What Companies Get Wrong In Their DEI Efforts

Corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives are table stakes in 2024, and the dollars companies are spending on DEI-related efforts show as much. The global market for DEI is projected to hit $15.4 billion by 2026. Yet, even with all that investment, 65% of employees do not believe their organizations embrace diversity and inclusion. That’s a lot of investment for such a disconnect. So, where is the misstep?

Everyone will tell you that they believe DEI is good for business, and while that’s a great thing to say, the reality is there remains a big omission from the practice of it. It’s time we put the elephant in the middle of the room. Bias and diversity go hand in hand, and if you aren’t talking about the biases that affect the diverse teams you work so hard to build, then you’re simply doing the “PR work.”

Building awareness and processes to consistently remove biases must be layered into a company’s DEI practice to see the true benefits of diversity in the workplace.

So, on this International Women’s Day, let’s move bias to the forefront of the conversation because we can be as diverse as we want, but if we aren’t talking about biases, then we aren’t moving the needle. We’re actively inhibiting our ability to succeed and prosper in the corporate setting.

The profound effect of awareness and intersection

Stephen Jay Gould, an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science, wrote in his book The Panda’s Thumb: “I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”

Gould spent much of his scientific career studying human evolution and how we propelled ourselves from one milestone to the next. Through those studies, Gould became innately aware of humans’ underlying biases. Statistically, there should have been many ‘Einsteins’, but inequity and bias prevented those lost ‘Einsteins’ from using their potential to power innovation and ultimately propel the human race forward.

In today’s corporate environment, unconscious bias often prevents us from finding and enabling all of the collective brain power within our own organizations. However; once bias awareness is introduced and interconnected with DEI efforts, organizations can see profound innovation and collaboration.

Writer and entrepreneur Frans Johansson said, “Highly diverse teams are critical for innovation.” In his book, The Medici Effect, he writes that the most innovative ideas occur when a diversity of backgrounds and disciplines intersect. “All new ideas,” Johansson says, “are a combination of existing ideas.” The broader the experience of a combined group of people, the more likely they are to hit that winning combination, and different ethnicities, races, socio-economic backgrounds, education, gender, and career experience are critical to a group.

Consider the burqini, a perfect example of intersecting cultures and diversity of thought. A bikini and a burqa, worn by some Muslim women covering most parts of the body, couldn’t be more opposite. But when Lebanese-Australian Aheda Zanetti stood at the intersection of a culture where sun, sand, and water are a part of daily life and a culture that values modesty, the burqini was born, allowing Muslim women to participate in activities at a level they couldn’t before.

How bias shows up in the workplace

Often, bias happens before someone even reaches an interview. The International Labour Foundation found that “even when a job description lacks overt sexism, it may replicate and reinforce gender stereotypes in subtle ways.” Because certain words are associated with common gender stereotypes, and when those words are used in job descriptions for leadership roles, “then male applicants may benefit from an unconscious bias in their favour.”

Now, with AI integrated into the hiring process, it’s perpetuating the problem. The University of Melbourne conducted research finding that “machine learning models can identify the gender in a CV even after the names and pronouns are removed.” The result is poor CV ratings that disproportionately affect women.

This all happens before a person enters the workplace. Once there, both conscious and unconscious biases persist. Today, most organizations have processes in place to detect and remove conscious biases from impacting the workplace; however identifying and rooting out unconscious biases requires commitment and systemic organizational change.

The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University describes unconscious bias as “the attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner.” These unconscious biases can show up in a variety of ways.

It’s not uncommon for people to be drawn to those that look, think and act similarly to themselves. Advocating for the hiring of a candidate because they “remind me of myself” is an example of this affinity bias. It’s sometimes referred to as “mirror-tocracy,” drawing us towards people who remind us of ourselves. It’s incredibly common and can have long term negative implications to DEI efforts.

Confirmation bias is when we search for information that confirms our preconceived notions about someone. Often, women who come into motherhood face confirmation bias. The assumption is that once you become a mother, you give less to your job. Mothers tend to take on more of the weight of the home responsibilities, so when a colleague sees that a mother leaves early to take their child to the doctor, this bias is confirmed.

Allowing one positive perception of a person to influence our entire perception of them is a type of bias known as the Halo Effect. This may show itself as a highly regarded employee who is a strong performer in terms of their core role metrics, but is a disruptive collaborator who is consistently rude to cross-functional partners. The employee’s strong core metrics, can blind those in senior positions from holding a rigorous lens to this employee in other areas, not realizing the damage they are doing to the culture and productivity of the wider team.

The opposite of the Halo Effect is the Horns Effect; to take one aspect of a person that is perceived as negative and use it to discount them. For example, those who appear young are often assumed to be inexperienced and their opinions in the workplace are discounted. Alternatively, our opinions of someone’s clothing can often have unconscious impacts on how we view an individual’s work quality.

How to counteract biases

Actor and director Forest Whitaker aptly said, “Stereotypes do exist, but we have to walk through them.” This is where organizations need to start, by advocating for the awareness of unconscious biases and deliberately exposing ourselves to counter-stereotyping.

For teams to become aware of unconscious biases, they must educate team members and help them to label the biases they inevitably feel at work. When biases are understood and named, it becomes easier for teams to identify them as they find their way into the workplace.

At the corporate level, unconscious bias training can serve as a compliment to existing DEI efforts and improve their impact. Create processes to proactively remove bias from the hiring process to ensure that all qualified candidates have an opportunity to find their place within an organization, thereby contributing to a more diverse workplace.

Companies build on the core principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, but those alone do not create meaningful change or allow organizations to see the true benefits of diversity. The highest-performing companies succeed by building their DEI practice while addressing the elephant in the room—unconscious bias. Pairing these two elements can make a meaningful impact on business outcomes and unlock new, undiscovered innovation.