Sneaking into your job listings, policies, and even your conversations, unconscious bias can cause headaches and hurt for you, your employees, and/or your company. What is this? Unconscious bias involves situations where someone makes assumptions about another person based on how that individual looks, speaks, or behaves. The perpetrator of the bias isn’t aware that he or she is making inappropriate assumptions, statements, or actions.
So what can you do about it? The first step is to become conscious of the bias. Encourage employees to put themselves in others’ shoes and understand how hurtful and counterproductive stereotypes and misconceptions are. Make sure supervisors and managers are up to the task of modeling unbiased actions and decision-making. Invest in diversity, equity, and inclusion training. Consider working with an outside consultant to evaluate your organization and suggest focuses for training and education.
Realize that it may be impossible to completely banish unconscious bias. However, it is important to do what you can to ensure it doesn’t impact hiring, promotions, or other decisions. Read the full article.
