VANNOY:
Hi, I am Mike Vannoy, vice President of Marketing at As Asure. And this is a really, really important topic. I think we talk about unconscious bias. You hear it in the news. I think there’s a lot of misconceptions. I think it immediately for some, goes to the political, for others think, oh, that’s not me. I’m self-aware. But this is something that it affects everybody. And I think you, it’s gonna become clear when, when we have this conversation that a great guest today, if you’re a regular watcher of the show, you, you, you know, Mary Mary Simmons, she’s our Vice President of HR Consulting at Asure. She’s a SHRM certified professional. For the past eight years, she has been an adjunct professor at the New York Institute of Technology. And prior to Asure, Mary was the director of HR consulting for a 55 year old HR consulting firm in New York. Mary, welcome back to the show.
SIMMONS:
Thanks, Mike. Glad to be here.
VANNOY:
Okay. So let, let’s, I think, let’s, let’s level set. I think there’s all kinds of different levels of understanding and expectations of what this term even means. What, what is unconscious bias?
SIMMONS:
So, you know, if I’m gonna give you a book definition, unconscious bias is also called implicit bias, right? And it’s, and it’s learned stereotypes. But I think the best way for me to explain what unconscious bias is to do a quick exercise so everybody can realize, cuz I think a lot of people may be listening and saying, well, I don’t have unconscious biases, but, but I’ll remind you of that pivotal word there, which is unconscious <laugh>.
VANNOY:
Yeah.
SIMMONS:
Right? So they’re definitely biases that we’re not conscious of. So let me do a quick exercise, Mike, so that everybody listening can sort of, you know, level set using your words to, to understand that we all have unconscious biases. So, yeah. Perfect. So if everybody’ll, yeah. If, if, if you’ll just roll with me here and, and play by my rules, that’d be great. And I do ask everybody who’s listening, close your eyes and picture the scene that I’m going to explain to you. So, you win a trip to a conference in Hawaii, you’re really excited. You get on the plane. And when you get on the plane, as usual, when you, when you take a plane, you know, you’re greeted by the flight attendant and the pilot, you’re like, this is gonna be a great flight. You sit down in your seat and sitting next to you is a couple with a child, and you’re like, uhoh, this is gonna be noisy, but the the child’s really cute.
You have a great flight. You get off the plane, you call an Uber to take you to the hotel. Even that works out great, right? The Uber comes right away, you know, nice ride to your hotel. The conference is right there in your hotel. Beautiful hotel. You walk to the conference. The speaker is amazing, owner of the law firm, very successful, you know, very interesting conference, right? So everything goes great, right? So hopefully everybody pictured that scene in their minds. Now you can open your eyes. And so what I wanna ask you is everybody listening did you picture the flight attendant as a man or a woman? In my scenario, it was a man. Did you picture the flight, the pilot as a man or a woman? In my story, it was a woman. Was the couple sitting next to you with the young child?
Two males. Was the Uber driver a well-dressed, attractive blonde woman? I don’t know why I threw in blonde, but woman. Right. And was the speaker a transgender female? So the reason that I use this exercise, Mike, I think it’s kind of obvious that we all have stereotypes in our mind, right? So I think, yeah, most of us probably pictured that flight attendant as a female. Most of us probably pictured the pilot as a male. And these are the, you know, unintentional, deeply ingrained and sometimes universal ideas, stereotypes that influence our behavior. So that’s the piece that really is going to kill your culture, right? That’s what we’re really here to talk about. Because it’s one thing to think something, it’s very rare that we’re thinking something, Mike, on an interview, giving somebody disciplinary action in a team meeting. It’s very unusual for us to think one way and not have it affect our behaviors in the workplace.
Yeah. And so what we’re gonna drive towards today is recognizing that we all have unconscious bias, right? And this goes beyond the usual training that I do with, with our employers for anti-sexual harassment and anti-discrimination. It’s inclusive of those items, but it goes beyond those protected classes. Okay. and if I can, let me just explain how this happens physically, because if some of you are sitting there and going, oh, darn, and beating yourself up, you know, for, for having these unconscious biases, you know, look, our brain is contributing to what happens here, right? So neurologically our brain can consciously process 40 pieces of information a second. That sounds like a lot to me, right? But unconsciously, we process 11 million pieces of information, Mike. Yeah, yeah. So what happens is your brain says, oh, wait a minute, you know, this is incongruous here, what am I gonna do? Right? Yeah. So your brain has to come up with mental shortcuts.
VANNOY:
That’s
SIMMONS:
Right. And I think you can see where that’s going to create those stereotypes, and it’s going to affect our decision making. It makes our decision making easier in a sense. But it, we may make mistakes. I mean, look, we, it, it really does go back to the caveman days, right? I see a saber tooth tagger. I need to run <laugh>. Yeah. and, and that really is, is where it comes from. But now when we’re doing it in the workplace, I think you can see where this can be dangerous, right?
VANNOY:
Yeah. I I’m so glad you went to the science on this thing, cuz you know, the, the 40 might sound like a lot. You’re, you’re right. But 41st is the, the millions of the unconscious that, that’s just how the brain works. I mean, read and listened a lot on this topic. I mean, the technically you don’t even see the saber tooth tiger. You see something scary and you react because the brain has to, has to narrow on the things that it can focus on. So it has to, it has this, this, it’s like hardwired as a model. It just Asuremes that the stewardess looks like this, that the pilot looks like that, that the speaker looks like that. In my version of the story, by the way, I was much taller in thinner and had hair <laugh>. But, but, but honestly, I joke that, but it speaks to the, the way we tell ourselves our story.
And this is a whole nother webinar. I know, but it, it, we see ourselves as thoughtful, well-mannered, well groomed, not rude to the other person even <laugh>, right? How do they, so these, these unconscious biases have, have a lot to do with the model our brains are pre-programmed with based on how we came about and how we grew up. It’s also based on how we see ourselves in the story too. So that’s probably too much of a divergent path. But I, I I, I, I’m just glad you went to the, to the science of the thing. This is not, yeah. Not, we’re not accusing people.
SIMMONS:
It’s, it’s, it’s definitely physical, right? And, you know, we’ll, we’ll de dive a little bit deeper, but there definitely is a physical component to what’s going on here.
VANNOY:
Yeah. Right, right. Okay, so, so let’s, let’s take this a little deal. By the way, the story was awesome. I mean, explaining to someone why they have an unconscious bias not so effective, take ’em through that exercise. I can’t imagine how, how that couldn’t help people realize. So, great, great story. Now, thanks. Bring, bring it to the, bring it to the workplace. How, how do these unconscious biases that we by definition all have based on science, not based on because of the fact we’re prejudice or we’re racist, or we’re homophobic, not, not, not that, but just Right. Our, our brains are hardwired to, to narrowly focus and make Asuremptions about people. How does that impact and how does that manifest in the workplace?
SIMMONS:
Yeah. So that’s, that’s a really good question. And I think it is important for employers to understand this, right? And, and understand that bias can be in favor, right? So thinking that a particular, you know class of people are really good at it. So, you know, two candidates come in to interview. And, and I have an unconscious bias, let’s say as an example that Asians are particularly good in. And I have another individual come in for the interview. They’re equally qualified. But my unconscious bias in favor of the Asian candidate is going to disparately impact the other individual. Cause I’m gonna say no to them without even really interviewing them. Right? And we definitely all do that. And then of course, we know that those biases are really going to hurt us. When, you know, and I’m just starting at the beginning of the employment relationship, right?
The interview, sure. Those unconscious biases are really going to hurt hurt us when we talk about you know, dis disproportionately being unfavorable to a certain group. And, and so besides talking about, you know, male versus, you know, female or transgender or people of color, right? I, you know, run a group of HR professionals and, you know, started talking about how hard it is to hire. And, and one of the HR professionals said, yeah, I’m even hiring people with tattoos. I normally would never hire people with tattoos. Well, Mike, that’s not, tattoos are not a protected class having a tattoo unless there’s a religious belief behind it, right? So, so that’s what employers have to look at. Even though, you know, the Title VII does not have tattoos as a protected class, religious beliefs are a protected class, right? Yeah. so you have to be careful in one sense.
You have to be careful to, you know, not trigger litigation. But we’re really also here to talk about the culture of your organization, right? We all know, yeah. That a positive culture is gonna create positive growth for our organization. And if we’re that shortsighted that, you know, you know, we’re looking at individuals with that type of minutiae, right? You’ve got all the skills, but you, you have a couple tattoos that might be shortsighted, you know, and it also may lead to litigation depending on what those tattoos, you know, represent. So when I’m doing this training with an organization, I will tell you that it comes down to one simple word, and that’s respect. And every single person in an organization deserves to go to work and be respected in every way, no matter who they love, no matter where they worship, right? No matter how they look, right? We all deserve to be fully heard in the workplace. And that comes down to respect and that diversity, that inclusion, right? We talk about d e i, diversity, diversity, equity, and inclusion is a key factor to making an organization successful.
VANNOY:
Yeah. And I know you’re gonna keep us on this straight and narrow in this conversation, the compliance side, <laugh> and, and kinda help us understand what the risks are. Yes. I I think there’s two sides to this coin. It, I think the productivity side, right? I mean definitely your, your example of okay, if I have an unconscious bias that that this is an Asian candidate is gonna be better at the engineering math and this other Caucasian candidate you and I have had this conversation many times, job descriptions and written competencies. What are the competent, what is the job description for the position you’re hiring for? What are the competencies and skills required to be successful at? And if you are wearing a blindfold and you are interviewing mining for those competencies, whether they had tattoos, gender, how tall they are, whether they’re attractive, whether they’re not so attractive, heavy, skinny, none of that matters if you’re mining for the competencies required to be successful. And if you’re doing that, it’s almost definitionally it’s gonna, it, you’re, you’re gonna get the most productive candidates, most productive workforce if you’re going after the skills and the competencies. And you do your very best to block out all the other stuff, right?
SIMMONS:
Right. I mean, there’s been study after study after study. Look, and we talk about it all the time, you know, cuz it on our, on our webinars, Mike, because it, it all comes back to, you know, organizations have to think diverse, right? You’re never gonna get anywhere in an organization if everybody has the same thoughts and the same ideas, right? We’re all robots and we all come from, you know, the same college and the same town, and we all look the same. That is not going to grow your organization. You’re not gonna get a lot of creativity because everybody’s gonna be like-minded for the most part, right? Diversity in our workforce is what’s going to drive innovation, creativity, productivity and success.
VANNOY:
Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, so take us down some of the traps. I guess on the compliance side first. What, where, where do, and you know what, and I’m wanna back up. Can you just, yeah. Let, let’s kinda rattle off the different types of, of unconscious bias. Cause I think it’s easy to gravitate towards the easy stuff. And, and, and then, and I think I frustrate you sometimes cause they wanna take people off the hook here. We, we’re not talking, we’re not accusing people of being racist and homophobes in, in, in, in, right? This is we’re talking about biases that go way beyond the, the political hot buttons. There’s biases around height, around hair lake. Yeah. I mean, can, can, can you kinda take us through the different types of biases that manifest in the workplace?
SIMMONS:
Yeah. So let’s, and I think it’s also important to talk about what creates these bias, right? So, you know, it’s, it’s where you grew up. It’s how you were taught in your house it at school, right? Through experience, how you were taught through an experience, your family, right? Your economics, right? Because as we said, I need everybody to think outside of the usual discrimination, you know, sexual harassment economics, right? I don’t wanna, you know, hire somebody because they’re, they’re not wealthy, you know? Or, you know, I have a unconscious bias against wealthy people. I mean, that’s a very popular bias right now. Yeah. Right? All, all rich people are bad, right? My values and my beliefs are gonna create bias. Certainly the culture that I grew up in, and the media creates bias, right? So we know that that to be true.
And I think recognizing where they come from and what’s going to cause some of our bias gets us kind of thinking like, yeah, you know, I do recognize that I have a particular bias, and this is where it’s from. And understanding when we do this training, what I say to everybody is, no, nobody’s, nobody’s, you know you know, here to shame anybody, right? We all have unconscious biases that we need to do this training to educate. And so that people kind of pick their heads up, right? And say, oh, I recognize I have it. I understand where it came from. And that’s the first step in changing some of these micro behaviors. It it is what, what they’re called, right? Yeah. so some of the types of unconscious bias, right? So affinity or similarity bias, right? A lot of us look, people don’t like change.
We are hardwired as humans to not like change, right? No study after study after study tells us that. And we don’t usually, most people like different, we find comfort in going to the bank teller that looks like me going to the salesperson who looks like me hanging around with and being friends with at work, right? The people who look like me or have a similar background, economic, religion, et cetera. And this is a real bias. I don’t think anybody on this call can, can can deny this, you know, when we do the training, we’ll also do another exercise where we ask you to, you know, list your, your top five, you know, go-to people at work and you’ll find that they are similar, right? And so that bias does kind of cause that culture to sort of, you know, have little groups, right? So if you’ve ever worked at a big organization and even a small organization, you really want, you know, at Aho I think we do a really great job, right? We’re always talking about one ashore. And that’s the culture that I try to help build in the clients that we have. You can’t have that if you have little tiny groups of people, right? That, that are similar, all, you know, hanging and grabbing, gravitating towards each other. Does that make, make sense, Mike?
VANNOY:
It it, it does it. What’s what’s going through my head is, and I, and I want this to, to people to think about this. We’re talking a lot about unconscious biases that leads to, I think we think a lot about that leads to exclusion. Like, oh yes. So I’m, I’m, I’m 53 years old. Oh, that candidate. He’s, he’s too young. He’s just a kid. He doesn’t have enough life experience. He’s not gonna be able tore, relate to our customers like me. Oh you know, she, she she comes from pretty well bred family, great school. She’s probably gonna be a little too highbrow for our, our employees to get along with, right? I mean, so, so we, we find ways to say no to folks for all these different reasons, whether they’re valid or not, because they’re not, if we don’t base ’em on competencies and skills, yeah, we base ’em on these unconscious biases.
But, but, but even when we’re trained, by definition, they’re unconscious. I think there’s also another side where we are, unconscious bias leads us to say yes to things we shouldn’t, right? Oh, yes. That per lots of studies around height and beauty, right? Oh, tons. Whether it’s tons, whether it’s, so I’m gonna screw it up a little bit, but like, the average height of the American c e is significantly taller than the average person, right? And yeah, the data is really clear. There’s a height bias that people say, oh, that person’s taller. They must be a good leader. Well, there’s a lot of really tall, terrible leaders, <laugh>, right? And there’s some great short leaders, <laugh> Yeah. These same biases in beauty. I remember, I remember watching a, a, a program unpacking a study where this, even around around beauty where people misassigned level of intelligence to beauty, thinking more beautiful people were in fact smarter and included children, kindergarten children working with one teacher versus another teacher. One was more beautiful by every, you know, the standard, you know right. Asuremptions that you, you might think in these, yeah. Five-Year-Olds said the more beautiful teacher was smarter than the other one. This is, this is is very deep in us, right? So this isn’t just about shame on you employer, don’t say no to these people because they’re not like you. And then, and you’re just a, you know, you’re, you’re a knuckle dragging mouth breather who doesn’t get it. You’re, you’re saying yes to people, you probably should also,
SIMMONS:
Right? Right. Right. Yeah. And just to drive home that beauty bias in a court of law, if you have somebody that committed a crime, when the jury thinks that the criminal is beautiful or, you know, good looking, they will convict half as often as if the criminal is not. So, so beauty is definitely a bias. You know, there, there’s just no question. Right? Too beautiful. And, you know, you’re not smart. Also happens, right? Right. Let’s face it. And, you know I’m only gonna hire, you know, good looking people. And then there’s the halo effect, right? And we teach this when we’re doing our interviewing training, and we’ve talked, talked about this in other webinars, but the halo effect is when, let’s just say you’re hiring somebody into your marketing team and you’re really looking for Salesforce experience, and the candidate has Salesforce experience, right? Or, or, let me, let me change that. They went to Harvard,
VANNOY:
Okay?
SIMMONS:
And for you, education is huge. You ignore everything else, right? They don’t have a lot of marketing experience. They don’t have Salesforce experience, which is necessary, right? But they went to Harvard.
VANNOY:
So you, so they must be smart enough to learn it
SIMMONS:
Really fast. That one
VANNOY:
<Laugh>.
SIMMONS:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you, you would hope so, but it’s not necessarily true, right? So you can’t focus, you should not focus on one attribute, right? And ignore all others. And the reverse of that is the horns effect, right? Where let’s just say somebody comes in and they’re obese. So the number one bias, you know, that is obesity, it’s the number one bias, right? So let’s just say the perfect, you looked at the resume, the candidate is perfect, right? Or, you know, let’s let, we can move away from interviewing and say, you’ve got a team of 10 individuals and you need to promote somebody. And you’ve got somebody who went to Harvard, who knows Salesforce, who’s a great performer, but they’re obese. And in your mind, you attribute a stereotypical attribute to that individual. Yeah. Let’s just say, you know, lazy, right? Right. And again, these are just examples. We don’t feel this way. Anybody listening? Yeah. But, you know, making an example here, and that horn effect stops you from advancing this individual within the organization. These are real biases. I, you know, study after study after study will tell you that this, these exist and you can see where it would happen.
VANNOY:
It’s the, and it’s the stories, it’s, it’s unconscious bias, but it’s not just the model. Oh, obese people, this people of color that highly educated people, rich people are these, it’s the stories we tell ourselves about those, right? Oh, the rea. So maybe I’m a super fit person and I work out two hours a day. Oh. The reason that that person is overweight is because, you know, they aren’t disciplined like I am. Right? Well,
SIMMONS:
Right.
VANNOY:
Maybe that has nothing to do with it, right? I mean exactly.
SIMMONS:
Exactly. Right.
VANNOY:
Right.
SIMMONS:
And we all know that there’s gender bias, and we know that there’s ageism bias. That’s, those are clear. And, and those are probably the top two besides the affinity one that are gonna really cause or could trigger litigation, right? So making that Asuremption, you know, that we can’t hire a male for a certain position or a transgender female for a certain position, you know, based on you know, promotion, hiring, et cetera. And we all know ageism in favor and against is a, is a real bias. And you gave some great examples, right? It could be not hiring the young person, right? Right. And the E E O C really says that 40 and above is protected. But discriminating, right? Or being, you know, stereotyping based on age is discrimination based on age. And at any age, it can trigger litigation and it’s shortsighted, right?
I think we need to go back to basics, like we talked about in our webinar on interviewing and say, these are the skills we’re looking for. Does the individual have these skills? Can they perform the job to, you know, better than any of the other candidates that we’re interviewing, and not look at, you know, how they look, you know, what gender they are, or any of the other factors that could be misleading, you know, and take, take us, you know, downtown a path that is gonna be dangerous for the organization in every way, right?
VANNOY:
So, so I’m, I’m gonna recap the, the, I think you, you, you, you gave me six. So there, and, and obviously it, it’s kind of endless. The, the number there are it’s endless. Number one is the bias around affinity, right? So I’m from the same hometown. Oh, you’re, you’re also a, a, a tar heel. You’re also a badger, right? So, so same col, yeah. College, same town, same whatever, right? Oh, you like this sport. I like that sport. We must be similar. You must be really smart and talented, just like me, right? We, we, we have the, the affinity group. Bias number two is halo effect, whether they’re taller, whether they have an Ivy League education. Maybe they’re rich, maybe they’re super well-dressed. Yes. and, and we as over assigned value and Asureme competencies that don’t exist because we put a halo around this person because of our unconscious bias, right? Correct.
SIMMONS:
Perfect
VANNOY:
Example. Number three, the horns effect. Un you mentioned it, but unpack the horns effect for me again, I’m sorry.
SIMMONS:
Well, you, we could do the opposite, right? Opposite. Somebody comes in for a position and the, you know, they’re not in a really nice suit, or you don’t, you just don’t like the way that they’re dressed. Now, I’m not saying that, you know, they’re dressed like a slob, right? Because I think we could all agree, you know, that would show, you know, maybe disrespect, et cetera, but maybe it’s the way that they’re dressed and because of the way that they’re dressed, you can’t get past that, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So that one thing, you can’t focus on their other great skills, right? Yeah. And let’s just say that that one thing, you know, maybe they have an accent that you, that you don’t like, right? Yeah. and you’re just letting that one thing overshadow everything else in a negative way versus the halo effect. Them having one attribute that positively affects the the way that you, you view that,
VANNOY:
That, so number one is affinities. Number two is halo. We assign, we over assign value number three, horns effect, where we Asureme negative things based on some of those biases. Number four, this one gets a lot of attention. And, and it’s undeniable. The, the science is really queer is, is gender, right? Your opening story is the, was the flight attendant a a man or a woman, right? We’re all guilty, both men and women of these gender, gender biases. Ageism I’ve done a few webinars on this topic, had a great guest a couple months ago around the multi-generational workforce, right? Do, yes. And, and it goes, it goes all over the spectrum. It’s like young people not wanting to work with old people, cuz they’re all, they’re out of touching. Don’t get it. Just like old people not wanting to work with younger people because they, you know, those whipper snappers have no work ethic and they don’t know blah, blah, blah. Right? <laugh>, so, yeah. We hope or heard it. And then then beauty bias it’s, it’s whether, whether it’s weight, whether it’s just facial symmetry, whether it’s how they use their makeup, how they do their hair, blondes versus brunettes right? The, the, the beauty bias. So, right.
So I think we all get it. Some of, we’re probably, we’re probably on a spectrum for how much we admit we have these biases. But I think I love correct that you opened the conversation that this is rooted in science. It doesn’t make you a bigot or a bad person just because you, you have unconscious bias. You have them, we all do. But let, let’s not kinda shift to the impact an organization, right? So let’s, and we’ll start with compliance. How might some of these unconscious biases get us in trouble from a compliance standpoint? Maybe we start with pre-employment and then move into employment.
SIMMONS:
Yeah. So, so I’ll give you an a really good example. You know one of our last webinars was on I nine, right? And when I am teaching a new client how to do their I nine s, you know, and we started that webinar, but gone, yeah, it’s a little boring topic, but trust me, 90% of the employers that I help are doing it wrong. I’ll have some employers who will ask somebody of color for three pieces of identification to prove that they are eligible to work in the us, right? Mm. So you don’t have to be a US citizen to work in the us. That’s a trick question I ask all the time. <Laugh> it when I teach at the college. But, but you know that, oh my goodness, Mike, that can get you into so much trouble. And I see it time, after time, after time I’ve even helped employers with their drug testing. And I’m like, okay, let’s talk about your drug testing program. Who do you drug test? And they’re like, well, if I don’t like the way that they look, I will drug test. I’m unlike the
VANNOY:
People with tattoos, right?
SIMMONS:
We have a problem. <Laugh> what
VANNOY:
The people with tattoos get the drug test, right?
SIMMONS:
Yes. Yes. I’ve had employers, you know, do that. And, you know, I always tell them, listen, I’m here to keep you on the straight and narrow. Right? You’re paying me to keep you compliant. Stop doing that <laugh>. Let’s, let’s look at how we can do it. Right? So, you know, I just gotta finish that out. Cause you know, I’m an HR nerd. Yeah. If you’re doing drug testing, you can do all the drivers or all the salespeople, but you can’t pick and choose cuz that’s gonna lead to discrimination, right? So pre-employment,
VANNOY:
It’s obvious for you. And I seen all the time explain why, why can’t you just, okay, this guy came in with alcohol on his breath in and bloodshot eyes. I’m gonna drug test them. Why isn’t that a reasonable thing for an employer?
SIMMONS:
Well, now you’re going down with it. Now we’re talking about a different webinar which actually will be a good one. But if it for re reasonable suspicion, you can test somebody. Okay.
VANNOY:
Okay.
SIMMONS:
So
VANNOY:
You gave that, that example, you
SIMMONS:
Gave a completely different example. The, the difference is, in my example is I said, this person has tattoos, or this person is a person of color and I’m going to drug test them whenever we treat employees differently Yes. Than other employees in the same position, right? That’s when we may trigger discrimination claims and litigation of some kind.
VANNOY:
Really important distinction. I’m glad, I’m glad you called me out on that, right? Okay. Yeah.
SIMMONS:
You know, I will.
VANNOY:
Yeah. Good. I’ll do, I’ll do the same. So
SIMMONS:
Yeah,
VANNOY:
Yeah, keep going, keep going.
SIMMONS:
So we talked extensively about interviewing. So I think everybody understands that, you know, those unconscious biases can very easily trigger discrimination claims. You know, lots and lots of lawsuits and case law where, you know, one, you know, position is, you know, a company is only hiring men for a sales position, or conversely only hiring women, right? For, you know, bar sales or, you know, something where they think, you know, women are just going to do better in the position. So in favor or against a particular class of, of individuals is going to lead towards, could lead towards discrimination claims, right? So in hiring and then if we move on to, you know, disciplinary action, right? So again, you have to be consistent in the way you trigger disciplinary action, right? If I’m going to let Mike, my white male get away with being late five days in a row, but I’m not gonna let you know, you know, Jose be late twice, and then he’s gonna get disciplinary action because I have this unconscious bias then it’s going to really trigger discrimination.
And I, and I hope everybody can see these examples in, you know, understand that it could be something as simple as, you know, that obese individual and writing them up for only being late two times, right? Because of my unconscious bias. It’s, it’s, that’s gonna really erode your culture more than anything. Everybody is looking, when you are disciplining and promoting individuals in the workplace, everybody’s watching everybody, right? You’re really good employees wanna see that I’m working really hard and when other people are not, you know, respecting the rules of the organization and the expectations that they are treated, you know, consistently, right? Yep. and so are the bad employees, right? Wow. Mike was late five times and nothing happened. I’m not gonna kill myself to get into the office, right? Right. And then if I end up, you know, being late once and getting a warning notice, I’m gonna raise my hand and say, I think I’m being discriminated against. I, and it really kills your culture. It really hurts your culture. That’s when you disengage your employees almost immediately.
VANNOY:
Couple different areas. I want to pads, I wanna go down here. Number one, I, I wanna validate what you just said. People, especially high per high performing people, they want to be part of an organization where everyone is held to a high standard. The the quickest way to to beat, to crush morale of a high performer is to not hold everyone else to the same standard. You’re holding that person and including calling the high performer out when they miss the mark. High performers, they might grind their teeth when coach rides on them, right? But they still love coach when they know it. Like, when they admit, I did make that mistake, or I didn’t do that thing that I was told to do. Right? that’s right. There’s something about a high performing culture where everyone expects to be held to a higher standard. And, and there’s this innate fairness antenna that all of us have that we want to, we wanna be held to. Most of us wanna be held to a high standard. Certainly high performers do yes, but they insist that everyone is treated fairly. And if you don’t, this is, you know, there’s a compliance problem. You can get yourself in hot water, but there’s also a, a performance problem that happens here. Culturally. Am I, am I overstanding that?
SIMMONS:
No, not at all. Not at all. If you don’t have an engaged workforce, right? If they don’t feel like there’s consistency, right? There’s good communication, there’s good teamwork, right? You know, you ask a group of people to be on a team, and if they’re not listening to each other, right? So it’s not just top down, right? It’s your employees need to go like this, right? Yeah. So we’re talking unconscious bias to the employees and the managers and the owners of the organization, right? We need everybody to listen to everybody else, right? If you don’t have that, you are really going to hurt your culture and your productivity. It’s, it’s tied together, <laugh>, right? Because if you’re not engaged, you’re not working to the, to the, you know, highest standard that you can.
VANNOY:
Absolutely. Mary, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna talk about another aspect that I don’t know that I hear people talk about when it comes to unconscious bias. And, and I’ll just share a personal story. I won’t share where details, but I, I went through a, a legal situation, a business I was running many years ago younger employee that she came to me with concerns. I, my opinion hadn’t been a high achiever, high performer, but really smart, really worked hard. I actually thought very highly of her. And I changed the comp plan because she wasn’t making as much money. The comp plan was so, so weighted that only high performers made money. And I wanted her to not, I wanted her to make her to make money. I changed the bottom line is I changed the comp plan.
I was accused of an unconscious bias towards around age and gender. In that I, and, and I found myself at the other end of a retaliation claim. And so from my perspective, okay, I really had to self reflect. But I also looked to the other side was, was her, does she have an unconscious bias that here’s this middle aged white dude if he’s changing my comp plan, it must be because he has unconscious bias around gender, right? And she flat out accused me of that. So do I have unconscious bias? I think by definition I must, but the other side is true also. Like I for sure believe that she has unconscious bias. She Asuremed that because, you know, I’m an old white dude that I probably had ill intent in trying to squeeze her at the same time. So this isn’t just, the employers have unconscious bias and everyone else is perfect, and you just have to, to, to, to, to tow the road. You could do everything perfect, but it’s the employee or the candidate and their unconscious bias plays in, right? And you can be right as reign and still get sued for retaliation or discrimination or whatever based on that person’s unconscious bias. Can can you speak into that for me?
SIMMONS:
Well, and I think, you know, even if we take it down a notch, and, and it could be that, that there was unconscious bias on her end as well, but it’s her perception, right? Right. So we talk about this all the time. When I teach sexual harassment and discrimination anti, you know, sexual harassment and discrimination is what I say is it doesn’t matter how you intend the act, it’s how the other person perceives it.
VANNOY:
That’s a hundred percent right. So it,
SIMMONS:
Right. So if, if I tell a joke, and I don’t mean to, you know, sexually harass somebody, but it’s of the sexual content, well, we kind of have to be adults and say, well, yeah, somebody could perceive that as sexual harassment, right? So I think management, and we, and we talk about this all the time when we’re doing training with managers, managers are held to a higher standard. Yeah. There’s just no question. That’s right. But we also have to educate staff, right? When we talk about unconscious bias, when we talk about discrimination, we also have to discuss it with staff because there’s this many managers and this many employees. And, and I don’t, you know, my point of saying that everybody needs to be educated on this in the workplace is, is because the employees can discriminate or, you know, have unconscious bias against each other.
And honestly, a lot of it comes down to perception, right? So we have to be careful before acting as a manager and saying, could this be perceived? Right? Because that’s the standard in a court of law. Yeah. Would a reasonable person perceive what you did, Mike, as retaliation? That’s the standard in a, in a court of law. So I try to teach the managers that, and I even try to teach the employees, you know, I’ll start sexual harass anti-sexual harassment tr discrimination training by saying, I’m here to educate you so you don’t do something stupid <laugh>. Right? Yeah. It’s not often that we’re doing, we’re, we’re consciously, we consciously have a bias. Some people do do that. You know, I’m not, you know, let’s not be ignorant. But I think to, to, for the most extent, to the most extent, we are doing these actions unconsciously.
And that’s why training and education and listening to these webinars are very important. We gotta lift our heads up. We gotta look at ourselves, you know, and say, okay, you know, admitting the problem is the first step to, to getting better, right? Yeah. I only had one person say, I absolutely don’t have unconscious bias. <Laugh>. Yeah. And, and really dug in. And I’m like, okay, well I, that’s a little bit of a problem, right? Yeah. You, you can’t if you don’t recognize it, right? And, and, and, and try to be a little on honest or a lot honest, nothing’s gonna change.
VANNOY:
Just not. Yeah. And, and, and, and I, I’m probably going off on the French here too much, but to, to me, a lot of this has to do with communication, right? So I’m always gonna come back to ground zero. Of course it does. Is job descriptions and competencies. You’re mining for competencies. That’s a safeguard against a against unconscious bias. But here’s a, here’s a scenario. Like, I, I believe this young lady believed in her bones that I was retaliating against her. I really, I, I believe that she believed it and I felt gutted cuz I absolutely was trying to help her make more money. Cuz I thought she was great. We both believed different things. If, and so what my job, if I would’ve had a better relationship coming into that, that transaction may not have been perceived that same way. Right? So it, you, you said the most
SIMMONS:
Important had you communicated ahead of time of doing this because
VANNOY:
Transparent, and maybe not even just on the comp plan, communication, communication in general, so that there was a relationship and you said the most important word based on respect. So even if we didn’t agree with each other, that she would’ve known that I respected her. She would’ve had respect for me even if she disagreed. That, if that, if there was a, if there would’ve been a better foundation of respect and never would’ve gone ugly like it did. But between what I think is too good human beings that just genuinely saw the world through a different lens, and it conflicted right? That right. Relationship hundred percent based on respect and it’s gonna
SIMMONS:
Happen. So Yeah. Yeah. But yes, we can preempt those situations by communicating things clearly. Right? So, you know what I, when I’m doing disciplinary action training with managers, I’ll say, you know, the reason you wanna, you know, put something in writing and say, Joe, you’re not performing up to the expectations of your position is because if you have to, you know, terminate, first of all, they’re never gonna correct their behavior unless you put it in writing and sit down and explain to them, this is what you’re doing wrong, and this is how I need you to, to change your behaviors to meet the expectations of the job. Right? They’re not gonna do it because you’re thinking their behavior isn’t good. It’s also to protect the company. But thirdly, it’s to communicate to the, that individual you need to be transparent. And, and I’ll have managers say to me, Mary Mike knows he was late five times. And I’m like, but when you don’t say anything about it, they think it’s okay. Right? Right. So communication, you’re not going off the, the beaten track. It is pivotal to the employment relationship. Right? The better our communication is, the more successful that entire work relationship is gonna be.
VANNOY:
Mary, let’s, let’s wrap this conversation just being super practical for folks. So we, we started this on good science. I think everybody gets it different levels of awareness. We’ve identified the different types, more, most common types of, of biases We’ve explored how that can impact culture explored how that can get you in hot water when it comes to compliance in discrimination. What, what do we do about it? What do we, what do we do with this information? There? There’s some, I think there’s some really practical things employers can do here.
SIMMONS:
Yeah. I, I mean, I, I hope that employers understand that this is a real issue, right? And they really need to work towards minimizing the unconscious bias on the management side and the staff side, right? So the organiz, it all starts from the top, Mike. So the organization has to prioritize diversity in hiring, in promoting special projects, you know, leading a committee, let’s just say. And making that the diverse groups are fully heard and listened to, right? There is study after study that says that individuals who do not feel like they’re being heard, they’re just gonna stop talking. And there’s where your innovation, you know, takes a dive. The creativity flow within the organization is gonna take a deep dive, and that’s gonna really hurt your growth. And that’s one of the things that at Asure, we are here to help organizations grow.
Boy, if, if we’re not minimizing unconscious bias I can tell you that it is a silent killer of not only your culture, but the growth of your organization. Yeah. So you need to do training. Yeah. You need to train the individuals so that they’re part of this, this conversation. They’re part of the commitment of the organization to minimize unconscious bias. There’s, there’s no way forward unless, you know, the, the top of the organization down is looking at this, being aware of this, right? In embracing diversity, right? And minimizing those micro behaviors, right? Just the little stuff like, ew, you warm something up, you know, your ethnic food in the microwave, it smells disgusting. That hurts your culture. You can see where that would hurt somebody’s feelings, right? Yeah. We need to be aware of those micro behaviors and how they damage the organization. And as we always come back to compliance, right? How that can lead to possible litigation. Maybe not that example per se, but over and over again. If I’m making fun of somebody because of an ethnic food that they’re putting into the microwave, and then maybe I go awry. Yeah. That, that, that may trigger litigation, but I can guarantee you it’s going to really, really hurt your culture.
VANNOY:
The, the thing that you said that just hit me hard was about making people feel heard. Cause like, I don’t, I don’t think diversity means melting pot. That doesn’t mean that we all lose ourselves and all become truly one homogenous thing. Diversity means diversity. We are different. We look different. We, we, we think differently. We speak differently. We have different ideas, we have different perspectives. And that’s how all these things work together. That’s, that’s the power of diversity, not melting pot where we have to change ourselves. The other party has to change. And, and you hit it on the head. I think when you said, when people feel heard, if, if your spouse doesn’t feel heard, we, they, they’re gonna shut down. They’re gonna Right. If your child right, they’re gonna never feels heard, even when they’re wrong, which happens a lot with children. They’re, they’re gonna just stop talking to you if you just, if you just shut ’em down and they never feel heard, never get to share, share their side of the story, even when they’re wrong, they, they shut down. And it’s no different with the employer employee relationship. Right. The employee, I mean, a,
SIMMONS:
A a hundred percent
VANNOY:
If you’re a senior manager, presumably you got there because you’re right about a lot of stuff. And the employee might just simply be wrong about the things that they’re complaining about or want to do, and you don’t let them, or whatever the scenario is, it doesn’t Yeah. You hearing them doesn’t mean you’re wrong. They’re right. You have to meet in the middle. It doesn’t mean that at all. You’re the boss, you get to choose. But if people don’t feel heard, that that, that, that really goes back to your word at the top of the conversation with, with respect. Right. That to me.
SIMMONS:
Right. A hundred percent. And, and you put it perfectly, we’re not, we don’t want everybody to be the same. We, the, the emphasis here is differences, diversity and embracing those differences, right? Right. And saying, yay, we have a different group. You know, we’re coming up on the holidays, right? And you know, ashore consulting, we have a A D E I committee and, and we make sure that we look at all the holidays that are being celebrated and give them all equal attention. And that’s what, that’s what embracing diversity means, right? Right. Recognizing that,
VANNOY:
Right? Right. okay. So making diversity a priority make working on awareness for unconscious bias in, in, in, in, in training that in your organization to help people, this is so hard because you’re, what you’re, you’re not training to be aware of the unconscious bias, because by definition it’s unconscious. What you’re trying to train on is awareness that they have it, and therefore, what are the measures and processes and procedures you take to counteract it, right? Right. part of that is through training. And then I’ve, I’ve, I keep coming back to like, I, I’m such a firm, firm believer in competencies, job description. What is the job? What do I need? What is the, what is the output i, I require from that job? What are the competencies and skills required to perform that job? And if I, if I focus on competencies, those in effect become blinders for me that I, I’m not, I’m not relying on my gut. I’m not relying on the, the visual of height, right? Beauty, hair, color, all these other things. <Laugh>, of course, they’re there because we have the unconscious biases. I you know they’re, they’re, they’re gonna exist. But the more you focus on competencies and skills in, in comparing that to a job description, you, those are great safeguards to protect you from yourself, so to speak.
SIMMONS:
A hundred percent.
VANNOY:
Is there anything we haven’t talked about on this topic that you want to touch on?
SIMMONS:
No, I think we, I think we, look, we could go on and on and on for hours. But I think this, the education piece and the awareness piece and embracing diversity and respecting everyone in the workplace that really summarizes everything we’re talking about. It’s not as easy as that, right? Cuz you have to follow through as an organization. But that really summarizes everything that, that we wanna talk about here.
VANNOY:
Yeah. Yeah. Very good. Okay. Great conversation. There’s like five webinars I wanna do with you now, Mary, that, that spin off of this one of ’em for sure is good. This whole diversity topic. It doesn’t mean we meet in the middle and we all get homogenous and we all lose ourselves. Diversity means diversity and, and what does that look like? I think there, that’s, that’s a powerful topic that sometimes gets lost in, in the d e I conversation. So I, I promise you, I’ll, I’ll be tapping you for, for that conversation real soon. So all, okay. Everyone else? Thanks, thanks for joining today. This is a really important topic. You know, we’re, we’re coming to a close for 2022 as we start thinking about how do we start growing our business 2023, lots of uncertainty out there in, in the war for talent is real.
So what are, we have 3.5, 3.6 unemployment rates, something like that. Latest jobs report. The, this has been baked for 30 years based on birth rate and gdp unemployment rate and job participation rate. You know, it takes a lot of blame from wars and recessions and presidential politics and and whatnot. The reality is, is the economy’s been growing and birth dates have been been declining. Economists have been predicting a labor shortage for a very long time. And, and we’re, we’re, this is kind of the new normal. And if you are not as an employer, big or small, if you’re not leveraging all of the tools available to you, including maximizing a diverse workforce, you’re just simply not gonna fill the jobs. You’re not gonna be as productive. And of course, you’re not gonna be as compliant as as you could be. So I think this is an easy topic to treat as though it’s the soft stuff of hr. It’s not. This is the hard stuff because as the war for talent has hit Main Street and we’re looking for people to help grow our businesses, you’re gonna have to tap into talent pools that go outside your affinity group. So with that, Mary, thanks so much for joining me. Always love our conversations. Thanks to everybody else. Until next week.