the-best-bosses-interrupt-bias-on-their-teams
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