Unconscious bias at work

- When we're in the workplace, it is natural to seek out colleagues we have something in common with. Perhaps we grew up in the same town, or both have kids, or went to the same school, or have friendships, or connections in common. While sharing things in common is an incredibly human instinct, it's important that we don't allow this familiarity to color our decision making. Making decisions based on favoritism, or similar background is unconscious bias. And in addition to being unfair, unconscious bias is costly. When employees see others being promoted based on relationship, rather than merit they often leave the company. Employee turnover resulting from unconscious bias is an expensive mistake. Industry standards indicate that turnover costs six to nine months of an employee salary. At $60,000 per year, the cost is 30,000 to $45,000, that's no small number. What's worse is other sources estimate the cost to be much higher when replacing an employee earning 100,000 or more per year. On the other hand, making your employees aware of unconscious bias through training and development costs a fraction of that at only 1300 per employee. So why not attempt to reengage employees through training? It's far less expensive, and better for the morale of the workforce. I'm reminded of the question, what if we invest in developing our employees and they leave? The response to that is what happens if we don't, and they stay? If you've got that notebook spend some time reflecting on the following questions: have you encountered unconscious bias, lack of diversity, and inequality in the workplace? How was it handled? Are you fully engaged at your workplace? Have you talked to a manager or HR about it? What suggestions would you make to improve the place where you work? The impact of bias is complicated because we can both be victims of unconscious bias, and perpetrators of it. But, if we pledge to remain aware, we can begin to make the impact a positive one.