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When we try to reduce bias, this is not just an issue that is facing people that are diverse. We want our companies to be better places for all of us. And one really simple thing we can do is just be aware and cognizant of bias in the workplace and begin to take simple steps to reduce it.
LGBTQ+
This is a subtle kind of bias, the assumption that people have a partner that’s the opposite gender of them. And so, for example, when going to a retreat, the idea of just assuming that you have a partner, you’re a woman and your partner is a man, making that assumption in terms of dinner table, all kinds of arrangements. Sometimes when you’re traveling with a business partner and you have a family and the family is a same sex couple and people are completely confused and asking all kinds of questions about who the child is and who the child belongs to. And is that family really a unit? These kinds of things happen on a very, very regular basis, at company picnics, at airports, at doctor’s offices, all those different places.
Adults Aged 40+
Discrimination against older adults, and it really starts at the age of 45, or even 40, happens quite a bit. And people tend to be really quite unaware of this. One great example is around technology. I was working with this company and they were making decisions about who to train in terms of this new technology. It wasn’t even that sophisticated, but they were making decisions not to train people that were over 40 and 45 because they actually didn’t want to embarrass them. They thought that they might be uncomfortable and that younger adults would be more comfortable with this new software. This happens on a pretty regular basis, especially as all firms and companies are becoming more and more technologically linked to their work outcomes.
Overweight Individuals
Discrimination against overweight individuals is one of the last areas where people think it’s perfectly okay to discriminate. And that can come in the form of just simply not hiring people that are of a certain weight. What happens is there’s this link between seeing someone as overweight and seeing someone as cognitively slow. And then you just think that they’re not capable of handling a particular job. Weight has nothing to do with your intelligence, but people make that link very readily. Just because there is discrimination that’s declining in some groups, it doesn’t mean that all groups are declining. We really need to think carefully across ethnicity, religion, political orientation, physical disabilities, gender, they all vary. And they also vary by the type of company that you might find yourself in.