Tag Archive for: Unconscious Bias

How do we start talking about unconscious bias in the workplace?

“We know what unconscious bias is, and why it’s important. But we don’t know how to start having a conversation about unconscious bias in the workplace in our organisation”. This was a statement from leaders from a multi-national pharma company headquartered in Europe. Any organisation which is trying to build diversity and manage unconscious bias will start with this, or a similar statement. We worked with the group to break their words down into 3 sub questions and this post shares how we worked with our client to answer these questions.

Should we start with training?

Training seems an obvious place to start. But if you can’t make it mandatory (and ensure that 100% of your employees attend), the people who attend training will be self-selecting. We see this time and again on our training courses, when we hear the common comment “Person X should really attend this training”. Person X is usually a senior manager or a ‘problem’ colleague who probably really needs the training, except that no one seems willing to tell them!

Running training courses is also not practical for many industries. For example, about 50% of the employees of our pharma client work in labs. Small teams with a constant workflow will find it difficult to leave their workstations to attend training.

We are not saying that training is not part of the solution, just not the solution. In the next section you will see some ideas on how to work with people on this topic outside the training room.

How can we support attitude changes?

A workplace is a collection of people with different backgrounds, experiences and views. Everyone is entitled to their views but at the same time we have a right to ensure that the people who work with us work to our goals and values. ‘Inclusion nudges’ are a very effective way of achieving this. An inclusion nudge is defined as “a relatively soft and non-intrusive mental push that mitigates implicit bias and helps the brain make more objective decisions”[1]. Here are 3 types of nudges with examples:

Feel the need

In one organisation we work with, 24.5% of employees are women. What percentage of executives in the company do you think are women? The answer is 7.1%. What do you think about the gap between the two figures? This is an inclusion nudge based on data that aims to help people ‘feel the need’ for change by creating a kind of ‘ah-ha’ moment.

Process

A Process Nudge means changing a system or organisational process in order to eliminate bias by default. Changing the way you conduct meetings or screen candidates are examples of this kind of nudge. We know companies who use a Gender Decoder [http://gender-decoder.katmatfield.com] to ensure the language in job ads is not biased to male candidates.

Framing

The way we frame things can also nudge our brains to think differently about bias. Consider the question “Should we hire more women and ethnic minorities?” reframed as “Are we getting our fair share of the talent that is out there?” Which question would steer you to take action?

Inclusion nudges are a simple and cost-effective way to start working on attitudes and behaviours and they can be launched anywhere and anytime; on a poster in the office corridor, on the intranet, in a conversation in the canteen over lunch. In the next section you will read more advice on how to get these kinds of conversations going.

For more ideas on how to create nudges to reveal bias, see the post 9 Questions to Uncover Unconscious Bias:

 

9 Questions to Uncover Unconscious Bias

How do we convince people this is an important topic?

To put the question another way – what will motivate people to get interested and want to do something about it? For some this will simply be a matter of politics or ethics, i.e. it’s just the right thing to do. For others, this may not seem a topic that impacts their jobs. However, something that will appeal to everyone is the success of the business.

Two of the biggest concerns for organisations we work with are talent acquisition and employee engagement. Removing bias is a key component of managing these challenges. You just saw the link between bias and talent acquisition in the framing example above. Consider another common question, “How can we increase our employee engagement scores?”. Now let’s reframe the question as “Which people in our organisation don’t have a voice and how can we involve them more?”

In other words, by addressing diversity and inclusion we can find a way to address some of the biggest challenges that organisations face today. For more examples of the link between bias and common challenges faced by organisations, read this post What Is Unconscious Bias and Why Does It Matter?

Tackling unconscious bias in organisations means starting conversations that will interest and motivate people to do something about it. The key to doing this is to make the link between bias and what is important to everyone in the organisation.

Read more in this post…

What Is Unconscious Bias and Why Does It Matter?

 

We hope you enjoyed reading this post. If you would like to know more about our experience of working with clients in this area, feel free to contact us. Or, take a look at some of our training solutions in this area.

[1] Inclusion Nudges Guidebook: Practical Techniques for Changing Behaviour, Culture & Systems to Mitigate Unconscious Bias and Create Inclusive Organisations https://www.amazon.com/Inclusion-Nudges-Guidebook-Unconscious-Organisations/dp/152363541X

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Unconscious Bias in the Workplace: Understanding the Hidden Influences Behind Our Decisions

This post explores how hidden biases can affect recruitment, performance management, teamwork, and leadership, and provides practical steps to recognise and reduce their impact in the workplace.

  • Reading time
  • 8 Minutes
  • Target audience
  • Managers, team leaders, HR professionals, recruiters, and anyone involved in hiring, developing, or leading people.

 

Unconscious bias in the workplace influences how we make decisions, communicate, give feedback, and recognise talent. While most people want to believe they judge others objectively, the reality is that everyone relies on mental shortcuts that can influence their perceptions and decisions.

We all like to believe that we make fair, rational decisions based on facts and evidence. We want to think that we judge people on their skills, behaviours, and achievements rather than assumptions or personal preferences. Every day, we process huge amounts of information, make decisions quickly, and rely on mental shortcuts to help us navigate the world around us. These shortcuts are useful, but they can also influence the way we see and work with other people. Some of these influences are hidden and known as unconscious biases.

Unconscious bias in the workplace can affect how we recruit, communicate, give feedback, recognise performance, and make decisions about people’s opportunities. While unconscious bias is not usually intentional, it can still influence workplace experiences and outcomes. The important question is not whether we have biases. We all do. The more useful question is: How aware are we of them, and what systems and behaviours can we put in place to make better decisions?

What is unconscious bias?

Unlike conscious bias, where someone deliberately holds a particular belief or preference, unconscious bias happens automatically. Unconscious bias refers to assumptions, associations, or preferences that affect our thoughts, decisions, and behaviours without conscious intention. They are sometimes also called implicit biases. Importantly, having unconscious biases does not mean someone is deliberately unfair or prejudiced. It means that, like everyone else, we are influenced by our experiences, culture, environment, and the information we have absorbed throughout our lives.

Unconscious bias develops through our experiences, upbringing, culture, education, and the environments we spend time in. Everyone has unconscious biases. They are a normal part of how the human brain works.

 

“Our unconscious thinking is responsible for the vast majority of the routine decisions we make. So clearly, engaging our conscious, reflective system is going to be a challenge.”

 

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Why does unconscious bias happen?

Unconscious biases exist because of the way your brain processes information. From a cognitive perspective, it requires less mental effort to rely on existing patterns and assumptions than it does to carefully analyse every situation from scratch. Your brain will always look for the most efficient way to process the enormous amount of (often complex) information that it receives. It naturally creates mental shortcuts that help us recognise patterns, make decisions quickly, and respond to situations without having to consciously and objectively analyse every detail.

These shortcuts are an essential part of how we function. Without them, even simple decisions would require a huge amount of time and mental effort. However, the same shortcuts that help us navigate everyday life can also influence how we perceive and evaluate other people. Sometimes, they can lead us to make assumptions that are inaccurate or incomplete.

 

We tend to focus on information that we have to hand, and this can limit our ability to find new kinds of solutions. Expedience Bias pushes us to make quick decisions and avoid too much deliberation. Above all it prevents us from spending time on finding out what we don’t know.

 

For example, we may feel more comfortable with someone because they share similar experiences or backgrounds to our own. We may assume that a confident person is more capable, or interpret the same behaviour differently depending on who displays it. We may also pay more attention to information that supports what we already believe while overlooking evidence that challenges our assumptions.

These reactions usually happen automatically and are not a reflection of our intentions or values. The challenge is developing the awareness to recognise when our assumptions may be influencing our judgement. By slowing down our thinking, questioning our first impressions, and actively seeking different perspectives, we can make more thoughtful and inclusive decisions.

Here’s a video explaining that a little bit more:

 

The impact of unconscious bias in the workplace

Unconscious bias influences many aspects of working life, from recruitment and promotion decisions to everyday communication and teamwork. Because these biases often operate without conscious awareness, they can be difficult to recognise. However, their impact can accumulate over time, affecting who receives opportunities, whose ideas are heard, and how people experience the workplace.

Hiring and career opportunities

One of the most significant impacts of unconscious bias is that it can lead to less fair decisions around hiring, career development, and promotion. For example, a manager may unconsciously favour someone who shares similar experiences, interests, or communication styles (affinity bias), or they may associate confidence and visibility with competence (halo effect). While these decisions are rarely intentional, they can result in organisations overlooking talented people who bring different perspectives and strengths.

Lack of diverse thinking

Unconscious bias can also reduce diversity of thought within teams. When people naturally gravitate towards those who are similar to themselves, teams may become less varied in their experiences and approaches to problem-solving. A key indicator of this is groupthink, where teams are less likely to challenge assumptions, explore alternatives, or identify creative solutions.

Innovation and problem-solving

When teams rely too heavily on familiar ideas, experiences, or ways of working, they may miss opportunities to innovate. Inclusive teams benefit from different perspectives because people are more likely to identify risks, challenge assumptions, and suggest alternative solutions.

Psychological safety

The effects of unconscious bias are also closely connected to psychological safety. When employees feel that certain voices are valued more than others, they may become less willing to share ideas, ask questions, admit mistakes, or challenge existing ways of working. A team where people do not feel heard or respected will find it harder to collaborate effectively and learn from different perspectives.

Feedback and evaluation

Unconscious bias can also influence feedback conversations. Managers may unintentionally interpret the same behaviour differently depending on who displays it. For example, confidence in one person may be viewed as leadership potential, while similar behaviour from another person may be perceived negatively. These patterns can affect performance evaluations, development opportunities, and employees’ confidence in their own abilities.

Employee engagement

Ultimately, unconscious bias can affect employee engagement, trust, and belonging. When people believe that decisions are influenced by assumptions rather than evidence, they may feel less valued and less connected to the organisation. Recognising unconscious bias does not mean assuming people have bad intentions; it means understanding how human decision-making works and creating processes and behaviours that help everyone contribute fairly.

 

We quite naturally warm to people who are similar to us. The Similarity Bias can be harmless in everyday life, but in recruitment it can have more serious consequences. I saw this for myself several years ago; I was interviewing with a colleague and when one of the candidates left the room I turned to my colleague and said, “I really like that candidate”. My colleague replied, “Of course you do, she’s just like you!”. I suddenly realised that if my colleague hadn’t been there, I would never have noticed this bias and how it was affecting my decision-making.

How can leaders reduce unconscious bias?

The goal is not to eliminate bias completely. That is unrealistic. Instead, the focus should be on developing awareness, questioning assumptions, and creating workplace environments where different perspectives are welcomed and valued. The goal is to become more aware of the assumptions we make and create habits and systems that help us make fairer decisions. Reducing unconscious bias requires awareness, reflection, and practical action.

Inclusive workplaces are built when leaders look beyond traditional expectations, recognise individual strengths, and create environments where people are judged on their abilities and contributions rather than assumptions about who they are.

1. Slow down important decisions

Bias often has more influence when decisions are made quickly. The questions below do not remove bias completely. Instead, they create a moment of reflection where leaders can slow down their thinking, challenge assumptions, and make more balanced decisions.Before making an important judgement, ask:

  • What evidence am I using to support this decision?
  • Am I applying the same standards to everyone?
  • Am I responding this way because it’s familiar to me?
  • Am I judging the behaviour, or my interpretation of the behaviour?
  • Would I make the same decision if this person had a different background?
  • Whose perspective am I missing?

2. Create structured decision-making processes

Clear processes help reduce the influence of unconscious bias.

Examples:

  • Use consistent interview questions.
  • Define evaluation criteria before reviewing candidates.
  • Use objective measures during performance reviews.
  • Include different perspectives in important decisions.

3. Develop self-awareness

Interpersonal skills begin with understanding ourselves. Small moments of reflection can improve the quality of workplace relationships. When you notice a strong reaction to someone, ask:

  • Why am I responding this way?
  • Is this based on evidence or assumption?
  • Am I judging this person differently from others?

When is unconscious bias training useful?

Our range of solutions on this topic are valuable for helping people understand how automatic assumptions may influence their workplace decisions, behaviours, and interactions. It can create awareness, encourage reflection, and give people a shared language for discussing inclusion and decision-making. However, training alone cannot remove unconscious bias. A single workshop will not suddenly eliminate years of learned experiences, assumptions, or social influences for any participant. The real value of unconscious bias training comes when it helps people become more aware of their thinking patterns and by providing practical strategies they can apply in their everyday work.

For example, training can help a manager recognise how affinity bias may influence who they naturally connect with, or how confirmation bias may affect the way they interpret an employee’s performance. This awareness creates an opportunity to pause, question assumptions, and make more evidence-based decisions.

Training is always most effective when it is part of a wider organisational approach but this is especially true for unconscious bias. If recruitment or evaluation processes remain inconsistent or support biased decision-making, leaders are not held accountable for inclusive behaviours, or employees do not feel safe speaking up, the impact of training will be limited.

Creating a more inclusive workplace requires a combination of awareness, supportive systems, effective leadership, and everyday behaviours. Unconscious bias training can be an important starting point, but lasting change happens when organisations turn awareness into action.

Why unconscious bias matters for leaders

Leaders influence the experiences and opportunities of the people around them.

By understanding unconscious bias, leaders can:

  • make fairer decisions,
  • improve recruitment and development processes,
  • strengthen trust,
  • encourage different perspectives,
  • create more inclusive teams.

The most effective leaders recognise that good intentions are not always enough. Creating a fair workplace requires awareness, reflection, and consistent action.

Progress, changing expectations, and the importance of challenging assumptions

It is important to recognise that workplaces have changed significantly over time. For generations, many gender-based biases have existed around certain careers, skills, and behaviours.

This progress shows that many of the assumptions people once held about who could or could not succeed in certain careers were based on social expectations rather than ability. For example, women now represent a significant proportion of the science and engineering workforce in many countries. In the European Union, women accounted for around 40% of people working as scientists and engineers (in 2024), demonstrating how representation has increased in fields that were historically male-dominated.

However, progress does not mean that unconscious bias has disappeared. Even when organisations become more diverse, hidden assumptions continue to influence everyday experiences. A woman entering an engineering team, a man working in a traditionally female-dominated profession, or someone from a different cultural background joining an established team may still encounter assumptions about their skills, interests, or suitability for the role.

Key takeaways: Understanding unconscious bias in the workplace

  • Unconscious bias is part of being human. Everyone develops automatic assumptions based on their experiences, background, culture, and environment. Our unconscious thinking is responsible for 99% of the routine decisions we make. So clearly, engaging our conscious, reflective system is going to be a challenge. The trick is not to fight against bias; it’s a natural product of our brains. Instead, seek to understand what could be biasing our decisions and then makes changes to the way we do things in order to mitigate the biases.
  • The goal is not to eliminate bias completely, but to recognise and manage it. We cannot remove every automatic thought or assumption we have, but we can develop the awareness and habits needed to question our first impressions and make more balanced decisions.
  • Unconscious bias can influence everyday workplace decisions. It can affect recruitment, performance feedback, promotions, communication, and whose ideas are heard and valued within teams.
  • Inclusive workplaces are built through awareness and action. Leaders who recognise unconscious bias can create fairer processes, encourage different perspectives, and build environments where people feel respected and included.
  • Understanding unconscious bias strengthens relationships and decision-making. When leaders and teams challenge assumptions and remain open to different perspectives, they create workplaces where people feel valued, trusted, and able to contribute their best work.

Ultimately, the important question is not whether bias exists. The important question is whether we are willing to recognise it, reflect on it, and take meaningful steps to reduce its impact.

We hope you enjoyed reading this post. If you would like to know more about our experience of working with clients in this area, feel free to contact us.

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9 Questions to Uncover Unconscious Bias

When we first started doing training for our clients on unconscious bias and diversity we realised the main challenge of this topic was to create an environment where trainees can be open and honest and challenge themselves and others. We also realised that unconscious bias is not something you can ‘teach’ someone about; the only way to understand it is to experience it. So, in our training programmes we typically start with brain teasers to get trainees engaged and interested right away. The value of these brain teasers is the discussions that they lead to, where trainees can link the bias they have experienced in a simple quiz question to a real issue or example from their professional lives. The little ‘jolt’ they get from getting a simple question wrong can be a powerful way of nudging them to think differently about what they see and experience in the workplace, and lead to actions.

Try it for yourself. Here are nine questions that should get you thinking! Answers and commentary are at the end of the post.

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Q1

A father and son are in a car accident. The father dies and the son is rushed to hospital for surgery. The surgeon says: “I can’t operate on this boy, he’s my son”. How this is possible?

Q2

A bat and a ball cost EUR 1.10. The bat costs one Euro more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

Q3

How did the number of deaths per year from natural disasters change over the last 100 years?

  • More than doubled
  • Decreased by 50%
  • Remained the same

Q4

When recruiting a new role which job title attracted more female candidates?

  • Senior Engineer (m/f)
  • Senior Engineer (f/m)
  • Senior Engineer

Q5

What proportion of our thought processes are unconscious?

  • 99%
  • 85%
  • 75%

Q6

You need to choose between two final candidates in a job interview. Candidate A has 15 years’ experience in a similar role. Candidate B has only 5 years’ experience. Which candidate is more likely to succeed in the role?

Q7

Which statement is true?

  • Happy, successful people have fewer biases
  • You can reduce the biases your brain produces
  • We all have biases – it’s what makes us human

Q8

If a woman is involved in a car crash, she is 47% more likely to be seriously injured than a man. Why is this?

Q9

Which sentence is more factual?

  • Gender diverse executive teams produce better results
  • High performing executive teams have more female executives

Answers and comments

  1. The surgeon is the boy’s mother. English is a ‘gender neutral’ language, which means we do not change words to show if they are male or female (as in French, German, Italian, etc.). However, many people still assume the job of ‘surgeon’ is inherently male and may struggle to get the right answer to this question. If job roles like ‘engineer’, ‘HR, ‘manager’ carry similar assumptions, this could influence how people are hired and promoted in organisations.
  2. 5 cents. If you answered 10 cents you were probably using intuition to answer. However, the obvious answer is not always the correct one. If we take a bit of time and use our reasoning rather than our quick-thinking intuition, the question is simple to answer. Many decisions in business are actually taken on intuition. Why do you think this is, and does it have any risks?
  3. Remained the same. In Hans Rosling’s 2018 book Factfullness [https://www.amazon.com/Factfulness-Reasons-World-Things-Better/dp/1250107814] he describes how many people, even ‘experts’, get this question wrong because we are influenced by what the media shows us. A common bias is to make decisions based on a narrow selection of information (often what we have close to hand) instead of looking for other sources. If you are a decision-maker it is important to gather as many sources of information as possible and especially important to ask yourself, “What don’t I know?”
  4. Option (b). This experiment, recounted in Inclusion Nudges [https://www.amazon.com/Inclusion-Nudges-Guidebook-Unconscious-Organisations/dp/152363541X], suggests that we need to be very explicit if we want to recruit female candidates into roles that are very strongly perceived as male, even when not indicated as in option (c). In Germany it became law in 2019 to add ‘(m/f)’ to all job advertisements. This may look like a step forward. What do you think? In fact, there is no evidence that this leads to any changes in who applies.
  5. Neuroscientists estimate it is 99%. This makes it virtually impossible to prevent bias by just thinking ‘consciously’ because it means going against our nature. A more useful strategy is to make changes to processes and systems to ‘build out’ bias, e.g. changing the way we write job roles.
  6. We simply don’t know because past experience is no guarantee of future performance. Our over-reliance on past experience is a powerful bias. The only way to overcome it is to look for evidence-based data. For example, what is the correlation between previous experience and actual performance for everyone you have hired in the last 5 years?
  7. Bias is a natural part of our brain and is actually useful in many situations. The trick is to recognise when it is useful and when it is not, and develop decision-making habits that use the correct system [link to system 1 and 2 video].
  8. Isn’t this a shocking statistic? In her 2019 book Invisible Women [https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Women/dp/1784742929], Caroline Criado Perez explains how cars are designed by men and therefore they are built for men and men’s bodies. This powerful book uses data to show how women’s absence has lead to a world designed without women in mind. The book will help you to see many examples of this in the workplace that you may simply not have seen before, and perhaps make some changes!
  9. Only sentence (b) could be a fact. Sentence (a) takes two facts and assigns causality to them. The causality bias is very common and we do it all the time because it’s neat and quick. But beware when you see links between disparate facts. Always ask ‘why’ and ‘how’ before accepting cause and effect statements!

How to turn this into action?

Finally, here are 7 ideas for practical steps you can take in the workplace to mitigate bias. These ideas were generated by training groups which discussed some of the questions above.

  1. Try to ensure that interview panels have diverse individuals – think about different ages, genders, nationalities, job roles. Because bias is unconscious, you really need someone with a different perspective to point it out to you.
  2. Establish criteria for making important decisions e.g. at least 3 solutions to every problem, ensure you have counter-evidence for each solution, and seek other people’s input
  3. Replace resumes with a standard application form all candidates must complete. This ensures you get the same information on every candidate and you can limit the amount of personal information that could bias short-listers.
  4. Back up decisions with real data and evidence and challenge others to do the same; this can mitigate bias in decisions made with ‘gut instinct’.
  5. In performance reviews, don’t ask people to rate themselves. This could set up a bias in your mind and prevent you being objective.
  6. Ask different people chair meetings so that you get different perspectives on the table.
  7. Spend regular time getting to know remote team members as individuals, in order to remove the feeling of distance in virtual teams.

We hope you enjoyed reading this post. If you would like to know more about our experience of working with clients in this area, feel free to contact us.

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