Discrimination and Bias: Honest Conversations for a More Inclusive Workplace

Would you purposely refuse service to someone based on their race, gender, or age? Probably not, since this would feel wrong and it might go against your moral beliefs or societal norms, not to mention federal laws. But when choosing a mechanic, you might gravitate towards a male without thinking too much about it, or choose a female to take care of your house. These are examples of different forms of bias, and in this training you'll learn the difference between discrimination and unconscious bias, sometimes called explicit and implicit biases. While outright discrimination is illegal in most settings, unconscious bias is much harder to identify and therefore can open the door to more explicit biases down the road. Here you'll learn how to combat and counteract bias in its many forms. Discrimination may seem like an easy concept to understand, but many people find the idea is much deeper than they originally thought. First, it's important to identify exactly what discrimination is. Discrimination is treating someone unfairly based solely on their identification with a particular group. Most commonly, discrimination is related to someone's race, gender, age, religion, or disability. Although this is in no way a comprehensive list, discrimination can happen to one person or a whole group of people. For example, the time period in which there were separate bathrooms, seating areas, and schools and based on race is an example of a societal discrimination against an entire population of people. Discrimination, sometimes referred to as explicit bias, can prevent a person from receiving an education, getting a job, finding housing, or receiving medical care. For the purposes of this training, we'll be focusing primarily on discrimination in the workplace as it relates to hiring and retention practices as well as workplace culture in general. It's important to note that discrimination is illegal in the United States under several federal laws. These laws prohibit employers from making any decisions regarding job performance, hiring, pay, advancement, and disciplinary actions based in any part on age, gender, race, sexual orientation, or disability. Let's dive deeper into these laws and the implications of explicit bias. What makes discrimination an explicit bias and what are some examples of this? Discrimination is explicit because it's conscious. In other words, after weighing all the facts, a decision is made based solely on a physical or unseen characteristic like religion. There are several examples of discrimination that demonstrate how it's explicit. Lets discuss some examples and how they show discrimination specifically related to the workplace. First, let's look at how employees can discriminate against each other. An example of this is the conscious use of derogatory language or slurs that relate directly to a person's identifying group. This applies to both verbal and written use of such words. Employee to employee. Discrimination should be reported immediately to a supervisor and appropriate channels within the organization should be followed by. This is an important distinction as we need to remember that discrimination can happen on both a personal and a system wide level. Workplace discrimination can also occur between a supervisor and an employee. This type of discrimination is typically more easily identified and handled and it's protected against through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or eeoc. There are several scenarios that could constitute illegal job related discrimination. Under the eeoc, employers can't make employment related decisions based on someone's race, color, religion, gender, sexual identity or orientation, nation of origin or age, if they're aged 40 or over. These protections cover all aspects of the employment process from hiring to pay, scale, evaluation, and even the firing process. For example, it's illegal for an employer to refuse to hire a qualified applicant who who's deaf or hard of hearing due to their disability. In fact, if an employee needs reasonable accommodation, like a sign language interpreter, this must by law be provided. Think about this. If an applicant arrives for an interview and they're clearly pregnant, can the employer refuse to hire the applicant based on this? Hopefully you said no, since this would be illegal discrimination based on gender. The most important point to take away regarding discrimination is that it's conscious or explicit, and it's illegal. In the next section though, we'll discuss another type of bias called unconscious or implicit bias. The fraternal twin to discrimination is unconscious or implicit bias. An implicit bias, unlike discrimination, is the unconscious act of making decisions or developing perceptions about a specific group of people. People. These implicit biases influence our behavior without us even knowing it. In fact, most, if not all, people hold unconscious biases that they aren't even aware of, even when they report being consciously unprejudiced and committed to ending discriminatory practices. That's the key to defining implicit bias. It can be so subtle that people don't even recognize it, even in themselves. Unconscious biases often occur because from a young age, our brains make sense of the world by putting things, including people, into categories. These categories help us to make sense of the world as we grow. But we then also begin to use these categories in a broader way. We put ourselves into certain categories and then we make observations and generalizations within those categories like age, gender, race, weight, or attractiveness. Over time, these generalizations are often reinforced by our friends, family and communities. And implicit bias is born. Unlike discrimination, unconscious bias is not innately illegal. But as we'll discuss later in the training, the fine line between implicit and explicit bias can very easily be crossed. Let's start by looking at examples of implicit bias have you ever heard the riddle about a doctor whose child is wheeled into the operating room after an accident? The doctor looks at the child and says, I can't operate on him, he's my son. But the boy's father was also in the accident, so how could this child be the doctor's son? This riddle is an excellent example of an implicit bias. The assumption here is that the surgeon has to be a man. The punchline though, is that the surgeon is the boy's mother. This type of unconscious bias can inform a person's decisions since you might be more inclined to see a male doctor simply because in your experiences, doctors have mostly been men and maybe nurses have mostly been women. Now let's look at how implicit bias might turn up in the workplace in order to combat discriminatory practices and provide a more diversified work environment. Many companies have recognized the need for equity initiatives. The idea is sound, but what happens when all the employees that are invited to be a part of these initiatives are all people of color? Not only does this unfairly put a demand on the time and resources of these non white employees, it's also an illustration of implicit bias. The thought that all people of color must be interested in equity and that Caucasians can't or aren't interested in being a part of that discussion is an example of unconscious bias, even though the motives are positive. Consider another example that can happen before a person is even hired. Many people have unconscious biases towards certain names. An employer might see a particular name on a job application and place that applicant into a specific category of people in their mind. This happens without them even realizing they're doing it. Scenarios like these rapidly become system wide self perpetuating practices when left unchecked. Finally, implicit bias can show up in employee to employee relationships whenever someone speaks more slowly or loudly to a person from another nation of origin, or demonstrates a lack of respect for a younger co worker, or just prefers to interact with people who have the same characteristics as them. These are all examples of implicit bias in the workplace. We discussed earlier that there's a fine line between implicit and explicit biases. When that line is crossed, illegal discrimination occurs. Both forms of bias are harmful to employees, productivity and your workplace's culture. The legal implications are just part of the picture. It's important to understand the interplay between the two. Now that we've discussed the differences between implicit and explicit biases, let's examine the link between the two and how implicit biases can easily slip into explicit biases. How do we know when that line's been crossed. Take the example of the name on the resume. As you may remember, this was an example of an implicit bias because the employer in this scenario made an unconscious assumption about the applicant based solely on their name. That assumption could be race, gender, nation of origin, religion, or any other group membership. The line is crossed into discrimination. Should that employer then make the conscious decision to not to interview or hire that person based on this classification into a certain group? For example, if the employer implicitly decided that the applicant was African American based on their name, then explicitly decided to pass them over for the job based on this, the line from unconscious bias to illegal discrimination has been crossed. It's far too easy for implicit bias to become explicit illegal action. It's therefore important for both employees and employers to to be vigilant and report any suspicions of discrimination to the appropriate person in their organization. Immediately beyond that, there are steps that people and companies can take to overcome their biases. The first step in overcoming any bias, whether it be implicit or explicit, is to recognize them in yourself and others. This can sometimes be the hardest step since we all have unconscious biases that we've often held our entire lives. Fortunately, there are a few steps that you can take to begin the process of unlearning your biases. First, check your biases by identifying them and then unpack your assumptions. For example, close your eyes and picture a teacher. What type of person comes to mind? Think about their gender, race, age? Now focus on why. This is the image that came to your mind. What influenced your concept of what a teacher looks like? By taking the time to evaluate and find your biases, you can begin the process of changing them. Next, it's important to understand how our biases harm others. Understanding and showing empathy towards others is an important step in redefining biases. Living with discrimination in many forms has been tied to low self esteem, stress, and other more serious mental health issues, not to mention the societal implications. Acknowledging the harm biases can cause and practicing empathy towards others will help motivate you to make the necessary changes or to speak up if you're the victim of bias. Once these steps are complete, it's time to focus on actively replacing biases. Remember the teacher you pictured earlier? Let's reimagine that image. Change their gender, race, age, or all three. Now, each time you picture a teacher, consciously choose a different view. It's important in this step to be conscious about what and who you imagine and make the effort to see something different over time. Your implicit bias about teachers or medical professionals or technicians or any other job description will begin to change. Next, educate yourself on groups that are different from the ones you identify with. Many times, discrimination stems from ignorance. We gravitate away from the things we don't understand, so learning about those who are different from us helps us to appreciate them and unlearn our biases. Finally, the most important step is to be patient. This process isn't going to happen overnight. Unlearning biases is a long but crucial process. But by taking the time to redefine our thinking, we make important strides in ending discrimination, beginning with our unconscious biases and rooting out discriminatory practices. Most companies and organizations have processes in place to identify and counteract discrimination. In addition, discrimination based on several characteristics like age, race, religion, and gender, to name a few, is illegal under several federal laws. In this training, you learn that discrimination, sometimes called explicit bias, is the process of evaluating a person based solely on identification with a particular group and then deeming them unacceptable in some way based on this evaluation. This type of bias, conscious discrimination, is illegal and should be reported through the proper channels immediately. Implicit or unconscious bias, on the other hand, is an internal thought or feeling that is based on a preconceived notion but is not done consciously, for example, choosing a younger fitness coach over an older one. While not illegal, these unconscious biases can still lead to many problems, including outright discrimination. Finally, you learned some steps that you can take to help curb biases, including identifying them in yourself and others, learning to replace them with other ideas, and understanding that this change will take time and real effort. With this information in mind, you can work towards ending bias both explicit and implicit in the workplace.