Biases and their effect on business

Winters are almost gone.. however this is that time of the year where you get to enjoy peas, red carrots, green channa and rich variety of green leafy vegetables. One of my close relatives brought 6 kgs of sweet peas which she intends to store in the freezer as a stock for entire year. Too much work..but these taste so much better than frozen peas available in the markets.

My son also saw green peas for the first time and was fascinated with peeling the skins. We sat together one day taking out shiny peas and putting in a jar. Before they could hit the tumbler, they were ending up in his tummy. After a few mins though, he was bored (as young toddlers do) and found a new game in throwing the peas all over the house. It became fun for him to create a mess. We told him to stop but by then a lot of mess had already happened. When he threw another lot, one of our guests quipped.. "Don't do this son, your mom will have to pick it all up"

I did not mind picking it up, but the statement felt incredibly biased. Other family members and friends continued to sit on the sofa chatting without giving this statement any attention. Later they helped ofcourse as this turned out to be a task requiring all hands on deck. Peas had to be dug out from between and underneath all furniture. Oh no!

This is one simple example of how inherent biases remain with us and creep in the way we lead our conversations and our lives.

At workplaces.. we often encounter biases of various kinds..

#A Sales Hiring manager typically insists on hiring male employees for the fear that women may not be fit for travel or not strong enough to drive sales targets or adjust to culture! STEREOTYPES

#A women applying for a new roles gets an interview question about kids and inlaws and husband. What if your husband moves out of town, would you go for another maternity leave, do you have any time constraints? STEREOTYPES

#Women don’t feel like applying for factory/operations jobs for fear of hazardous working environments ?FEAR of UNKNOWN

#Most decisions for growth opportunities and whom to promote.. happen when group of leaders discuss over chai sutta breaks (typically not frequented by women) OPPORTUNITY BIAS

#Women typically ask not be paired with women bosses because they feel that they would be met with stringent goals and will face stricter parameters of judgement. ?I struggled so you should too.

#Since everyone is talking diversity and we want to be appreciated for riding that bandwagon, we hire a Women leader without evaluating if she would be right fit for the role.. Possibly setting her up for failure. Hey we met the DEI target didn't we? KPI BIAS

#We are getting into appraisal period, if I remember correctly your last qtr targets were not met. You performed great in other three quarters; however, you get a poor rating. ?RECENCY BIAS

#I hired a colleague, I know her personally. She is so charming. She can never do wrong. She is good at her job always. But sir, she made these errors.. No no, she can never do wrong. PRIMACY BIAS, HALO BIAS

# Older generation can’t understand Artificial intelligence, it is so hard to get them to understand and use digital tools GENERATIONAL BIAS

# This new generation don’t want to do any hardwork and are irresponsible. GENERATIONAL BIAS

#I won the award because I worked hard. I failed the test because I didn’t get good sleep last night. SELF SERVING BIAS

#I am not biased. I know all these concepts and I take care to be mindful in my approach to colleagues and families. BLINDSPOT BIAS

Removing Bias is essential.

Typically HR team ends up tackling only bias in recruitment, because it is more visible and also many states and countries have laws against hiring discrimination. But it is important to challenge and resolve biases in other employee lifecycle stages as well. Talent selection and development on merit (rather than favoritism) helps to build a good succession pipeline. Giving equal opportunities helps organizations to avoid legal and reputational risks. Encouraging diversity of thoughts helps to increase creative and innovative outcomes. Removing stereotypes from our thinking and data helps to build better predictions, understand consumers better. Removing generational biases prevents feelings of frustration in young or older workforce.

There are existing social inequalities, inequal share of workloads at home and demands of workplace and society are governed by age old customs and traditions.. In such a scenario..One size fits all approach cannot work. We need to keep performance evaluation metrics consistent for all but also allow for autonomy to manage own tasks at own pace and allow for different styles of working to co-exist.

Have you seen or experienced any biases at home or workplace? What is your take on it? Share in comments.

#Bias #success #equalopportunities #recruitment #talentdevelopment

Pic credit: SHRM

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