Schools are where we know that most bias is associated. With tests, favoritism, athletics, clubs, arts, and more. Students all over the world are losing their opportunities. As you get older and move on with life you expect that bias to go away. Unfortunately, bias carries into the workplace.

Let’s dive into the world of workplace and employment bias.

Employment Testing

While there is bias in school testing there is also bias in employment testing and we as a country and as people need to acknowledge that. In employment testing there is bias with gender, race, age, stereotypes, and culture. These biases can help certain groups of people to get the upper hand, which we already know due to the information we have gathered through looking into the classroom.

The one big bias that employment testing has is requiring certain information that has nothing to do with the job at hand. The use of irrelevant information can sway the focus of the purpose of the test. The test is needed to find good employers, not ask random questions that may sway results. This article,“Best Practice to Avoid Bias in Employment Testing”, has advice on how to avoid or maybe prevent these biases by giving detailed examples at what to look for and what to do. They also explain how some laws have made it easier to prevent this kind of bias but they may not fix it completely.

Implicit Bias

Author, Jenny Okonkwo, dives deep into the importance of implicit bias and it’s impact on employment.

“Implicit bias refers to attitudes or stereotypes that adversely impact or influence our understanding, actions and decisions in an unconscious way, rendering them uncontrollable if unchecked and unmitigated.”

This bias has impacted people with others having opinions on name, age, beauty, physical appearance, hair color, birthplace, credentials gained outside the recruiting country, height, and weight. This bias is influenced by personal opinions that are made without evening having a second thought on them. This bias is very powerful because you are being judged more for appearance than your true skills and potential. There are ways to avoid this bias by having “blind resumes” to help reduce the judgement and just create an opinion based on the hard copy information. 

Bias is truly everywhere and it impacts lives everyday. Even people are bias. Through judgement and opinions. There are ways to fix it, there are ways to be better. Give everyone the fair chance. Use true data and true actions to let someone prove that they are worthy. Actions speak for themselves.