A Guide On Unconscious Bias Workplace Training
Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion (DEI) have become the cornerstone of modern HR policies and day-to-day operations. At every stage of our working career, we have to make decisions that impact not only us but our immediate team and colleagues, as well as the organisation as a whole. How we make decisions is often based on our experience and values. Although most of us don’t intentionally have biassed thoughts, unconscious biases can easily creep into our decision-making process.
Unconscious or implicit biases are often created from somebody’s cultural and social upbringing. These biases can lead to discrimination, and may even impact productivity and hamper company culture.
To help you tackle this issue among your team, unconscious bias workplace training can be an effective tool. Let’s understand the common implicit biases and how they impact your organisation.
What is Unconscious Bias in the Workplace?
Our brains help us to process information, and they use templates that help them reach conclusions quickly. These “templates” are usually formed from our past interactions and are heavily influenced by our upbringing: social, cultural, regional, and religious. We form assumptions and pick up influences from a young age, and there’s often nothing we can do about it—they’re conditioned in our psychology. This leads to unconscious bias.
Unconscious biases are often unintentional prejudices, beliefs, or stereotypes against certain groups of people. They can be difficult to identify but can have far-reaching effects like:
- Exclusions
- Discrimination
- Unfair behaviour
- Preferential behaviour
Implicit bias can impact everything from hiring, appraisals, and every daily functioning. Bias at the workplace can lead to lower employee morale, negative connotations with your brand or business, and higher employee turnover.
To prevent biases from damaging your organisational growth, you can enrol your HR managers and senior management on Elston HR’s unconscious bias workplace training.
Let’s understand the common biases at work.
Types of Unconscious Bias at Work
Manifesting in a variety of ways, here are some common examples of bias in the workplace:
Gender Bias
Gender bias happens when one gender is preferred over the other. Women and people from the LGQTAI+ community are often victims of gender and sexual biases. They’re often considered the “weaker sex”.
This bias leads to new mothers often not being given growth or leadership opportunities. Senior management positions are often offered to men over women. Men, too, are victims of gender bias, like being allocated only a specific kind of work or hard labour.
Affinity Bias
Affinity or similarity bias happens when a manager finds their team member “similar” to them. It can be anything from growing up in the same hometown to attending the same college or university or even having similar appearances and likes/dislikes.
This is a very common bias in the workplace and is especially prevalent during hiring and recruitment. Such biases can give one person an unfair advantage and might impact the overall performance of the team.
Ageism
Ageist behaviour often impacts people who are on the other side of 40. This bias in the workplace may prevent older people from landing new jobs or being promoted. Younger managers often feel that older employees may struggle to keep up with the latest technology, leading to discrimination. Ageism can often lead to the exclusion of people with the most experience.
Halo and Horns Effect
When one character or personality trait either positively or negatively overshadows all other attributes, it’s known as the halo or horn effect.
In the halo effect, one positive attribute dominates the entire conversation. For example, a person who graduated from a top-tier college but lacks other attributes, like communication skills, may be given preferential treatment over a community college graduate.
In the horn effect, a hiring manager or reporting manager forms a negative perception of a person because of very minor, and sometimes even unrelated, shortcomings. This can impact how they perceive and assess the potential employee.
How Does Unconscious Bias Impact Your Business
Now you understand how bias shows up in the workplace, let’s examine the impact it can have on your overall organisational performance.
Poor Workplace Culture
Unconscious bias can have severe consequences on a worker’s morale and engagement. If someone is being looked over because of their gender, age, or a small disagreement, despite their performance, they’re likely to suffer from stress, anxiety, and burnout.
For this reason alone, it’s essential for senior leadership to undergo regular unconscious bias workplace training to identify the bias, as well as address it effectively.
Legal Compliance
It’s against the law to discriminate against an individual based on their age, gender reassignment, race, religion, sex, and disability in the UK. Workplaces that fail to adhere to the Equality Act 2010 may face legal ramifications. It’s essential that you make all efforts to remove any discriminatory practices even if they stem from an unconscious bias.
Decision-making
DEI initiatives promote a fair and well-represented workplace, and this leads to better representation of ideas and improved business growth. Unconscious bias during hiring can lead to a homogeneous team that lacks a diverse perspective. This can limit your ability to provide your end-customers with a solution. So, you and the decision-makers in your companies should make a deliberate effort to avoid unconscious bias when hiring.
Contact Elston HR For Unconscious Bias Workplace Training
Is unconscious bias training effective? Yes—we’ve seen firsthand how this training has helped managers to understand the intrinsic predispositions that impact their decision-making.
With Elston HR’s unconscious bias workplace training, you’ll learn how to create a fair, compliant, and equal-opportunity workplace. We offer tailored solutions that empowers HR professionals and senior leadership to understand and address diversity and unconscious bias, communicate more effectively, and become more self-aware and emotionally intelligent.
Get in touch with Elston HR today.