Eliminating Unconscious Bias, for a More Productive Workplace

salmaContributed by Salma Shah, Founder of Beyond, an HR talent consultancy.

Is unconscious bias impacting business performance? The UK consultancy Beyond’s recent Unconscious Bias survey results reveal 1 in 3 believe consciously or unconsciously that a woman’s place is at home and not work.

67% of those surveyed have a low or no bias at all. At first glance this appears to be good news. On close scrutiny 1 in 4 of this group when placed under pressure emotionally or cognitively and their biases too will surface. The same applies to the 26% with a moderate bias. We’ve all been there, unrealistic deadlines, last minute requests in the inbox, difficult colleagues, meetings that are time wasting, unachievable targets, budgets being squeezed, clients delaying decisions and on and on.

Everyone has pre-existing concepts surrounding particular groups. These concepts can form at an early age from personal experiences, what we see in the media and moral guidelines for example parental influence and education. The internal perceptions we have of certain groups lead to prejudgements that take place automatically, at high velocity, and are not privy to conscious manipulation. Through bringing the concept of unconscious bias into individual awareness, we begin a process that can regulate the resulting behaviours and eventually effect the beliefs that exist.

Is unconscious bias impacting your business performance? Are there challenges in attracting, retaining and developing top female and diverse talent?

Visualising the bias

But what does unconscious bias look like? I’ll use an example that’s very close to home. Billions of pounds go to the UK’s recruitment agencies every year, and because of that, recruitment consultants are diversity gatekeepers. Some of the better recruitment consultancies (although not that many, truth be told) will have a genuine commitment to helping their clients improve diversity, and will have provided worthwhile diversity training and guidelines. Their consultants should hopefully be positioned to avoid willful discrimination.

But these recruiters will still fall prey to one of the simplest forms of unconscious bias – a negative assessment of non-standard CVs and career paths.

It’s easy to discount a CV that isn’t set out in a normal way, or describes a career path that doesn’t adhere to the normal move up through the corporate wheel. Unfortunately, the standard CV / career path is set at the norm for the majority – good school, good university, good corporate experience (i.e easy to place with clients). CVs from female candidates often don’t look like that, because often they have taken a career break to start a family or want to work part-time. So the recruiter typically excludes female applications, not really deliberately, but in an unconscious way where the recruiter actually feels that they are doing the best by the client. They’re used to assessing candidates against the “normal” framework of what looks good, and they churn the handle and come up with “the usual suspects”.

Behind the Scenes

Unconscious bias works behind the scenes, subversively undermines equality efforts.

If female candidates do happen make it through the process and are presented to the client, the same unconscious bias will be reapplied by the next group of people who review the CVs. And unconscious bias will also play a part in the way the recruitment consultant actually briefs the different candidates for the role prior to meeting the clients, if they get through the sift. That’s unconscious bias, and it has an impact on the process.

But I’ve only scratched the surface of a very complex topic, and the UK is still busy trying to eradicate conscious discrimination. With most CEOs increasingly finding diversity under their remit (or at least showing on their radar), the topic of bias looks set to reach more and more boardroom agendas.

Here are a few strategies for removing inherent bias:

  • Focus attention on what needs to change.
  • Take a solution focused approach as opposed to a problem focused one helps to find answers.
  • Lobby board for project sponsorship – involve HR and Diversity.
  • Train all your employees on the topic of bias awareness.
  • Follow-up with programmes that leads to action.

Beyond is an HR consulting agency located in the UK. Beyond’s approach is based on six core values which shape the culture and define the character of the company: Excellence, Courage, Wisdom, Integrity, Innovation, and Partnership. Salma Shah can be reached at salma.shah@be-yond.co.uk.

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