Diversity and inclusion has proven business benefits. However, there’s often a hidden tripwire on the journey to more inclusive workplaces: bias. Ranging from unconscious and unintended biases to prejudice and even intolerance and bigotry, organisations must find ways to challenge bias in all its forms. These top tips provide ten practical ways to reduce bias in the workplace and boost diversity and inclusion.
1. Self-reflection
Biases develop and are reinforced over time through the influence of family, friends and colleagues, as well as from the wider influences of culture and media. It’s important to take time to reflect on the decisions you make each day and ask yourself: “did a bias influence my decision?” By questioning and challenging ourselves in this way, we learn to change our behaviour to become more inclusive.
2. Implement processes
Because so many biases are unconscious, human beings don’t have the cognitive energy to reflect on every decision. To mitigate our biases we need to design processes to help us behave more inclusively without needing to think about our actions. For example:
- Removing personal details like gender and age from CVs
- Designing recruitment processes that ensure interviewers use a matrix and provide ratings before group discussion
- Designing inclusive meetings
3. Be aware of non-verbal behaviour
Some biased thinking can be demonstrated in behaviour known as micro-inequity. Micro-inequities are: “small, thoughtless unfairnesses, often unintentional and difficult to prove, toward those who are perceived as different” (Rowe, 2016, MIT). Subtle behaviours in terms of body language, facial expressions, nodding and eye contact can be micro-affirmations that show subtle acknowledgements of another person.
Show micro-affirmations for all your interactions by:
- Using each person’s name
- Being aware of your eye contact
- Using affirming words when someone is speaking
- Actively listening to everyone in a meeting
- Nodding and showing evidence that you are listening to everyone
4. Test your biases
The Harvard Implicit Association Test (IAT) measures the strength of associations between concepts (eg female/male and career/family). The main idea is that responses come more easily when closely related items share the same response key.
The Harvard IAT is a free online test run by Project Implicit. This non-profit organisation enables international collaboration between researchers who are interested in implicit social cognition; the thoughts and feelings outside of conscious awareness and control.
The theory goes that if people categorise two words, like ‘male’ and ‘career’ more quickly than ‘female’ and ‘career’, we would say that people have an implicit association between ‘male’ and ‘career’ relative to ‘female’ and ‘career’.
The aim of the Harvard IAT is to help users reflect on the strength of their biases. It indicates whether participants’ biases are stronger than they expected and then uses the results to motivate participants to reflect more on their possible biased behaviours or beliefs.
You can test your biases using the Harvard IAT here.
5. Encourage and invite others to contribute
Aim to create meetings and discussions where people feel psychologically safe to share their diverse ideas and views. Being listened to is important to people, so work towards promoting active, courteous debate from a wide range of participants.
Inclusion is about creating an environment where everyone can be themselves and where they feel they can contribute views that are valued. This is particularly valuable for businesses that want to find innovative ways to solve problems or want to stand out from competitors.
6. Actively listen
Did you know that most people only retain about 20-25% of what they hear? This can make active listening a challenge. In a diverse organisation, listening can create even more difficulties as we have to listen while trying to understand different perspectives and stop our reactive cognitive biases. Listening builds trust and you help build a culture which shows all perspectives are welcome. To build your listening skills there are some good tips in this article from MIT
7. Cultivate your empathy
Taking on someone else’s point of view is a great way to challenge our own perspective. Try analysing what other people may be thinking, their motives and attitudes. Consider how you would feel if you were in their shoes. These simple exercises on perspective can help you create a habit for empathic thinking and feeling, which will make you more tolerant and perhaps even less biased.
8. Embrace cognitive diversity
It can be tempting to surround ourselves with people whose views reflect our own. These echo chambers only serve to reinforce our biases. By learning to tolerate and perhaps even like people who think, act and feel differently to you, you can become more open to different views.
Simple steps in embracing cognitive diversity include watching a TV program you dislike or listening to a podcast that you disagree with. Alternatively, make the effort to interact with people who question or dislike your values with the aim of understanding how they think.
9. Advocate for others to promote diversity and inclusion
Becoming an ally to people who may face discrimination in the workplace is another proactive step you can take to counteracting others’ biases. An ally is a person who has the knowledge, self-awareness and ability to support those who may face prejudice . Alongside these traits, you’ll also need to be prepared to confront discrimination, support others and promote inclusive behaviours.
10. Build relationships with others
Often the people we turn to most about our work can be similar to us. Check who you invite to project meetings, conferences or even for coffee. Do you take time to build relationships with a diverse network? Have you mentored or worked with someone from a different culture or background that has influenced you? We benefit from a diverse network and interactions by learning different thought processes and this can lead to more creative thinking.
There are many ways to mitigate your own biases and those of the people in your workforce. Try one of these tips each day over the next ten days and see which has the biggest impact for you. Then think about introducing bias-challenging changes to your workplace to help you move closer to greater diversity and inclusion.
For help creating your workplace diversity and inclusion strategy, contact Clare on 07594 946166 or at [email protected].
