Unconscious bias and its impact on workplace inclusion

Diversity and Inclusion
Introduction
Diversity and inclusion are critical elements of workplaces in today’s organizations. The globalized nature of communities has created environments that are full of diverse people and cultures, which have to be reflected in organizations in order for them to be competitive and to reflect the shared values of the communities they serve. Unfortunately, people can fail to appreciate or respect others of diverse backgrounds and inclusivity can suffer in an organization where bias is unconsciously harbored. To guard against this, it is helpful to understand what is meant by inclusion. Downey, Van der Werff, Thomas and Plaut (2015) define inclusion as “the degree to which employees feel part of essential organizational processes including influence over the decision-making process, involvement in critical work groups, and access to information and resources” (p. 37). In order to embrace inclusion, managers and organizational leaders have to be open to the idea of diverse workers having a role in the decision-making process of the organization. To create an atmosphere in which the organization is free from bias is essential for the promotion of inclusion. This paper will discuss the impact of unconscious bias on diversity and inclusion, how prayer and meditation rooms can be used to increase inclusion, and what the future of diversity and inclusion hold.
The Impact of Unconscious Bias on Diversity and Inclusion
One of the problems of unconscious bias is that it is difficult both to determine and to assess, as environments are complex. Those who are accused of bias typically tend to deny it categorically (Alpert, Noble & Rojek, 2015). They may harbor it, but because they do not realize it, they object to the insinuation that they are prejudiced. Many people of good will may contain prejudices within themselves and not be aware of it. One of the challenges of conducting research as a researcher is to be mindful of the ways in which you might be biased towards the subject or data that you are collecting and interpreting. Bias is not an easy thing to spot within oneself or to admit. Unconscious bias is such that those who possess it are unaware of it and would most likely even be offended if it were to be suggested that they harbored bias against others. In the Western world, it is not socially accepted to harbor bias—yet many people do unconsciously because of the various environmental and social factors that impact them over time as they develop (Bandura, 2018). Thus, even without realizing it, individuals can impact those around them by having bias towards people who are different. This bias can become manifested in various ways: it can appear in body language, verbal communications, the amount of patience that one gives, the assumptions one makes about the skill level of a person of a different background, and so on.
As Henry Cloud has noted “if you are building a culture where honest expectations are communicated and peer accountability is the norm, then the group will address poor performance and attitudes” (Smith, 2018, p. 43). This suggests that culture is especially important in an organization and managers have to take notice of the way unconscious bias can impact the organizational culture. Otherwise, the culture will lack honesty and respect for others and instead will be animated by the unconscious bias of those who shape it. For that reason, harboring bias can be negatively impactful on the workplace culture and employees and managers should be mindful of doing what they can to reduce the risk of unconscious bias impacting their workplace environment and affecting workplace relationships.
When bias enters into the workplace, the risk is that diversity and inclusion can suffer. Unconscious bias can prevent certain individuals from being hired, from being promoted, or from being selected to work on certain projects. Some workplaces may unconsciously promote the idea that only men make good leaders. They will only look at men when hiring for management positions. They may not even realize they are harboring a sexist bias, but the fact that they do means that women are not going to get a look for a management position at that firm.
Bias can impact whose resume gets looked at and whose gets ignored. This can be especially prevalent in organizations where workers are being hired from a diverse talent pool. Unconscious political and social bias could lead to managers not looking at resumes of persons from a particular country because that country is routinely associated with terrorism or human rights abuses in the media. Because, as Bandura (2018) points out, people are subject to media inputs in terms of how they form their perspectives, they can have this type of bias without even realizing it—and they can in turn prevent certain groups from being considered for jobs.
Unconscious bias can limit an organization’s ability to be diverse and inclusive by demonstrating behaviors that only acknowledge the good work of certain persons or groups. For instance, a workplace culture that is particularly male-centric may only recognized good work when it is accomplished by male employees but not when female employees do it. Or managers who are unconsciously biased towards the young generation may overlook the talents that employees from Generation Y and Generation Z have and prefer to appoint older workers to key positions on projects even though they may lack the technical know-how that the younger generation has. Bias can thus severely handicap a company with respect to its ability to be inclusive and open to diverse inputs from diverse people.
When people feel that their workplace is biased or prejudiced against them—even if it is unintentional on the part of workers and managers—they do not feel compelled to be loyal to the company. They may quit and go work for a company that is more inclusive and welcoming. Or they may file a harassment lawsuit against their company. Either way, the failure to perceive how bias negatively impacts workers can bring negative attention and consequences to a company that is trying to be competitive in the markets.
How Prayer and Meditation Rooms Increase Inclusion
Some effective ways in which bias can be removed from a workplace is to adopt cultural adjustments that show respect to people of other backgrounds. For instance, prayer and meditation rooms can be used to increase inclusion in a workplace. Chawla (2016) notes that prayer rooms can be powerful ways to promote a better culture in a workplace as many people have spiritual lives that they want to bring with them to their jobs but they do not feel able to because there are no designated places for them to pray in the workplace. A company that is mindful of the needs of different workers can supply rooms for use as meditation rooms or as prayer rooms. Rooms can be used by various ethnicities or religions: there can be rooms for Muslim prayer, Hindu prayer, Christian prayer, or Buddhist meditation. The company should consider how much diversity exists in the world and try to reflect that diversity by creating a place of positive energy through the use of prayer rooms.
Religion is very important to people. They want to be able to express themselves spiritually especially in the workplace, and they want to be able to be free from harassment. One way for organizations to respect these beliefs is to ensure that workers have the space they require to pray and meditate throughout the workday. Some religions, such as Islam, require their adherents to pray at certain times and in a certain manner. A workplace that is unwilling to accommodate these religious ideas and practices is a workplace that limits itself and is going to fail at being inclusive. Those Islamic workers who are religious and want to observe the rules of their religion while even at work are going to find an organization to work for that accommodates their religious needs. Organizations that do not will miss out on the talent and tools and skills that those religious workers would otherwise bring.
Being inclusive thus has its positive benefits for the workplace and installing prayer and meditation rooms is a good for a company to show that it is inclusive towards all people of all religions. International organizations would do well to study the culture of the people in the land where it is going to open its doors so that it can be accommodating to those workers needs as well. Inclusion is not just a practice to be employed certain settings or regions. It can be applied all over the world. A study of how organizations could successfully be inclusive in Asia, for instance, showed that “retreats and prayer rooms were identified as strategies to promote wellness” in Christian parts of Asia such as the Philippines (Hechanova, Regina & Caringal-Go, 2018). The reason for this finding was that “the Philippines is a country where majority (90%) of the populace are Catholics and/or Christians” and “seeking spiritual support is a common coping mechanism of Filipinos” (Hechanova et al., 2018, p. 81). This shows that it pays for a company to pay attention to the religious and spiritual needs of its workers and to allow them space to fulfill those needs.
At the same time, it is important that bias not creep into this exercise in inclusion. Some organizations may want to demonstrate a spirit of welcome towards one group of workers in particular, such as Hindu workers coming from India. So the organization will set up a room in the office with a Hindu shrine so that the Hindu workers can pray while at work. However, this room could be construed as alienating to other workers who are no Hindu, such as Christians or Muslims or Buddhists. Those workers should be protected against discrimination: they too may like a place to pray or meditate—but they cannot do so in a room that is designated exclusively to Hindu worship. If an organization is going to show favor to one group of people and not to others in terms of who gets a prayer room and who does not, it is showing bias—and that is a blow against inclusion. It is better for an organization to designate one room where all prayer and meditation can be conducted regardless of religion. Or, if an organization wants to make rooms for each religious group, then it can do so as well, though space and cost might be factors that make this approach less practical.
The Future of Diversity and Inclusion
The future of diversity and inclusion is more important today than ever before. As Downey et al. (2015) point out, diversity and inclusion play critical roles in creating cultures of trust and respect in the workplace. Workers want to be respected and they also want to have access to information, training, and decision-making within an organization. An inclusive organization is one that enables diverse workers to be part of that framework and nexus of information where decisions are made and advances engendered.
The future of diversity and inclusion is strong. The more that people feel they are part of the in-group in organizations, the more likely that organization is to be seen as representative of diversity and the values that are important in diverse communities. Organizations that fail to adopt diversity and inclusion policies and practices are more likely to be left behind (Downey et al., 2015). Today’s organizations aim to reduce feelings of social exclusion, social isolation, and managerial biases. They recognize that they live in a globalized world where religious pluralism is a fact of life. They see that in their workplaces there is more and more need to respect the cultures and cultural values of workers and to give workers more opportunity to be part of the organizational decision-making processes. Especially among the younger generations there is a desire to be involved in the direction of the company and organizations realize that in order to be competitive and attract talent they have to be mindful of developing diversity and inclusion practices.
At the same time, diversity and inclusion have become institutionalized in many societies and there is now a need to be diverse and inclusive as a matter of conformity to state and national laws. In other countries, there is a need to be diverse in order to meet the needs of the community and to be attractive to workers.