A number of things can be done at a personal level to enable us all to recognise, monitor, and reduce the impact of our personal biases. Taking an IAT test should be the first step towards your own self-awareness. Organisations must also support this within their policies and practices for future and existing employees.
Hover the key practices
[bias-map]
By following or implementing some of these practices, you and your organisation will be taking some positive steps to reduce or eliminate Unconscious Bias within the workplace.
Organisational values
Consider your Organisational Values or Mission Statement; do they encourage diversity and Inclusion? Do you need to revisit these?
This is the starting point and will help reinforce positive bias behaviours and thought processes.
Remove negative barriers
To assist with the eradication of bias, you can look at how to combat negative images which may create and reinforce negative associations. Making simple declarations about valuing a diverse workforce has an impact, as can making it clear that the procedures and employees have undergone bias testing.
Making sure that you allocate sufficient time to carefully consider all evidence provided will help to reduce the impact of unconscious biases within processes. Over-stretching your employees, in terms of the amount of information they have to process in a short space of time, is proven to create the ideal conditions for unconscious bias to operate.
Selecting new employees
Even having what you may consider irrelevant information during selection can trigger our unconscious biases. Where possible sifting and other assessment should take place without assessors knowing anything which could unintentionally induce bias. For example, having candidate names on application forms alongside the information being used for sifting candidates will often tell an assessor key information about the person like their:
- gender
- possible ethnic origin
These items can trigger unconscious biases without us realising it. Where possible paper or online applications for jobs or a promotion should be sifted using reference numbers instead of a name. Even information like their interests, schools etc. can have an impact on our presumption and bias of individuals.
Take your time
Bias becomes most prevalent when we are forced into making a quick decision or judgement. Rushing decisions forces us to fall back on our subconscious, which we’ve already established, can be biased. Taking the time to stop and think critically about any decision you have to make will help to ensure you don’t slip into biased thinking. This may of course mean that you take longer to make decisions, but it will help to ensure you are being fair, which makes it worth the commitment.
Create the right environment for employees
Employees may believe that they already make fair decisions and may be resistant to having to take the time to focus on their biases. Training them in unconscious bias and explaining why change to any processes is necessary will help reduce this resistance. Organisational procedures must be robust and fair to ensure unconscious bias can be removed.
Challenge bias when it occurs
Where you feel that someone may be making a decision based on a bias, it is useful to politely challenge their thinking. This could be done by asking a colleague how they came to their decision and what relevance a specific piece of information might make to that conclusion. Where a piece of information has no relevance to the situation, politely suggest it is excluded and then review what effect this has on the decision. It’s important to try and cultivate an environment of challenging bias in the workplace.
Listen to the language being used
Whether it be in documents or when made verbally, the language that we use can highlight unconscious bias. It’s worth checking organisational documents to assess the language for partiality. Is there a male bias in the language? Does the tone of a job advert suggest that someone older or younger is preferred? Similarly, we should keep check of the language people use in the workplace and try to ensure it is neutral. Of course we shouldn’t get carried away with this process and it’s important to ensure things don’t become too ambiguous and confusing. This can cause resentment and sometimes have an adverse effect.
Show empathy
In difficult situations, our bias can push through any empathy we may feel for a person. If we deem their behaviour unacceptable it can cloud our judgement and mean that we react rather than respond. Putting ourselves in their shoes and thinking about things from their perspective can help to keep our bias in check and helps to ensure our response is made from a position of fairness.