What is Unconscious Bias ?
‘Unconscious Bias’ refers to the bias that we harbour unknowingly towards a particular group, race, caste, religion, sex or any other discriminating factor. Unconscious bias occurs due to various factors such as one’s background, experiences and other conditions.
Unconscious bias makes a significant impact on the people related decisions one makes at work as the main problem is that the employee doesn’t recognize that they are making an unconscious bias towards someone else. It is crucial to avoid it in processes such as recruitment, promotion, performance evaluation, etc.
Unconscious bias also leads a company to have a less diverse group of individuals which will eventually harm the business. Similarly, the efforts to improve workplace diversity would also fail if the HR department doesn’t recognize that the employees are suffering from unconscious bias.