PERCEPTION AND BIASES OF SENIOR EMPLOYEES IN ORGANISATION “Though the most common assumption is that biases are bad for our decision making, nudge theory, also known as invisible helping hands, prove it the other way. A nudge is a tool to harness the potential of an existing bias without eliminating the bias.”
As we make observations, form opinions, and make judgments in the workplace—something every manager must do—we rely significantly on our perception. This is the process through which we take in and process information from our surroundings: what we see, hear, feel, etc.
Perceptual biases are errors that disrupt and distort the perceptual process, thus leading to faulty judgements. These can occur because we, as humans, attempt to create shortcuts of understanding. Attempting to analyze every detail of behavior would require too many cognitive resources; as such, we sometimes rely on assumptions to fill in missing information (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012). In other words, we may not always have the full picture and will then rely upon previous experience to piece everything together. Sometimes, this process works as it should, helping to protect us from danger for example. Other times, this process operates inefficiently and may be causing us to act in ways we normally would not.
Biases:-
Though we should strive to be as fair in judgment as possible, the reality is that we all have biases that affect our judgments. Managers are certainly no exception to this rule, and a number of common biases affect how they evaluate their employees. Some of the most common are stereotypes, selective perception, confirmation bias, first impression bias, recency bias, spillover bias, ingroup bias, and similarity bias.
1-Stereotypes
A stereotype is a general opinion or assumption about a class of individuals who share a particular trait. We often have general feelings or ideas about people based on their gender, ethnic background, or age. When we form opinions or make judgments about people based on a preconceived image of people with that trait, we are not being fair and objective.
Many people have negative feelings about people of different ethnicities than themselves and treat them in a less positive manner than people like themselves. Women have also often been negatively affected by stereotypes. The workplace is not an exception to that tendency. When managers make hiring decisions or give performance reviews, for example, they are too often influenced by gender or ethnic considerations.
Two pages of a 19th century children’s book discussing ethnic characteristics
Ethnic stereotyping comes in many forms, some of which are more dangerous than others.
Age is another categorizing characteristic that is too often used in stereotypical ways. Suppose a manager is looking for a new employee for his team. He believes that company loyalty and respect for authority is very important in this new hiring decision. As he sorts through applications, the manager pays close attention to the age of each applicant. He decides not to consider any applicants who are a part of the “Generation X” age category because that generation has a reputation for not being loyal and not having high respect for authority. This type of decision-making process stereotypes people by age and does harm to applicants and the hiring organization both. Applicants of that generation are not given fair consideration for the position, and the organization may well miss out on the best applicant.
Stereotypes can also be made in such a way as to lead to favorable treatment of individuals. Though not all studies agree, many have suggested, for example, that more attractive people tend to receive better grades in school, have a higher likelihood of being hired for a job, and also earn more money on average. Also, some professionals receive more respect and better treatment simply because they are older, the assumption perhaps being that they are more experienced and thus better qualified.
2-Selective Perception and Confirmation Bias
Managers can also exhibit bias in their perception by unknowingly paying attention to only a portion of the information available to them, which is known as selective perception. For example, perhaps a manager has a keen interest in and enjoys talking about financial data. An employee owes the manager three reports, only one of which is about finances. The employee turns in two well-prepared and helpful reports, but the financial report is obviously rushed and incomplete. If the manager focuses his attention on the poor quality of the financial report (simply because it is of special interest to him), ignoring the high quality of the other two, he is exhibiting selective perception. Three examples of the employee’s work are in front of him, and he pays attention to only a part of the evidence.
Selective perception often reinforces other types of biases. If a manager has a negative opinion of an individual, he or she might be prone to pay more attention to negative behaviors or actions from that individual and ignore the positive actions that would contradict the opinion. When selective perception is employed to confirm existing opinions, it is known as a confirmation bias.
3-First Impression Bias
Managers are also selective in many other ways, one of which involves giving too much prominence to their first impression of an employee. In this situation, the initial judgments the manager makes about the employee, often with very limited information, shape and control how he or she interprets and views future evidence. Even when the future information would seem to contradict the initial picture, the manager might be unwilling to change the perspective.
4-Recency Bias
The recency bias is somewhat of the opposite of the first impression bias. In this case, the manager’s focus is unduly balanced in favor of an employee’s most recent activities. This often happens in the cases of annual performance reviews. It can be difficult to keep an entire year’s activities in full view, and often the employee’s most recent activities are over-weighted. If recent activities are negative, they can easily overshadow many months’ worth of strong previous performance. Likewise, poor past performance might be mostly forgotten if the employee has recently excelled.
5-Spillover Bias
Like the first impression bias, spillover bias can skew a manager’s perspective by paying too much attention to past information. This bias usually relates to a prominent episode in the employee’s past activities that comes to dominate the manager’s thoughts about that employee. Perhaps the employee played a starring role in a wildly successful project, and the manager always thinks of the employee in terms of that success, even if the employee consistently underperforms after that. Inversely, if the employee is unfortunate enough to be guilty of a major failure or blunder, it might be difficult for him or her to change the manager’s opinion in the future, even if the employee consistently provides excellent work thereafter.
6-Negativity Bias
The negativity bias is an unfortunately common characteristic of human nature. When we are presented with information about a situation, some of which is positive and some of which is negative, we are prone to give more attention to the negative information. Though it is not fair, the negative information predominates our thoughts and moves us to form imbalanced conclusions on the negative side.
7-Ingroup Bias
The ingroup bias is basically a way in which managers might tend to show favoritism in judgment. Those who have been fortunate enough to be accepted in the manager’s “in” circle receive special positive judgments, while those not in that circle do not. The strength of this influence can vary dramatically, of course, and it may or may not be true that an actual negative perspective is displayed toward those not in the group.
8-Similarity Bias
The similarity bias reflects the human tendency to focus on ourselves and prefer those who are like we are. It leads managers to give special, positive attention and judgments to those who somehow remind the manager of himself or herself. Perhaps the employee shares an interest with the manager, such as a hobby they have in common, or maybe the manager and employee come from the same home area or attended the same college. The manager might recognize similar personality traits in the employee, or the employee somehow reminds the manager of a younger version of himself or herself. These identifications can lead to the manager giving preferential treatment to the employee.
We are going to find out the kinds of unconscious biases and their repercussions below:
1)Conformity bias
We are social beings and conforming to the group we belong to is our primal instinct. Conformity or very popularly known as herd mentality, where the opinions of a group influence the individual beliefs can be observed in all of us. Conformity might not always be a fruit of herd mentality, but an unconscious following of certain systems and beliefs might be due to ingrained values and beliefs, or just plain ignorance and unwillingness to question things. For example, when an HR tries to put forward a new plan of action, they might have to face many challenges due to conformity bias. However, if they use the same theory to their advantage and get the most influential person in the group, it becomes more natural to spread the word and get it approved.
2)Beauty Bias
Creating a perception of a person looking at their personality is what defines beauty bias. Now, this is not just with respect to the external appearance but an overall first impression that a person makes. We might consider someone with a great persona to make a great role model or choose someone who resonates the previous person who had that role. A great example would be while interviewing people, the first candidate walks in with a tucked in shirt would stand out more than a person wearing casuals. Beauty bias is something which cannot be erased completely. However, we can make sure to not indulge in personal details and look at the experience and contributions of the person towards the organization.
3)Affinity bias
When we feel we have an affinity with someone we see and have known them in the past, or they remind you of someone you know or like and give them the advantage for that, it is called affinity biases. For example, when a person we share some affinity with says they are nervous about the interview, we would be warmer and offer more words of encouragement. However, if with the other person we do not share a connection would not be treated the same way. You can reverse this by assessing or nudging yourself and identifying your cultural filters and expectations of performance. Affinity bias may also arise out of having common likes and dislikes as we automatically like the other person more when they have similar dislikes and likes.
4)Halo effect
You recognize a person for the way they present their achievements or excelled in their field of career. Therefore, you are in awe of the personal achievements an all decisions are based on that achievement. This is called halo effect. It is also related to anchoring bias as your thoughts and presumptions about the person are influenced by the person’s representations of his/her achievements and failures. A simple example is how we assume one person who is good at something to excel at other tasks and the one who fails is associated with failure or looked at skeptically. This could be nudged in an organizational context, as we can record all the achievements and shortcomings and visit it again during appraisal to avoid last minutes impressions that usually influence appraisals.
5)Horn-effect
Horn-effect is the complete opposite of halo effect. You feel an instant dislike towards the person for no particular reason and the thought clouds our better judgment to make the right decision. When we meet a person, who is too soft-spoken or speaks very slowly, they are generalized as unintelligent or not fit for the profile of executive. This effect leads to biases as we associate certain attributes to certain qualities, like in the above case soft-spoken ability is associated with unintelligence.
6)Similarity Bias
We all like to be surrounded by similar minds who share the same views as ourselves, especially when it comes to fundamental aspects. This is called as similarity bias. And as a result, might hamper the process of hiring. For example, people from same state, caste or religion have an instant connection which blindsides other aspects of the conversation.
7)Contrast effect
Contrast effect happens when people have taken many interviews and spend longer time going through many CV end up comparing resumes and how other people performed compared to the ones you thought to have done exceptionally well For example, when a good sales performer walks in late to work, he might not be questioned but, on the other hand, an agent who is an average performer might get into trouble for coming in late to work.
8)Attribution bias
Attribution bias can be described as the attitude that ‘success belongs to me; failures are others’ doing’, in short, playing the blame game. It is very easy to feel in a competitive environment that others are being noticed with half the efforts, yet get the perks and the praises while your hard works have gone unnoticed. For example, when a person is courteous, we often get suspicious of their intentions.
Why bias in bad:-
Biases is bad because of following
#Curbs diversity: As can be easily deduced from how unconscious bias works, it results in people from similar backgrounds and identities eventually sidelining anyone who’s different. This could be disastrous for business, as the team has limited skill and cultural diversity– which will eventually affect overall productivity.
#Obscures flaws: Bias could affect the way we review the performance of employees. For example, it would lead to certain employees to be evaluated more favourably than others. As the said employee’s flaws thus remain hidden, it becomes difficult to work on improving performance and developing better skills.
How to eliminate bias in your workplace:-
1.Identify the bias hotspots
Firstly, have a look at all the processes and procedures that occur in your organisation. From making hiring decisions to analysing employee performances, identify the processes which rely highly on human interaction and judgment. It’s likely that these are the most bias-ridden. Additionally, you can survey employees to examine employee opinions about how inclusive they feel the workplace is.
2.Talk about the problem
Due to the nature of human psychology, it’s almost inevitable to have some form of unconscious bias at play in the office. However, it’s important to acknowledge that this problem exists, as trying to cover up the presence of bias can be highly counterproductive. Engage senior executives and managers in discussing the impact of bias, and together develop new practices and tips to increase impartiality. Azmat Mohammed, director general of the Institute of Recruiters said, “the reality is that people carrying out interviews, at the next stage on from applications, are humans. The thing is for them to be able to analyse their own biases. Everybody has them and businesses are working to address this issue.”
3. Involve everyone in designing a solution
Once the main bias-prone processes have been identified, engage all relevant team members to design a solution. Decide what the best way forward would be, to reduce partiality and boost fairness. For example, Deloitte has introduced a new graduate selection method in order to reduce “unconscious bias.” Recruiters at Deloitte will now not know where candidates went to school or university. Depending on your organisation’s functioning, develop innovative solutions to tackle bias.
4. Increase awareness
Prevention is always more convenient than cure, so invest resources in increasing your team’s awareness about how bias affects the organisation. Encourage better communication and relationship-building between employees of various backgrounds, to lessen pre-determined notions. Additionally, those in charge of evaluating employee performances should acknowledge the possibility of their decisions being influenced by unconscious bias, and should consciously work to avoid it.
5. Review the results
Once you’ve adopted strategies to eliminate bias at the workplace, review how effective these have been. The best way to do this would be to use data from employee opinions, experiences and feedback, which can provide a much more objective outlook about how effective the anti-bias measures have been.
Isha Srivastava
Manager HR
Aircrews Aviation Pvt. Ltd.
www.AircrewAviation.com
ishasrivastava.aircrews@gmail.com
aircrews.ishasrivastava@gmail.com
Vcard:-
ishasrivastava.vcardinfo.com
Bio :-
https://www.portrait-business-woman.com/2020/06/isha-srivastava.html
Follow me on:
Linkedln:-
https://www.linkedin.com/in/isha-srivastava-626666193
https://aerosoftin.blogspot.com/2020/08/perception-and-biases-of-senior.html
Isha Srivastava Manager HR Aircrews Aviation Pvt. Ltd.
As we make observations, form opinions, and make judgments in the workplace—something every manager must do—we rely significantly on our perception. This is the process through which we take in and process information from our surroundings: what we see, hear, feel, etc.
Perceptual biases are errors that disrupt and distort the perceptual process, thus leading to faulty judgements. These can occur because we, as humans, attempt to create shortcuts of understanding. Attempting to analyze every detail of behavior would require too many cognitive resources; as such, we sometimes rely on assumptions to fill in missing information (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012). In other words, we may not always have the full picture and will then rely upon previous experience to piece everything together. Sometimes, this process works as it should, helping to protect us from danger for example. Other times, this process operates inefficiently and may be causing us to act in ways we normally would not.
Biases:-
Though we should strive to be as fair in judgment as possible, the reality is that we all have biases that affect our judgments. Managers are certainly no exception to this rule, and a number of common biases affect how they evaluate their employees. Some of the most common are stereotypes, selective perception, confirmation bias, first impression bias, recency bias, spillover bias, ingroup bias, and similarity bias.
1-Stereotypes
A stereotype is a general opinion or assumption about a class of individuals who share a particular trait. We often have general feelings or ideas about people based on their gender, ethnic background, or age. When we form opinions or make judgments about people based on a preconceived image of people with that trait, we are not being fair and objective.
Many people have negative feelings about people of different ethnicities than themselves and treat them in a less positive manner than people like themselves. Women have also often been negatively affected by stereotypes. The workplace is not an exception to that tendency. When managers make hiring decisions or give performance reviews, for example, they are too often influenced by gender or ethnic considerations.
Two pages of a 19th century children’s book discussing ethnic characteristics
Ethnic stereotyping comes in many forms, some of which are more dangerous than others.
Age is another categorizing characteristic that is too often used in stereotypical ways. Suppose a manager is looking for a new employee for his team. He believes that company loyalty and respect for authority is very important in this new hiring decision. As he sorts through applications, the manager pays close attention to the age of each applicant. He decides not to consider any applicants who are a part of the “Generation X” age category because that generation has a reputation for not being loyal and not having high respect for authority. This type of decision-making process stereotypes people by age and does harm to applicants and the hiring organization both. Applicants of that generation are not given fair consideration for the position, and the organization may well miss out on the best applicant.
Stereotypes can also be made in such a way as to lead to favorable treatment of individuals. Though not all studies agree, many have suggested, for example, that more attractive people tend to receive better grades in school, have a higher likelihood of being hired for a job, and also earn more money on average. Also, some professionals receive more respect and better treatment simply because they are older, the assumption perhaps being that they are more experienced and thus better qualified.
2-Selective Perception and Confirmation Bias
Managers can also exhibit bias in their perception by unknowingly paying attention to only a portion of the information available to them, which is known as selective perception. For example, perhaps a manager has a keen interest in and enjoys talking about financial data. An employee owes the manager three reports, only one of which is about finances. The employee turns in two well-prepared and helpful reports, but the financial report is obviously rushed and incomplete. If the manager focuses his attention on the poor quality of the financial report (simply because it is of special interest to him), ignoring the high quality of the other two, he is exhibiting selective perception. Three examples of the employee’s work are in front of him, and he pays attention to only a part of the evidence.
Selective perception often reinforces other types of biases. If a manager has a negative opinion of an individual, he or she might be prone to pay more attention to negative behaviors or actions from that individual and ignore the positive actions that would contradict the opinion. When selective perception is employed to confirm existing opinions, it is known as a confirmation bias.
3-First Impression Bias
Managers are also selective in many other ways, one of which involves giving too much prominence to their first impression of an employee. In this situation, the initial judgments the manager makes about the employee, often with very limited information, shape and control how he or she interprets and views future evidence. Even when the future information would seem to contradict the initial picture, the manager might be unwilling to change the perspective.
4-Recency Bias
The recency bias is somewhat of the opposite of the first impression bias. In this case, the manager’s focus is unduly balanced in favor of an employee’s most recent activities. This often happens in the cases of annual performance reviews. It can be difficult to keep an entire year’s activities in full view, and often the employee’s most recent activities are over-weighted. If recent activities are negative, they can easily overshadow many months’ worth of strong previous performance. Likewise, poor past performance might be mostly forgotten if the employee has recently excelled.
5-Spillover Bias
Like the first impression bias, spillover bias can skew a manager’s perspective by paying too much attention to past information. This bias usually relates to a prominent episode in the employee’s past activities that comes to dominate the manager’s thoughts about that employee. Perhaps the employee played a starring role in a wildly successful project, and the manager always thinks of the employee in terms of that success, even if the employee consistently underperforms after that. Inversely, if the employee is unfortunate enough to be guilty of a major failure or blunder, it might be difficult for him or her to change the manager’s opinion in the future, even if the employee consistently provides excellent work thereafter.
6-Negativity Bias
The negativity bias is an unfortunately common characteristic of human nature. When we are presented with information about a situation, some of which is positive and some of which is negative, we are prone to give more attention to the negative information. Though it is not fair, the negative information predominates our thoughts and moves us to form imbalanced conclusions on the negative side.
7-Ingroup Bias
The ingroup bias is basically a way in which managers might tend to show favoritism in judgment. Those who have been fortunate enough to be accepted in the manager’s “in” circle receive special positive judgments, while those not in that circle do not. The strength of this influence can vary dramatically, of course, and it may or may not be true that an actual negative perspective is displayed toward those not in the group.
8-Similarity Bias
The similarity bias reflects the human tendency to focus on ourselves and prefer those who are like we are. It leads managers to give special, positive attention and judgments to those who somehow remind the manager of himself or herself. Perhaps the employee shares an interest with the manager, such as a hobby they have in common, or maybe the manager and employee come from the same home area or attended the same college. The manager might recognize similar personality traits in the employee, or the employee somehow reminds the manager of a younger version of himself or herself. These identifications can lead to the manager giving preferential treatment to the employee.
We are going to find out the kinds of unconscious biases and their repercussions below:
1)Conformity bias
We are social beings and conforming to the group we belong to is our primal instinct. Conformity or very popularly known as herd mentality, where the opinions of a group influence the individual beliefs can be observed in all of us. Conformity might not always be a fruit of herd mentality, but an unconscious following of certain systems and beliefs might be due to ingrained values and beliefs, or just plain ignorance and unwillingness to question things. For example, when an HR tries to put forward a new plan of action, they might have to face many challenges due to conformity bias. However, if they use the same theory to their advantage and get the most influential person in the group, it becomes more natural to spread the word and get it approved.
2)Beauty Bias
Creating a perception of a person looking at their personality is what defines beauty bias. Now, this is not just with respect to the external appearance but an overall first impression that a person makes. We might consider someone with a great persona to make a great role model or choose someone who resonates the previous person who had that role. A great example would be while interviewing people, the first candidate walks in with a tucked in shirt would stand out more than a person wearing casuals. Beauty bias is something which cannot be erased completely. However, we can make sure to not indulge in personal details and look at the experience and contributions of the person towards the organization.
3)Affinity bias
When we feel we have an affinity with someone we see and have known them in the past, or they remind you of someone you know or like and give them the advantage for that, it is called affinity biases. For example, when a person we share some affinity with says they are nervous about the interview, we would be warmer and offer more words of encouragement. However, if with the other person we do not share a connection would not be treated the same way. You can reverse this by assessing or nudging yourself and identifying your cultural filters and expectations of performance. Affinity bias may also arise out of having common likes and dislikes as we automatically like the other person more when they have similar dislikes and likes.
4)Halo effect
You recognize a person for the way they present their achievements or excelled in their field of career. Therefore, you are in awe of the personal achievements an all decisions are based on that achievement. This is called halo effect. It is also related to anchoring bias as your thoughts and presumptions about the person are influenced by the person’s representations of his/her achievements and failures. A simple example is how we assume one person who is good at something to excel at other tasks and the one who fails is associated with failure or looked at skeptically. This could be nudged in an organizational context, as we can record all the achievements and shortcomings and visit it again during appraisal to avoid last minutes impressions that usually influence appraisals.
5)Horn-effect
Horn-effect is the complete opposite of halo effect. You feel an instant dislike towards the person for no particular reason and the thought clouds our better judgment to make the right decision. When we meet a person, who is too soft-spoken or speaks very slowly, they are generalized as unintelligent or not fit for the profile of executive. This effect leads to biases as we associate certain attributes to certain qualities, like in the above case soft-spoken ability is associated with unintelligence.
6)Similarity Bias
We all like to be surrounded by similar minds who share the same views as ourselves, especially when it comes to fundamental aspects. This is called as similarity bias. And as a result, might hamper the process of hiring. For example, people from same state, caste or religion have an instant connection which blindsides other aspects of the conversation.
7)Contrast effect
Contrast effect happens when people have taken many interviews and spend longer time going through many CV end up comparing resumes and how other people performed compared to the ones you thought to have done exceptionally well For example, when a good sales performer walks in late to work, he might not be questioned but, on the other hand, an agent who is an average performer might get into trouble for coming in late to work.
8)Attribution bias
Attribution bias can be described as the attitude that ‘success belongs to me; failures are others’ doing’, in short, playing the blame game. It is very easy to feel in a competitive environment that others are being noticed with half the efforts, yet get the perks and the praises while your hard works have gone unnoticed. For example, when a person is courteous, we often get suspicious of their intentions.
Why bias in bad:-
Biases is bad because of following
#Curbs diversity: As can be easily deduced from how unconscious bias works, it results in people from similar backgrounds and identities eventually sidelining anyone who’s different. This could be disastrous for business, as the team has limited skill and cultural diversity– which will eventually affect overall productivity.
#Obscures flaws: Bias could affect the way we review the performance of employees. For example, it would lead to certain employees to be evaluated more favourably than others. As the said employee’s flaws thus remain hidden, it becomes difficult to work on improving performance and developing better skills.
How to eliminate bias in your workplace:-
1.Identify the bias hotspots
Firstly, have a look at all the processes and procedures that occur in your organisation. From making hiring decisions to analysing employee performances, identify the processes which rely highly on human interaction and judgment. It’s likely that these are the most bias-ridden. Additionally, you can survey employees to examine employee opinions about how inclusive they feel the workplace is.
2.Talk about the problem
Due to the nature of human psychology, it’s almost inevitable to have some form of unconscious bias at play in the office. However, it’s important to acknowledge that this problem exists, as trying to cover up the presence of bias can be highly counterproductive. Engage senior executives and managers in discussing the impact of bias, and together develop new practices and tips to increase impartiality. Azmat Mohammed, director general of the Institute of Recruiters said, “the reality is that people carrying out interviews, at the next stage on from applications, are humans. The thing is for them to be able to analyse their own biases. Everybody has them and businesses are working to address this issue.”
3. Involve everyone in designing a solution
Once the main bias-prone processes have been identified, engage all relevant team members to design a solution. Decide what the best way forward would be, to reduce partiality and boost fairness. For example, Deloitte has introduced a new graduate selection method in order to reduce “unconscious bias.” Recruiters at Deloitte will now not know where candidates went to school or university. Depending on your organisation’s functioning, develop innovative solutions to tackle bias.
4. Increase awareness
Prevention is always more convenient than cure, so invest resources in increasing your team’s awareness about how bias affects the organisation. Encourage better communication and relationship-building between employees of various backgrounds, to lessen pre-determined notions. Additionally, those in charge of evaluating employee performances should acknowledge the possibility of their decisions being influenced by unconscious bias, and should consciously work to avoid it.
5. Review the results
Once you’ve adopted strategies to eliminate bias at the workplace, review how effective these have been. The best way to do this would be to use data from employee opinions, experiences and feedback, which can provide a much more objective outlook about how effective the anti-bias measures have been.
Isha Srivastava
Manager HR
Aircrews Aviation Pvt. Ltd.
www.AircrewAviation.com
ishasrivastava.aircrews@gmail.com
aircrews.ishasrivastava@gmail.com
Vcard:-
ishasrivastava.vcardinfo.com
Bio :-
https://www.portrait-business-woman.com/2020/06/isha-srivastava.html
Follow me on:
Linkedln:-
https://www.linkedin.com/in/isha-srivastava-626666193
https://aerosoftin.blogspot.com/2020/08/perception-and-biases-of-senior.html
Isha Srivastava Manager HR Aircrews Aviation Pvt. Ltd.
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