Implicit Bias (what it is and what to do about it)
People and Implicit Bias
Is it October already?
It looks like autumn is finally peeking out from behind the scorching sun, and with it, Mission Capital’s list of restructured and improved workshops. If you search through MC’s calendar of offered classes, you’ll notice there is a whole collection of workshops titled Implicit Bias.
Since equity is the center of all offerings at Mission Capital, each class is meant to be a snapshot of how small, seemingly harmless assumptions might actually prevent your organization from thriving as an equitable, healthy workplace.
That’s where Implicit Bias comes along.
“It has been suggested that implicit bias is an automatic “System 1” thinking-based response whereby the brain is engaged in a fast, emotional, unconscious thinking mode, requiring little effort and is often error prone, based on immediate and premature conclusions being drawn in the absence of sufficient reasoning.”
Implicit Bias becomes harmful when it affects behaviors with other people or communities. That’s why the definition of the whole phrase is:
“Implicit bias is a form of bias that occurs automatically and unintentionally, that nevertheless affects judgments, decisions, and behaviors. Research has shown implicit bias can pose a barrier to recruiting and retaining a diverse scientific workforce.”
We all have implicit biases. They are so ingrained that we often do not realize they exist unless we shake off that “perfect, unquestioning confidence” in our decisions and thought processes.
If you want to learn more about what implicit biases are, how they develop in individuals, and how they influence the way we interact with our neighbors, coworkers, and friends, join us for our People and Implicit Bias course.
We designed it specifically for a variety of situations, including professional and personal. By the end, you’ll be able to distinguish the difference between explicit and implicit bias and its impacts on individuals, describe the importance of building racial stamina to have authentic conversations, identify strategies to intervene, and address implicit bias and microaggressions.
Our unconscious biases can feed into harmful stereotypes and microaggressions. There is always a larger story beyond us, and displacing your implicit bias means taking that context into consideration before you act.
Implicit Bias in the Workplace
Our implicit biases show up everywhere. In our relationships at home, work, and play. Again, they are largely unconscious and not ill-intentioned. However, just because one does not mean harm does not negate it if harm is done.
Implicit Bias can cause someone to commit microaggressions, perpetuate systematic racism, or unintentionally discriminate or belittle a coworker. For example, you may not recognize that you speak to a Mexican co-worker differently than your white colleagues, but they certainly have noticed that you speak to them in slower, smaller sentences, almost as if speaking to a child.
You have wrongly assumed that English must be their second language, and so in your mind, you’re making it easier for them to understand you. But you don’t know that. In fact, such an assumption is disrespectful and will often drive your coworker away.
One of the keys to retaining a diverse workforce is understanding how and when your implicit bias may show up, even if it’s dressed in the guise of kindness or good intentions.
Now, the big question, how?
Everyone could benefit from a judgment-free space to deconstruct these thoughts with people who are doing the same. That’s why we’re offering Implicit Bias in the Workplace a 3-week workshop, consisting of both individual and group work.
It’s the perfect place to distinguish the difference between explicit and implicit bias and its impacts on organizations; identify strategies to intervene and address implicit bias in organizations, and understand how the concept of race has been applied throughout history to create inequities that are maintained today.
Whether you work at a small organization where everyone shares three office coffee mugs or a large one where you can never find the coffee mugs, it’s important to team morale, employee productivity, and workplace culture that everyone is trained to remain open-minded.
After all, how else do we make the world better if not together?
Implicit Bias in Hiring
Let’s do a mental exercise. Come on. You know you want to!
Close your eyes and place yourself in the shoes of a potential job-seeker. You have spent the past six months applying to job after job. Your personal savings are pretty much spent, and you’ve been worrying about paying the bills for a few days now. Yet, hope is on the horizon. You just finished round two of extensive interviews for your dream job.
You’re waiting for a callback, something that was promised would happen in the next week. You know there were two other candidates for this job, but you’re sure you made an incredible impression on the hiring committee, and you know you have the qualifications for the job.
So you wait. Two days pass. Then four. You write and send a quick email thanking the HR director for their time. No answer.
Finally, a total of two weeks has flown by, and you have virtually given up.
Then you get a callback. You have the job!
The HR director apologizes for the late notice and hopes you can still accept the position, they had to run your background check through two different agencies. It was a pain. You ask if that’s standard practice. It’s normal for businesses to run background checks, sure, but twice? Through two separate agencies?
“No,” the HR director admits. “We’ve never done it before.”
Nothing more is said, and even the HR director sounds a bit embarrassed. You thank the director for the call, hang up, and look down at your hand because you know exactly why your background check had to go through extra measures.
You’re a black man. Your name is Hakim.
And they had assumed, off those facts alone, that you were probably an ex-felon.
Maybe you’re assuming things, or not giving your new employers the benefit of the doubt, but this has happened before. Too many times to count. You open your laptop and start searching for other jobs.
Maybe this sounds like fiction, but research says otherwise, According to the National Fund for Workforce Solutions
“Studies show that job applicants with distinctively Black names are about 10% less likely to be contacted by employers regardless of their education, experience, or skills. This is even more likely in states where it’s illegal to ask about a candidate’s criminal record: employers make unjust assumptions based on implicit racial bias.”
There are many implicit biases that prevent organizations from hiring anyone from a perceived “minority population” including racial, religious, or gender. These biases are often perpetuated by systematic racism and societal ignorance that affirms quietly held assumptions.
That is the reason our course Implicit Bias in Hiring focuses on defining how implicit bias manifests in hiring practices, the impacts implicit bias has on interviewing and hiring, identifying strategies to mitigate those harmful impacts, and implementing equitable practices instead.
No one should have to live through the situation just described. In a country where hard work and perseverance are celebrated, it should be those qualities alone that dictate how someone is treated in their hiring process.
If you are prepared to end the unconscious biases in your life, register for one of our courses today.