Recognize Biases in the Workplace
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Describe different types of bias and how they manifest in the workplace.
- Summarize how bias impacts employee performance.
Types of Bias
Inclusion in the workplace, where everyone feels they belong and are welcome, is a significant goal for any organization, but it can also be a difficult one to achieve. At times, implicit biases impact our ability to be truly inclusive and can act as a barrier to equality. It prevents us from cultivating diverse talent, developing an engaged workforce, leveraging unique experiences and perspectives, and sparking innovation through collaboration. Bias at work can appear just about anywhere, but most often, it shows up in recruiting, screening, performance reviews, feedback, coaching and development, and promotions.
Many harmful types of implicit bias manifest in the workplace. When they do, they can lead to the mistreatment of colleagues and team members or the unfair evaluation of performance. Here are just a few examples of different types of bias, and how they show up in the workplace.
Type of Bias | Description |
|---|---|
Affinity bias (also called in/out group bias) | Affinity bias is favoring someone similar to you and excluding those who are different. This can have a significant impact on the workplace. When affinity bias takes over, individuals may find that they primarily hire candidates who look, think, and act like them, or they tend to evaluate the performance of those similar to them more favorably than those who aren’t. |
Confirmation bias | This is the tendency to give more credence to information that confirms a belief we already hold. For example, if we already think that a colleague isn’t a good project manager, we will subconsciously look for information that confirms that belief. |
Halo effect | This is the tendency to assume that, just because a person has one positive trait, they must be good overall. For example, if we think that someone is nice, we might assume they are also smart and trustworthy. |
Horn effect | This bias, which is the opposite of the halo effect, is the tendency to assume that someone is just generally bad at something because we learned one negative thing about them. This would be like assuming a person must be incapable at their job because they can’t figure out how to get the copier to work. |
The Relationships Between Bias and Performance
We go to work every day and make decisions, most likely without any thought about excluding others. Remember those 11 million bits of information coming at us and our brain being able to process only 40 of them? With the resulting blind spots we have, it’s challenging for us to make the best decisions if we are not conscious of the biases we hold and where they show up in the workplace.
Here are common “traps,” or ways that implicit bias can quietly and unknowingly create unintended exclusion in your daily work.
Interviewing and Hiring
If you look for talent in the same places, in the same schools, and using the same referrals, you’ll get the same kinds of candidates. Expand your recruitment efforts to seek out talent from diverse sources. Additionally, ensure that your hiring team or committee is made up of representatives from diverse communities and identity groups. Finally, establish objective hiring criteria to help eliminate bias and promote equality in the hiring process.
Coaching and Development
Assumptions and stereotypes can impact who gets those more interesting and perhaps complex assignments that build skills and create more paths for promotion opportunities. Also, leaders can potentially deliver performance feedback differently based on assumptions they make about the team member’s identity, especially between different gender groups.
Talent Reviews and Performance Evaluations
Ask yourself the following questions regarding measuring and evaluating performance.
- Are the tools you use to review employees free of bias?
- What criteria do you use to calibrate performance evaluations?
- Is this criteria skewed in such a way that gives certain types of personalities an advantage over others?
- Are you actively promoting a diverse set of employees?
Day-to-Day Interactions
Communication between peers, managers, and employees takes all different forms. Some individuals can get to the task right away with little to no instructions or input required. Conversely, some people benefit from more detailed communication. Differences in communication styles, if not accounted for, can have a direct, detrimental impact on an individual’s ability to act on and meet deadlines.
Recognition and Reward
People all have different preferences for how they like their contributions to be recognized. It’s important to understand what motivates individuals to come to work, perform, and stay engaged. When you learn how individuals wish to be acknowledged for their work, rather than assuming that they like to be recognized the same way you or others do, you may actually increase the impact of the recognition. Engaging in this simple practice is one way to put aside your assumptions (biases) and engage with your team in a manner that is meaningful and impactful for them.
As we bring this unit to a close, reflect on the following questions:
- When and how has bias impacted you in the workplace?
- Where might you have perpetuated bias in the workplace?
In the next unit, we introduce a new concept: microaggressions.