Unconscious Biases and their Importance in Achieving Workplace Equality
Photo Credit to Hannah Busing
The death of George Floyd has triggered tremendous outrage globally. This immense breach of injustice, along with countless others, has alerted the world to just how much change is still needed before we are anywhere near achieving true racial equality.
In the past few months, thousands, if not millions, have taken to the streets worldwide to raise their voices and express support for the Black Lives Matter Movement. More than anything, these protests, and recent events have shone a real spotlight on the racial injustice that pervades society not just in the United States, but all over the world.
Just a glimpse of statistics concerning unemployment rates, household income, wage gaps, and educational opportunities (the list goes on), highlights the extent to which discrimination against Black people is embedded deep in society. This pervasive discrimination is known as systemic racism. Heard the term? It means that the structures of society (whether educational, financial, related to criminal justice, politics, or healthcare) are built to favour and advantage White people.
Critically, it seems that protesting, donating, and signing petitions is not enough to combat the racism ingrained in our societies. We must recognize that no matter how open-minded we believe ourselves to be, we all hold biases, some conscious and others unconscious biases in particular about race and culture that serve to maintain systemic racism. So, what are some things we can do to help to bring more equality in the world?
What is Unconscious Bias?
According to psychologists at Harvard, unconscious biases occur when our brains make quick judgments based on stereotypes of certain groups of people and situations, quickly categorizing people into "in group" or "out-groups." Importantly, these quick judgments occur outside our conscious awareness and get made to help our brains make sense of the copious amounts of information we constantly encounter.
However, this means that even if you believe yourself to be genuinely open-minded, there is a good chance that unconscious judgments about race, gender, family status, social-economic, along with other elements, maybe automatically influencing your everyday interactions, behavior, and decisions, without your knowledge.
These factors can have serious consequences, particularly in the workplace, unfairly affecting who gets hired, listened to, given positive feedback, blamed for mistakes, and gets promoted or dismissed. All this not only serves to hinder equal opportunities but also prevents the formation of a diverse and truly inclusive workforce, of which there are countless benefits.
But, can Unconscious Biases be changed?
Whilst the malleability of unconscious biases has been disputed in the past, more recent research suggests that they can be changed or at least mitigated.
This is something that we all need to do if we are to make 2020 a real turning point for racial equality in both the workplace, and society in general.
So, how can we be more aware and mitigate our Unconscious Biases?
The first most important step is awareness and acceptance that you and all of us have biases- and then deciding you are going to put in the effort to change your negative biases. For organizations, diversity, and inclusion, biases training and coaching can come in handy here, providing employees with a robust understanding and awareness of the blind spots and dangers that biases behavior can cause, and why they need to get addressed.
Secondly, it is self-examination and reflection. Individuals first need to identify the biases they may hold. While this is uncomfortable work, accepting that we might not be as anti-racist as we would like to think, and holding ourselves accountable, is crucial.
One way to uncover the biases we possess is by taking a five-minute Implicit Association Test. The test, developed by professors Brian Nosek and Anthony Greenwald, is able to delve into our unconscious biases by looking at our automatic reflexes and impulses through a series of simple categorization tasks. Please check the test here to know more about it https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html
So, once you are aware of who you may subconsciously be inclined to favor or disfavor, what is next? It is about listening to the experiences of those we hold biases against and educating ourselves on why our biases are unfounded in factual evidence or warrant are vital factors.
When targeting unconscious biases in the workplace, training or coaching can be extremely helpful. Direct interaction in a multicultural and multiracial environment helps with perspective-taking. Coaching can help your organization establish structures (such as mentoring programs) to generate meaningful discussions on race and culture, gender, family status, alongside strengthening relationships between employees of different backgrounds. Training and coaching can also help you establish the active listening and communicative skills necessary to truly make the most of these relationships and conversations, helping to enhance everyone’s cultural awareness.
The next important step is to slow down the decision-making process. Why is that? Consider whether any of the biases you have identified in yourself may be influencing the decisions you make. Again, training and coaching can help kickstart this, stimulating discussion about the various scenarios in which unconscious bias may be affecting behavior in your unique workplace and providing questions that employees can ask themselves to reflect on their decisions.
To maintain this positive change in the workplace, however, the role of leadership is essential. Having a culture in your organization that encourages conversations about race and the questioning of other’s decisions is crucial and can be created by leaders who continuously reinforce their importance. Coaching can provide 1:1 guidance to leaders of organizations to ensure this critical reflection is continued long after the training or coaching session.
Working with leaders to establish and implement a healthy diversity and inclusion policy is also essential. The same goes for the establishment of objective criteria that can be used to make decisions like who to hire, as well as implementing ‘blinding measures’, such as removing information from CVs or employee’s work that could reveal information about race.
So, it seems there is much to be done to beat our unconscious biases about race, especially in the workplace. Targeting them is of utmost importance in strive towards racial equality.
However, it is essential to note that unconscious biases do not just pertain to race, but to a whole host of other ways that individuals are categorized, such as sexuality, gender and age. These are just as important to target!
At FELIZ Consulting, we are committed to delivering Unconscious Bias training and Diversity & Inclusion Programs with real impact, serving to make work, and society, an equal place. We also provide 1:1 leadership coaching in these areas, always working to tailor solutions unique to your workplace.
We are here to help and would love to hear from you!
Please contact us at FELIZ Consulting to learn more. [email protected]
FELIZ CONSULTING TEAM
1. https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2020/know-their-names/index.html
2. https://blacklivesmatter.com
3. https://www.businessinsider.com/us-systemic-racism-in-charts-graphs-data-2020-6
4. https://time.com/5851855/systemic-racism-america/
5. https://faculty.harvard.edu/files/fdd/files/unconscious_bias_and_the_faculty_search_process_2.0.pdf
7. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1948550617752064
8. https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html
9. https://www.felizconsulting.com/corporate-training-provider-hk