What is unconscious bias? In the working world, we come into contact with people from a multitude of backgrounds. A modern workplace often requires working with and supporting an employee’s differences, involving their unique outlook or experiences. However, because the human brain is wired to make categorisations as a survival tool, we may negatively stereotype people on the basis of their background or other characteristics. This is known as unconscious bias, and this article will explain how best to avoid it to improve your recruitment process, and to promote a non-discriminatory environment for your employees. 

What is unconscious bias and why is it harmful in the workplace?

Unconscious bias or identity bias is a human cognitive trait that can lead to the stereotyping of individuals on the basis of background or other characteristics. Our brains are wired to categorise others, particularly by age, social background, gender identity, ethnicity, sexual orientation or education.

While it is common to categorise people on the basis of learned social associations, these categories can be a positive or negative stereotype. This can lead to ineffective recruitment decisions, or workplace discrimination. 

According to a UK unconscious bias survey, under-represented ethnic minorities were more likely to have reported negative encounters than white people. This included being overlooked in a job application, and being treated differently because of their appearance.

These negative experiences can occur through verbal and non-verbal indications by the other person, either in an interview, job application or on a day-to-day basis in the workplace.

While our cognitive ability to categorise is a useful survival tool – discerning whether someone or something is friendly or hostile, for instance – in the working world it can be detrimental to positive relationships.

Unconscious bias can also wrongfully lead us to make snap assumptions about a candidate or employee’s intelligence, emotions or other capacities.

Although we may pick up these clues on a day-to-day basis, they also contribute to forming our very first impressions of a candidate or employee. This is known as either the halo effect if we gain a positive first impression on the basis of these characteristics, or the reverse halo effect if they create a negative one. 

How unconscious bias can affect the recruitment process

These assumptions can often be completely unfounded in terms of a candidate or employee’s actual working abilities, characteristics or personal qualities. The society you are in can condition you to make these assumptions through reinforcement in media, parenting or in your own personal social sphere. 

The key thing to remember is that unconscious bias is formed unconsciously, which means that we do not realise we have this bias. This means that we might not intend to see a candidate in a positive or negative light on the basis of these indications. We might also form this bias despite our best intentions not to discriminate against candidates and employees. 

However, recognising when we are doing this is useful in that it means that you’re more likely to hire a candidate on the basis of their real rather than perceived strengths. This also improves an employee’s overall well-being in the workplace too, as it means that their true qualities are more likely to be recognised and rewarded. 

Although during the interview and recruitment process you might not have much time to assess a candidate, being aware of unconscious bias here can help stop you from making snap judgements about an employee.

Unconscious bias training for employees

It is helpful for employers to recognise unconscious bias (or identity bias, as it is also known) in themselves. However, it is also the case for your employees. This is so that your employees can cooperate successfully in the workplace, and it helps to avoid workplace bullying. Unconscious bias training can be incorporated into your HR team’s diversity and inclusion strategy.

Providing appropriate and successful unconscious bias training can be a complex task on multiple levels. Whether unconscious bias training has long-term benefits is widely debated, however, a Harvard Review study showed that UB training led to a heightened awareness of bias within teams. 

It might be a good idea to ask your employees – particularly historically excluded groups or disabled employees – for feedback on this training, so that you can incorporate it into future training sessions. According to a psychologist, it is useful to focus on the long-lasting impact that this will have on your team. This can be part of your ongoing skills training strategy.

An unconscious bias training session can start conversations among employees about their own biases and how to tackle them. This might potentially have positive long-term benefits.

Awareness of unconscious bias is important, but you can give employees strategies to reduce their own unconscious bias. Creating a follow-up assessment of your employee’s unconscious after any training might give you an indication as to whether it was successful. 

Unconscious bias training ideas

A training session can give your employees the initial tools to spot unconscious bias in themselves and others. A good strategy to build on conventional bias training is a prejudice habit-breaking strategy. This involves teaching employees how to spot implicit bias, and then having them take an Implicit Association Test. This reveals the extent to which everyone experiences unconscious bias.

Following the test, you can guide employees through group and individual reflection. This can take the form of a group discussion, cross-team presentations, and encouraging employees to call out instances of unconscious bias in themselves and other employees. 

Short-term unconscious bias training may lead to greater awareness within your team, but it is a good idea to consider the long term. Incorporating unconscious bias awareness into your overall HR and business organisation might have a longer-term impact on your business.

Unconscious bias training as part of diversity and inclusion

In order to communicate your unconscious bias training effectively, you might want to involve your diversity and inclusion team in your strategy. If you do not already have a diversity and inclusion team, you can appoint members of your HR department who you believe are suitable for the role.

You might want to choose candidates who already have a good understanding of inclusion issues such as unconscious bias. These might be HR employees who are from ethnic minority or other minority group backgrounds. As unconscious bias is a sensitive issue, having a team behind your strategy here can help you decide the best approach for your employees.

This way, they can use their own experiences to inform their communication of any diversity and inclusion strategies. To communicate these issues effectively, you can look out for traits such as emotional intelligence, as well as strong prior knowledge.