Unconscious bias at work: Making the unconscious conscious
Unconscious bias at work: Making the unconscious conscious
5 minutes
We make thousands of decisions every day. Most happen in seconds and without our awareness. Our brains are designed to take mental shortcuts so we can move through the world efficiently. But those shortcuts come with a cost: they can quietly shape how we perceive others, how we interpret behaviour, and the choices we make at work – even when we believe we are being fair.
This is unconscious bias.
Unconscious biases are the automatic, deeply-engrained mental associations we hold about people, groups, roles, and characteristics. They are not deliberate. They’re not always aligned with our conscious values. And while everyone has them, they can unintentionally lead to unfair outcomes, missed opportunities, and accidental discrimination.
From an evolutionary perspective, our brains are wired to categorise. It helped early humans determine: Is this safe? Is this familiar? Is this a threat?
Today, the same mechanism works in milliseconds – but instead of reacting to predators, we react to people.
We subconsciously sort others into groups using visible cues (age, gender, race) and subtle cues (accent, education, job title, social class). Then we assign assumptions to those categories. These assumptions come from culture, upbringing, media, lived experiences, and repeated patterns we’ve absorbed over our lifetime.
This is efficient for the brain, but problematic for decision-making.
Even when intentions are good, bias can influence:
Hiring
Gravitating toward candidates who “feel like a good fit” can mean favouring those who look, speak, or think like us, and overlooking great talent.
Performance and promotion decisions
Small biases can accumulate over time: who you give stretch opportunities to, who you trust with visibility, how you interpret assertiveness vs “abrasiveness,” or who you see as “leadership material.”
Everyday behaviour
Who you call on in meetings, whose ideas you deepen, who receives more coaching, or who you assume is the “organiser,” the “detail person,” or the “relationship person.”
From an employee experience perspective, perceived bias strongly impacts belonging, motivation, and intention to stay. People don’t need proof, they only need to feel treated differently for performance and trust to drop.
A workplace that actively reduces unconscious bias benefits from:
- Better decision-making: diverse viewpoints lead to stronger solutions.
- Higher innovation: mixed experiences spark new thinking.
- Improved customer insight: teams that reflect customers understand them better.
- Stronger culture and retention: people stay where they feel seen and valued.
- Greater fairness and equity: talent decisions reflect capability, not assumptions.
Research shows that diverse, inclusive organisations outperform those that rely on homogenous thinking.
A few examples leaders should be aware of:
- Affinity bias: Preferring people like us.
- Confirmation bias: Seeking information that confirms our existing beliefs.
- Halo/Horns effect: One positive or negative trait colours everything else.
- Gender bias: Assuming certain roles or traits align more with one gender.
- Age bias: Judging capability based on age (too young/too old).
- Performance bias: Overestimating one group’s ability and underestimating another’s.
These are not character flaws. They are human. And they are manageable.
Understanding bias is the first step – the real shift happens when we know how to interrupt it. Here’s how to put this into practice.
