Having an awareness of potential unconscious biases in the workplace and how to overcome these is essential to the success of your team.
Keep reading to learn how to reduce biases – helping improve trust, inclusivity, and productivity in your company.
What is unconscious bias?
How a person thinks can depend on their life experiences, and sometimes they have beliefs and views about other people that might not be right or reasonable.
Anyone can think in a way that involves unconscious bias at some point, but its important to be aware of this and not let it affect behaviour or decisions.
Unconscious bias can be grouped into many different forms – below are a few key examples:
- Affinity or similarity bias – the tendency to favour people who are like you in some way.
- Confirmation bias – once we make a decision or form an opinion, we tend to look for, and value, further information that confirms this.
- The halo effect – this occurs when one perceived positive feature or trait makes us view everything about a person in a positive way, giving them a ‘halo’. The ‘horn effect’ is the opposite – when we focus on one particularly negative feature.
Implement techniques for unbiased recruitment
Unbiased recruitment, sometimes called objective recruitment is a process where objective facts are used in order to make decisions rather than subjective observations.
Using blind hiring software, multiple people in the decision-making process and telephone screening can reduce or even eliminate bias from the process.
Recognise and manage your own unconscious biases
It is important to recognise your own biases wherever possible so that they are not acted upon.
Pay attention to your own thoughts and examine your own beliefs – have they influenced any decisions you have made recently?
Seek feedback from peers and colleagues on your thoughts and be prepared to have them challenged or other perspectives stated.
Once you have begun to understand your own biases a conscious effort can then be made to negate them in any decision making that occurs.
Provide unconscious bias training
Training in unconscious bias aims to improve awareness of the quick judgements that are made about people, and reduce the number that are made within the workplace by making individuals aware of their own biases, providing tools and approaches to help people modify their habitual thought patterns and to reduce prejudice by changing behaviours.
How can WA Management help?
WA Management offer an online Unconscious Bias training course, beneficial for both employers and managers who are trying to improve diversity and inclusion in their workplace.
Time Management and Unconscious Bias training courses are essential tools in improving workplace planning and efficiency. Make sure you don’t miss out on our 10% off deal on these courses, available until the end of July. Simply enter the code ‘planning10’ at checkout to save!
Read more Consultant’s blogs here.
To keep up to date with the latest health & safety news and advice, follow us on social media: