Implicit Bias in the Workplace
One of the issues that will be talked about at the Empower Women’s Leadership Conference in March is identifying and addressing implicit bias in the hiring process, and limiting opportunities for new assignments and promotions. Implicit bias is a personal predisposition for or against another person based on their gender, the way they look, their education, or any other single factor. Cultural stereotypes drive most of these unconscious assumptions about someone’s abilities, and they often turn out to be flat wrong.
One of the featured speakers at the conference in Ridgefield will be Zenovia Harris, CEO of the Kent Chamber of Commerce. She met with us recently to preview her presentation on implicit bias and share her own experience as a woman of color whose childhood was tragic, as her mother was killed when she was only 7 years old and she grew up in foster care.
A Commitment to Youth Outreach & Empowerment
Zenovia overcame childhood adversity by “attaching myself to women and friends that were doing positive things.” It makes her “passionate about engaging with the youth because there are children [who] are missing something in their life.” So “that person that looks like them, sounds like them, and has achieved some sort of success” will be easier for them to connect with.
She clarifies that success isn’t about being a CEO; there a plenty of other good ways to prosper; it’s about “not being on welfare or being in a low paying job because of low self esteem.” So she makes herself readily available to the youth she encounters and tells them that their environment does not have to determine “who you are.” She encourages young people to try “to position yourself in a way that you stand out, but you also are fitting in.”
Learning not to fall into the trap of sabotaging yourself by minimizing your own qualifications is important too, she said. Men tend to exaggerate theirs and “go for it” even if they only meet 40% of the qualifications listed in a job description.
In her first year as the first black woman CEO of the Kent Chamber of Commerce, Zenovia is also one of the first in all of Washington State. The only other one she could find is Marilyn Strickland in Seattle, who is a former mayor of Tacoma. While that’s really impressive, it’s not any reason for Zenovia to be less sure of herself. After all, she has a Masters degree in Public Administration and a great career in academia under her belt. She explained further that real diversity and inclusion in a workforce consists of a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds, and rural vs. urban upbringings, not just obvious gender and racial mixes for ‘window dressing’ diversity.
She Can Do It!
Unfortunately, implicit gender and racial bias on the part of employers can still determine who gets a job interview or a new project assigned to them. Zenovia tells her own story about nearly missing out on a travel assignment to open up a new call center in the Caribbean, even though she was the most qualified, because her employers just assumed she was a mother who couldn’t leave behind her children for three months.
Well, she was not yet married and had no children at the time, but it took a female colleague standing up in a meeting and “sponsoring” her as the best person for the job, to make it happen. Her boss then taught her to play golf, which came in handy for the up front business deal-making involved. Zenovia points out that even if she was a mother back then, implicit bias should not have blocked her from getting that assignment. How could they know what solid support system she may have had?
Speaking up for women or others being disadvantaged by implicit bias is something Zenovia highly recommends. “Women can dedicate just as much time and energy to the job as a man can.”
Shaking Off the Bias in Job Interviews
As Zenovia began to build her staff at the Chamber, she made it a point to talk about diversity out in the community and at group job interviews. She decided to conduct a test exercise similar to one she had used with students at the university she worked for. After her hiring committee suggested that a pretty woman among job applicants would be the best person for the front desk job, Zenovia indicated she was not hiring based on looks. The role required work skills other than simply greeting visitors. So she asked them each to compose an email to Chamber members of the same sort she would need this person to write on a regular basis. They were asked not to sign their names. This blind email writing exercise that removed the external appearance bias, revealed to all which applicant demonstrated the right skills for the job. The other applicants didn’t know who wrote what, but Zenovia did.
Why Attend the Women’s Conference?
Ms. Harris is looking forward to the Empower Women’s Leadership Conference where she can share tools and skills that help others to remove their implicit biases. She says that one’s implicit bias is “based on how much diversity and inclusion you can handle.” And it’s not enough to just have a workforce that looks “like the United Nations” unless everyone really has an equal vote, or at least a recognized voice in matters that affect them directly.
Zenovia says it’s important “anytime women can get together and be celebrated for how far we’ve come, but also be given tools for how we can be even more successful.” She also finds she comes away from these events having learned as much or more than she’s shared, because of interaction with a broader diversity of people. She says studies have shown that companies do better when they have empowered women on board, and that’s just as true for the construction industry. There’s nothing “nontraditional” about women using their multi-tasking skills, long hours of hard work and thinking “outside the box” to solve problems and get things done!
