Have you ever heard of, or experienced, a situation where someone was ignored or overlooked by their team because they were considered less competent due to their gender or age?
Or perhaps you have seen someone from a different ethnic background being treated differently and given better chances of promotion than other employees?
Bias — including unconscious bias — and the decisions we make based on it are part of everyday life. They can make it harder to build truly inclusive societies and workplaces.
So, are you ready to take a closer look at bias and take steps towards creating a better working environment?
To understand how bias affects our lives — and the reactions and behaviours it can trigger in everyday situations — let’s start with a brief definition.
These are just a few examples of the biases each of us has likely encountered at work at some point. They can poison the atmosphere, create a collective sense of unfairness and, above all, frustrate the people directly affected by them.
What Is Bias?
Bias is a hostile or negative attitude towards a distinguishable group of people based solely on their membership of a particular group or category, such as race, gender, age or sexual orientation, or on a particular characteristic, such as body size or appearance.
We experience bias when someone forms an evaluation or makes a negative judgement without having any prior experience with a person or phenomenon, often relying on false or incomplete information. Bias can also stem from stereotypes that have become deeply embedded within a particular society or community.
And while we are becoming increasingly aware of the existence of bias and its impact on our interpersonal relationships, we still tend to overlook the ways in which bias affects the organisations we work for.
Conscious vs Unconscious Bias
Bias can take many forms — from subtle comments and assumptions, through relying on stereotypes, to explicit acts of discrimination.
Conscious bias refers to attitudes and judgements that we are aware of and may consciously act upon. They are often shaped by social norms, stereotypes or personal experiences.
In recruitment, conscious bias can manifest itself in favouring candidates based on their race, gender, age or other characteristics unrelated to their qualifications.
Interestingly, however, bias can also take the form of… privilege.
Think of expressions such as “good-looking people have an easier life” or the Polish saying “what I can’t say, I can make up for with my looks” — the idea that appearance can compensate for what is left unsaid.
By contrast, unconscious bias consists of automatic judgements, often rooted in cultural and social stereotypes, that influence our decisions without us being consciously aware of them.
These biases may have developed through our previous experiences or been passed on to us during childhood by our families and social environment. This is precisely what makes them so difficult to identify.
One example could be assuming that a person with a physical disability also has a hearing or intellectual disability. This might lead someone to speak unusually loudly to them, treat them like a child or avoid acknowledging them altogether.
In recruitment, unconscious bias can similarly result in the unintentional exclusion of otherwise qualified candidates.
Bias in Practice
Who would openly admit that candidates with a foreign accent are overlooked or offered lower-level positions despite having the right qualifications and experience?
I encountered this more than once while working in Portugal, where people from Brazil were sometimes treated in precisely this way.
Hidden biases are particularly difficult to identify because they have often been part of our environment for years. They show up in all kinds of situations — at work, in intercultural relationships and in everyday life.
That is why developing greater awareness matters. We need to pay attention to whether our attitudes and behaviours are genuinely free from bias and discrimination.
In today’s labour market, diversity and inclusion are no longer simply a nice-to-have — they have become an organisational expectation and a standard to strive for. Actively recognising and addressing both conscious and unconscious bias is one of the foundations of creating meaningful change in our workplaces.
Some of the many consequences of conscious and unconscious bias in the workplace include:
- Poorer decision-making
- Stifled innovation and creativity
- Lower employee morale
- Limited career development
- Legal and reputational risks
Organisations that commit to addressing and reducing bias can do more than increase employee creativity and problem-solving capabilities. They can also contribute to building a fairer and more equal society.
As we navigate the complex landscape of bias, it is essential to foster a culture of continuous learning, self-awareness and inclusion.
If you would like to learn more, I invite you to join my course dedicated to understanding and challenging bias: My course on bias
