IMPACT OF A MANAGER’S BIAS AND STEREOTYPES ON THE CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT OF A WORKPLACE
IMPACT OF A MANAGER’S BIAS AND STEREOTYPES ON THE CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT OF A WORKPLACE
Introduction
Bias and stereotype have always been under debate since the start of business on earth. In general, both are concerned with prejudice for or against a certain kind of group of people. Both can be negative or positive and of many different types. However, one thing is crystal clear in the light of various studies is that both are injurious to the profitability and reputation of any organization or corporation. That is why, most of the companies, in the modern age, are striving hard to tackle this issue. As a result of which conscious bias has been overcome to a remarkable extent, but subtle bias is still a challenging problem. This paper aims to discuss both these foibles and their impact on the workplace (in case managers practice them) in detail. For the convenience of understanding, the study has been broken down into two sections. The first section throws light on the different types of bias about their influence on the workplace. In the second section, it is analyzed how different types of stereotype can diminish the collective cultural competency of any business.
Bias refers to the inclination towards or prejudices against some person or group on the basis of creed, gender, caste, color, or any other apparent characteristic that determines his/her affiliation with certain category (Levinson, and Smith, 2012). It can be of many types (as derived from the definition) such as bias of gender, ethnicity, and race. For instance, the bias of gender is one of the most common forms of it ever observed in any society. Most of the societies and businesses in the world are men-dominated where women have a minor role to play. Most of the societies do not consider them being blessed with the same attributes as men possess. That is why, they do not offer them same opportunities to advance in a career or take part in decision-making processes as offered to the opposite gender.
Impact of HRM’s Bias on the Environment of the workplace
Shackelford (2011), is of the view that with the passage of time, the impact of bias has been mitigated in the workplace due to certain initiatives taken in this direction. However, it still exists in most of the organizations, even some of the very well established ones i.e. Coca Cola in unconscious or subconscious form. It is evident that most of the HR managers have predefined procedures for recruitment, selection, and promotion, but this does not make them totally avoid this social evil (Robinson, 2013).
Conscious Bias in Workplace
Conscious or intentional bias is the intentional favoritism for or prejudice against a candidate or employee shown by HRM of any organization. Godsil (2015), on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, states that EEOC plays an active role to reduce conscious bias. However, nowadays, it rarely exists in the organization, yet its existence and its impact cannot be ignored. She said that a more comprehensive and strategic approach was required to curb bias in the workplace. Conscious bias takes place when HRM of any organization has such policies for recruitment and selection, and promotion that give an edge to certain types of persons over others on the basis of certain traditional characteristics labeled to their associated groups. As a result of which, there is a high probability of organization’s being deprived of pure talent. Because these organizations may reject a more suitable candidate for a vacant position in favor of a less talented person on the basis of bias entertained for the selected person or against the rejected candidate. Same is true for promotion procedures.
Unconscious Bias in Workplace
Unconscious bias takes place when the HRM or manager of any organization holds critically negative or highly positive opinion for a type of person or group. Moreover, he or she acts accordingly despite fair rules defined in their employment policies (Albiston, 2010). For instance, a manager, accordingly to predefined unbiased scale of judgment for selection, can have two equally talented and able candidates and has to select one out of them. He may prefer the white colored candidate to other (black colored) because he considers white color the symbol of dignity, efficiency, honesty, and skill. This selection will be based on unconscious or subtle bias. He is very likely to adopt the same kind of approach towards picking the right kinds (to him) of employees for promotion. Unconsidered black complexioned candidates or employees can be far more talented than the persons selected or promoted, which means that the organization is not utilizing the opportunities of maximizing its profitability. In extreme cases, it may lead to massive losses.
What is Stereotype?
It is little different from Bias. Bias is concerned with the personal or objective opinion regarding a person or group of persons. On the other hand, Stereotype is the collective and oversimplified belief regarding a person on the basis of the affiliation with a certain type of group of people. For example, it refers to what is thought about Christians, blacks, whites, male sex, or women, in a society in general (Macrae, Stanger, and Hewstone, 1996). Like bias, it can also be positive or negative, and conscious or unconscious in nature. Furthermore, there are many subtypes such as the stereotype of gender, caste, religion, race, or complexion.
Impact of Manger’s Positive Stereotype
Before jumping to the impact of this type of stereotype, it is wise to understand what it is. A positive stereotype is a generalized belief in any category of people (on the basis of religion, caste, color, etc.) based on favoritism (Nadler, 2006). This is a commonly observed type of stereotype on organizational or corporal level (Esty, Griffen, and Hirsch, 1995). A positive stereotype is not positive while being analyzed in the light of its impact on the workplace. Favoritism shown for any category of people is always threatening to the profitability as well as to the sustainability of any organization. On the other hand, it can also detriment a company’s image quite badly.
For instance, if a manager is victim of the stereotype in terms of gender, he will prefer men in recruitment and selection procedure as well as in all other organizational matters. These matters could include promotion, appraisal, development and training, motivational employee concerns, and everything else falling into the category of human resource management. He may reject some highly capable female candidates while comparing them with male candidate possessing comparatively less level of expertise. Hence, he is certainly missing a fair chance of maximizing the organizational performance that largely depends on the performance of workforce (Olagunju,2014).
Impact of Manger’s Negative Stereotype
Opposite to positive stereotype, the negative stereotype is the generalized and oversimplified prejudice against any certain category of people. The negative stereotype also has a threatening impact on any organization. Despite all well-defined and stereotype-free policies, many organizations have a type of HRM that resorts to stereotypes in most of the organizational matters (Macrae, Stanger, and Hewstone, 1996).
The negative stereotype is equally dangerous as positive one. The main difference is that in the positive case, HRM picks persons for gifting certain benefits after a comparison made in a stereotypical manner. On the other hand, in case of negative type, managers are likely to reject, demote, or overlook (for certain advantages) the candidates and employees that belong to a negatively believed group of people regardless of their expertise and experience. Negative stereotypes have a threatening impact on organizations because they do not allow them to raise their performance to a maximum extent. Furthermore, they can also bring down the organizational image if detected. If a certain group of people becomes aware of an organization’s stereotypical approach towards them, they can boycott their products and services in response to that. Coca-Cola has suffered from this situation for their stereotypical approach towards advertising campaign in the past. According to Figuera (2015), in Ramadan 2015, they have decided to give a message to a label bearing these words “Labels are for cans and not for people”. This reflects that they believe in equality and want to see it spread throughout the world. It is a clear message for the HRM of every company that they can only hope to stay profitable if they adopt an anti-stereotype approach in all their business matters.
Conclusion
List of References
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