Hey! Umm...your bias is showing!

 As I sat to plan the learning and development strategy for my company and tried to identify the competencies that each team would need to succeed and add value to the company, I realized I hadn’t spent enough time identifying what competencies the HR team would need specifically that would allow them to do their role in a fair, sensitive and – for lack of a better word - unbiased way and be advocates for employees while ensuring company goals are met. It’s not just HR that needs to take an unbiased approach towards their work – cultural elements like bias tend to trickle down from the top if unchecked, given where final decisions are made – but HR teams do have significant touchpoints with employees as well as significant input into how policies and decisions are both made and implemented across the company, as well as how employee grievances are resolved and how employees are treated on a daily basis. With that in mind, I sat down to evaluate and identify the areas where my HR team and I could be more mindful and intentional in our interactions and decisions.  

Why does bias exist?

Bias exists because people exist. It’s as simple as that. People are shaped by their experiences of the world around them and as a result form perceptions of people, events, actions and assign certain meanings to them based on previous experiences to help them navigate new situations. Biases can be thought of as frameworks for helping navigate the unknown. Conscious biases are intentional and often help in ensuring checks and balances

What’s different about ‘unconscious bias’?

Unconscious biases are social stereotypes about certain groups of people that individuals form outside their conscious awareness. Unconscious bias happens outside of our control. It occurs automatically and is triggered by our brain making a quick judgment. The problem with unconscious bias is we can rarely easily identify it but the person on the receiving end can instantly feel it. Unconscious biases are harmful because if unchecked, it can lead to discriminatory practices who are more visible and concrete. Unconscious biases tend to favour dominant and majority groups in a culture and make the workplace an unequal playing field for those who don’t belong to dominant subgroups.

What does it look like in action?

• Unconscious bias manifests as stereotypes - spoken, implicit or otherwise - that impact and affect decision making and access to opportunities.
• It may seem that employees belonging to a certain demographic and social group tend to get beneficial treatment and preference for additional work and more responsibilities.
• The senior leadership team tends to mirror each other in physical and cultural attributes, and tend of think along the same lines.
• Gender pay-gaps exist, and there aren't too many women who make it up the career ladder.
• For a country like India, biases tend to exist for people from certain socioeconomic backgrounds who don't find adequate representation in the workplace. Unconscious biases towards people who have perfect, accent-free spoken English are not uncommmon today as well.
• Insecurity among certain demographic groups (eg. older employees) on seeing preferential treatment given to younger employees who recently join

What does it mean for the workplace?

• People may find workplace practices unfair, there may be complaints of discrimination and preferential treatment that management may deny. Employees from non-dominant groups may feel that they don't have a longer career path at the company.
• Innovation doesn't happen - when there aren't diverse voices at the table, companies run the risk of group-think, where everyone has similar ideas and tend to agree instead of challenge one another
• If left unchecked, there may be legal complaints against management of discriminatory hiring and promotion practices, as has happened with a few companies in the West already.

What specifically can HR teams and professionals do to minimize the impacts of unconscious bias?

Broadly identified, there are four entry points for unconscious bias to enter a company’s system and processes

Hiring – this is the activity that faces the most scrutiny and has the highest potential for reducing unconscious bias. Not just recruiters but team leaders can also play an active role in ensuring and demanding that candidates being interviewed come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences. Having panel-led decision making tends to reduce the chances of affinity/similarity bias (hiring people who resemble you physically, culturally and intellectually). Relook at the language in job postings and be mindful of adjectives that unintentionally signal “male” (analytical, independent, driven) and “female” (responsible, empathetic, collaborative). Try a blind recruitment process where you remove the name and college before evaluating work experience – research has shown that the first ten seconds of reading a resume tends to form an impression in the recruiter’s mind (familiarity with name/cultural group and where they studied automatically build a profile in their mind)

Feedback and Performance Evaluation – A classic example of unconscious bias in this area is the Halo and Horns effect. When we hear one bit of good feedback about an individual, we tend to assume that they are good at everything else as well, and vice-versa - one negative interaction, and every future interaction is also marred by the same. Over/under familiarity with the employee can also affect manager rating. One way to combat this is take multiple data points and perspectives during feedback – 360 degree feedback is one tool to help avoid bias from only managers. Setting concrete targets that can be easily evaluated with no room for interpretation is another. Be mindful of the way you describe someone in feedback: "assertive" and "no-nonsense" tend to be seen as positives for male employees, but negative traits for female employees, possibly creating an unfavourable impression when both may be exhibiting strong leadership characteristics.

Promotions and Additional Responsibilities – A common approach towards promotions is that men are evaluated on the basis of their potential (“does he have the potential to take up these additional responsibilities?” whereas women tend to be evaluated on the basis of their actual past achievements (“what has she done in the past that proves she can do this?”). Managers also tend to unfairly consider an individual’s personal situation and responsibilities before deciding whether to give a promotion (eg. “she just got married, she may not be able to spend long hours now in this new role” or “he’s taken so many sick leaves, he may not be able to manage a new team”). Unless an employee specifically raises personal circumstances, managers should evaluate employees purely on their ability to do the job and allow the employee to figure out how they will meet their targets, not make assumptions on the same.

Benefits and Policies – Company policies tend to be skewed most times towards the majority demographic group in that workplace. These tend to manifest in travel and stay policies, leave policies (no opportunities to work from home, flex hours), holidays given by the company and even things like perks and rewards (movie / sports tickets) among other examples. Insurance coverage and other benefits can also specifically signal unconscious support for certain lifestyles and personal situations.

What can leaders do?

• Create opportunities that somewhat level the playing field without making it obvious that you’re overcompensating or engaging in tokenism – leadership development programs that ensure adequate representation across genders and functions are a first step)
• Ensure that you’re surrounded by a diverse team of advisors and second-line leaders – keep people around you who challenge you, and who bring different perspectives to the table. Open some of your decisions to feedback and scrutiny and understand how they are perceived in the larger team.
• Make an effort to allow multiple voices to speak up during meetings – people often look to the leader for cues on whom to follow and support. If you only speak with one or two people in the room, or only respond to their ideas, it sends a signal that you favour those people over the others.
• Hold your managers accountable – question their choices on whom to hire and promote and evaluate their decisions for implicit bias or favouritism.
• Recognize employees in company-wide forums for work well done in terms of achievements, make a conscious effort to highlight women if you’re in a male-dominated company and industry
• Evaluate any gendered notions of leadership that you may hold (eg. a woman won’t be aggressive enough to be head of Sales, a man won’t be empathetic enough to be head of HR)

What can you do on a daily basis?

• Relax. While everyone is talking about unconscious bias now, it’s not some new phenomenon that’s popped up. It’s part of being human. So don’t expect to eliminate it. But once you recognize it, watch out for it more frequently in yourself and others.
• Do focus on being more mindful of how you’re making decisions. If you ever have the chance to take a decision in the workplace (choice of vendor, technology, product, hiring) make sure you insist on at least three options that are varied and include different populations. Introduce diversity in choices
• Be mindful of the language you use when describing people – adjectives and slang play a part in cementing someone’s impression.
• Consciously engage with different people in the company and outside of work. Biases are combated by increasing your scope of reference – the more people you meet and know, the more you may realise your previous ideas were inaccurate.

Above all, recognize that the act of recognizing unconscious bias is the first and most important step – everything else follows once you realise you yourself aren’t infalliable!

(If you have ten mins, I highly recommend you take one of these Implicit Association Tests, purely to understand the depth at which unconscious and implicit biases exist in our world today - please note that it is not an objective evaluation or assessment, but a chance to examine your own current beliefs)