Every day an individual makes thousands of decisions without even thinking about them. These decisions sometimes happen while a person is under the influence of unconscious biases that affect them without realizing it. Along with negative stereotypes, biases or prejudices can be the basis for discrimination.
There are numerous unconscious biases that influence the workplace, there are more than 150 identified biases. Unconscious bias can cause biased behavior based on race, gender, sexual orientation, culture, religion, or generational differences. Bias can also be based on height, weight, introversion versus extroversion, marital and parental status, physical ability, and foreign accents.
How does prejudice limit?
Unconscious biases can harm diversity efforts in the workplace. They can hinder recruitment and retention efforts and lead to higher turnover. Unconscious bias leads to significant discrimination against qualified and experienced women in the workplace. In addition, biases hinder innovation, creativity, team cohesion and inclusion in the workplace.
Unconscious biases in recruiting and hiring can limit the potential for building a diverse team. It also affects the decision-making process of which employee will be hired, promoted and developed.
Solutions
When biases are truly unconscious, combating them starts with raising awareness of their existence. Once people become aware of these biases, they need to confront them, and this helps them identify their mistakes.
Dealing with biases begins with awareness of these biases both internally, for example by recognizing biases in oneself, and externally, such as organisational practices and individual actions
By labeling possible biases and bringing them to a conscious level, leaders and employees can become more aware of how these biases affect decision making, hiring, promotions, rewards, and organizational culture.
*This article is part of a research paper “Unconscious Biases – Types, Effects, Solutions”, which will be published in Volume 24 of the journal “Sofia University – Faculty of Economics”.
