How can you address unconscious bias in the workplace?

What we frame as implicit biases are reflective of the social stories we grew up being told and hidden from us. The social stories are stereotypes socialized and maintained by the larger systems that benefits some membership groups more than others. Overtime these social stories become an “implicit story” by which we move through the world. Thus, to unpack one’s bias, ask yourself what were the social stories you learned from your family, friends, teachers, coaches, community etc. Who was considered as the inner circle and given more value? How were they given greater value? What forms did this value take and how did you come to learn what matters? Who had to be put down to uphold the values afforded to this inner circle?

From an Organizational perspective, it's always better to define the goal of addressing unconscious bias even before starting the journey of addressing its existence. This way, one will not get lost in the journey and there's always a metric to come back to when checking the impact. Secondly a top-down approach would bring a lot of acceptance. Make it a part of conversations, especially from the leadership. This ensures that employees feel the environment is safe enough to admit and address their own unconscious bias. Encouraging vulnerability is always a booster. To get the message across, use "storytelling" the ultimate strategy, even in webinars, training, etc. For the change that's being brought in to be sticky, change policies.

It is impossible to eliminate unconscious bias from human beings but we can acknowledge them and minimize its impact. The first step is to accept the existence of unconscious bias. I often ask a question during DEI workshops, "What is the biggest blindspot one can ever have"? The answer is " I don't have any blindspot" The journey of awareness starts with accepting that I don't that I don't know followed by I know that I don't know.

Biases are the mental constructs that we (within our brains) apply to simplify the complex world around us. They can be positive, when we favour certain groups or individuals and assign undeserved privileges to them. They can be negative, when we treat others as a threat to our well-being or social status. They are mostly part of our subconsciouness (the under-the-surface part of our "iceberg of self"), and are based on behavioral and emotional patterns. Identifying those is a process along our self-discovery and awareness, cross-cultural and individual.

Although unconscious bias isn’t intentional, acting on our biases can still have severe consequences for the workforce and the business One of the best ways to avoid unconscious bias is to understand how it operates in your workplace, including in operational processes. Because people can also struggle to question the status quo, processes are a common ground for biases. For example, consider which types of employees historically are most likely to receive raises or promotions. Who is most rewarded in your organizational structure and culture? “To improve our biases, we need to reflect on these types of situations, “When you take the time to think the situation over and what you would do differently, that is the start of behavior change.”

This is actually a great initiative only if these changes are informed by perspectives of employees within the organization. The use of generic action points encourages the concept of one solution fits it all. A diverse workforce has diverse need. The encouragement of focus group discussion and discussion group brings out a lot of ideas. It is important to educate the workforce on what biases are, its implications and what some.examples may be. It was surprising in our self reflection session what was unraveled at our first focus group discussion. The very actions that we overlooked to be non consequential were actually affecting certain groups in the workforce

In my experience reviewing policies and practices are not enough if we are not willing to look at our discursive and knowledge-making practices. Policies/practices are just that—an organization’s living knowledge system for human interaction. One can say the right thing & still not do the right thing because they don’t acknowledge the organic nature of everyday interactions, contextual nature of interpretations & the diversity of positionalities. By adopting a participatory approach that sees policies & practices as living assemblages of the network of relationships, we will avoid creating a reductionist, checkbox oriented, compliance minded workplace. Policies don’t make us, we make them. So ask how were they made, by whom & who benefits?

In my opinion, within the policies that are established, it is best to promote the behavioral examples (in scripts format and commonly shared stories), about the spectrum of two : 1) what good practices look like; 2)what are the not acceptable behaviors. One thing that I am a great promoter (yet not very often practiced) - as a matter of monitoring and enforcement of the change to "stick" - is to name any "exclusion" practices as non-compliant , against code od conduct, and encourage people to raise their concerns (under the confidentiality, in order to minimize concerns of any negative repercussions). Such cases shall be examined and tackled with (at least) educational efforts, to bring the subconscious into the consciousness .

In my opinion, the culture of inclusion and belonging can be grounded and fostered by bringing awareness to the "subconscious" fact the everybody is different and their life experiences shaped who they are today. Just stating "we are so different" is not enough, though. It creates barriers between Us and Them, between in-groups and out-groups. Being curious and enquire : "what has been your journey so far?" , "how you want to contribute now?" , as well as "to what values you aspire?" - are the first solid steps to create a sense of belongingness. #belongingmatters

I think open honest communication between peers is one of the way out to discuss and share perceptions and feeling about presence and awareness about unconscious biases if any . If a team member notices the other team member of judgements with out logic or " loaded " perceptive communication, it is his/ her role to communicate openly and honestly to share this to other person . Many a times the person displaying or " carrying" these unconscious biases is not aware about it . Once communicated the role of the other person is to listen proactively, reflect deeply and be non judgemental be non biased and accept feedback at its core. Changes if any if required may be made.

I think that we can take meaningful steps to reduce the harmful effects of bias and discrimination in the workplace such as: ??Awareness training as it is the first step to unraveling unconscious bias because it allows employees to recognize that everyone possesses them and to identify their own; ??Take an assessment to figure out which of your perceptions are most likely to be governed by unconscious biases. Then, you can take proactive steps to address them on a personal basis; ??Set diversity, equity and inclusion goals to make sure that your diversity program is more than just lip service and you actually make progress toward building a diverse team.