Are unconscious biases robbing you of the best talent for the job? According to statistics, it's very likely. But with a good grasp of these hidden biases, it's easier for employers to address them and build inclusive teams and fair opportunities.
Robert Half UK's Black Employee Network (BEN) recently hosted a webinar with black history educator and cultural theorist Kayne Kawasaki. The discussion, led by Harel Thompson (Senior Talent Solutions Manager, Robert Half), explored commonly held unconscious biases in hiring and how they deprive talent of equal opportunities and fair treatment.
Keep reading to learn more about unconscious bias in the workplace, notably the cross-race effect, and how you can confront it to build strong, diverse, and inclusive teams.
The cross-race effect (also known as the cross-race bias, other-race bias, or own-race bias) is the tendency to more easily recognise faces that belong to one’s own racial group or the racial groups one has regular contact with.
“If someone's in the ‘in-group’, i.e. the same race as you, chances are you're looking more at their features—their eyes, their nose, their lips, the shape of their hairline. If they're in another group to you, chances are you're not looking at those subtle variations,” says Kayne.
The cross-race bias is one of five core unconscious biases that can impact our lives and careers:
1. Affinity bias: also known as 'in-group bias', affinity bias is the tendency to favour those similar to us, causing in-group advantages.
2. Perception bias: a bias that leads us to perceive certain groups in a certain way, such as judging candidates based on their names.
3. Halo effect: the halo effect bias can cause us to think positively about someone based on one good trait.
4. Confirmation bias: a bias which causes new information to be interpreted in a way that confirms our existing beliefs and prejudices.
5. Cross-race effect: the tendency to have trouble recognising and distinguishing faces of people from different racial groups.
If left unaddressed, unconscious biases could create an unfair advantage for dominant groups during the hiring process and in the workplace. Moreover, it could blinker employers to a candidate's true potential based on something as simple as an ethnic-sounding name.
"CV name discrimination is a perception bias," says Kayne, "And what I mean by that is you will see someone that has a name that is perceived to be outside of your racial group—so it's closely related to the cross-race effect—and as a result, that creates a disadvantage for them."
A 2019 report from the Centre for Social Investigation (CSI) at Nuffield College revealed that job applicants from minority ethnic backgrounds send 60% more applications to get a positive response from an employer compared to white applicants.
The study revealed that black and South Asian applicants faced strong discrimination from employers at levels unchanged since the 70s. Although all 3,200 CVs submitted for the study contained the same skills, qualifications and experience appropriate to each role, the lack of callbacks for the fictitious Nigerian and Pakistani candidates suggested employers had not read further than the applicant’s name. This is particularly pertinent to the cross-race effect and its in-group advantage as it highlights an aversion or avoidance of names unfamiliar to the dominant group at that company.
“We need to be having these conversations about the cross-race effect and affinity bias because the idea that if you grew up in a certain situation—be it at school, be it your area, be it with the kids that you played with—naturally, you may have an in-group bias for both yourself and that group,” says Kayne.
“Chances are, you'll be more easily able to recognise certain names that you grew up with. Whereas if you didn't, and those names are new to you, and you're an adult, certain languages have certain pronunciations and phrases that your tongue finds it hard to get around.”
Related: Putting aside “recruitment bias” to find the right candidate
Nuffield College's CV report revealed the limitations that affinity bias in recruitment can put on the hiring process concerning CV discrimination. Working with an expert recruitment team like Robert Half makes the process easy by providing a blind CV screening service. You'll be served the very best candidates for the role, with all identifiers (such as gender, age, race, etc.) removed from the CV before it lands on your desk, allowing you to focus on essential details, like qualifications, skills, and achievements.
Learning unfamiliar names simply requires practice, and luckily, there are plenty of tools to help you get there. For example, LinkedIn has a name pronunciation feature that you can find next to the person's name in their profile. Robert Half also has a 'name coach' tool, which does a similar thing, allowing you to brush up on the phonetics before your candidate arrives for their interview.
“With CV name discrimination, the first step is awareness,” says Kayne. “So, offering DNI training, research articles, and education about name biases can help to overcome this.”
If you mistake one colleague for another or mispronounce a name, Kayne has a straightforward solution, “There's nothing like a sincere apology. Just apologise, and just say it won't happen next time, and if it does, say ‘please correct me’.”
