Unconscious bias in the workplace

Wal-Mart is engaged in the largest class action discrimination lawsuit ever right now because of unconscious bias and successful similar suits against FedEx and Home Depot have given unconscious bias legal footholds. Unconscious bias class actions are being taken up against American Express, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, Merrill Lynch, MetLife and Morgan Stanley.

Litigation isn’t the only thing to consider. A 2007 survey in the US found that over two million professionals leave their jobs each year because of unfairness, costing businesses $64 billion in turnover every year. Almost a quarter of those employees wouldn’t ever recommend their former employers to other job-seekers and 13 per cent wouldn’t recommend their product or services to anyone.

Milton Perkins of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) says that unconscious bias creates “human capital waste,” and points out that “people who are hurting inside will inevitably hurt someone else — they will hurt your business, impact your customers and drain your productivity.”

Over 200 nationalities peacefully coexist in Dubai alone but that doesn’t mean that unconscious bias isn’t affecting businesses. Consider this fact: Almost 60 per cent of America’s corporate CEOs are over six feet tall even though less than 15 per cent of the male population in the US is over six feet tall. You wouldn’t think height would be a qualifying characteristic for a leader but this bias affects not only corporate America but rank in the military and even US presidents. Being overweight influences performance evaluations negatively and boys are called upon more than girls in school.

Social scientists mailed 5,000 resumes to 1,250 different employers with names that were “typically white” or “typically black.” Even though these companies were actively recruiting to contribute to diversity, the “typically white” resumes generated 50 per cent more callbacks and even the “typically white” employees that were presented with average skills received more callbacks than the highly skilled “typically black” named candidates.

Our attitudes and assumptions affect every decision that we make, everything that we do. These filters we have help us to screen out the 11 million bits of information that we are exposed to in a moment. Most of what gets through is what supports those unconscious beliefs and attitudes. We react to things emotionally, according to our biases and beliefs, and then find evidence to support our decisions, not the other way around.

We’re wired this way because it helps us to survive. Instead of examining everything and making a decision, we can react more quickly, using our emotionally-wired “fight-or-flight” response. Researchers know that learning and memory occur through emotions. What happens with biases is that these old experiences and unknown beliefs are triggered by people and things before we can consciously think about them. We begin categorising people and things at the age of three. These categories are our stereotypes.

A word, a gesture, a scent or sound can all trigger these biases. You may give someone a good review because they seem familiar or they somehow remind you of someone you like. You wouldn’t do this purposefully yet you make an emotional decision based on your emotional reaction and then you find the evidence to support your decision rationally. The thing is, you will do this when someone reminds you of someone or something unpleasant as well. You’ll also find evidence to support cultural stereotypes you may have and not realise such as “Latinos are lazy” or “Women are too emotional.”

Unconscious biases can affect hiring, job assignments, training opportunities, interpersonal relationships, organisational policy, promotions and customer service. And many biases permeate a company’s culture, become so the norm that they are invisible to everyone.

Becoming aware of the biases and stereotypes affecting you and your company can go a long way as far as changing them. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is available for free at https: //implicit. harvard.edu/implicit/ and detects bias based on things like gender, race, sexual orientation and nationality. Use it anonymously to help people become aware of their stereotypes, conduct anonymous surveys to assess what might be going on in your company that people are too afraid to report. And finally, provide diversity and Emotional Intelligence training for your employees.

The author is an executive coach and HR training and development expert. She can be reached at oksana@academia ofhumanpotential.com or www.academiaofhumanpotential.com