Alison Wynn* says unconscious bias training and mentorship programs alone cannot solve gender inequality in the workplace.
Photo: Rene Asmussen
Two ways organisations often try to improve their cultures for women are through unconscious bias training and mentorship programs.
But these programs often fall short of their goals.
Unconscious bias training attempts to combat bias in the workplace, but existing research demonstrates that such training can, at best, be ineffective, and at worst, exacerbate bias.
Mentorship and development programs aim to increase women’s skills and confidence to help them advance, yet women continue to be underrepresented in leadership.
I spent a year conducting an in-depth case study of one large organisation implementing a gender equality initiative, which included unconscious bias trainings and mentorship programs.
I found these programs tend to place blame for inequality, and responsibility for addressing it, on individuals.
They’re rooted in the belief that if men can be taught to limit unconscious bias (particularly when making important decisions such as hiring and promotion), and women can be taught to behave more assertively and demonstrate valued skills (through mentorship), perhaps gender inequalities can be reduced.
But this thinking fails to do one important thing: hold the organisation responsible for the role it plays in causing inequality.
And past research shows that organisations contribute to inequality in varied ways: through referral hiring that leads to narrow pipelines of candidates; and through subjective evaluation criteria that open the door to bias during performance evaluations.
My work suggests blame can’t be placed on individuals; employers need to recognise the role their policies and culture play in causing inequality, and they need to pursue organisational change.
The problem with focusing on individuals
My study showed that executives tended to focus on teaching women to fit the existing mould in order to advance in senior leadership, instead of on how they might change the mould.
During my year of observation, I noted a flier advertising an upcoming women’s initiative event.
The flier essentially said: It starts with you.
Have you ever thought about why you don’t put yourself forward or how you may be holding yourself back?
Join us to explore the unwritten rules that exist in organisations and those we imagine.
By implying that women “imagine” unwritten rules — rather than acknowledging what may be unfair organisational practices holding them back — the flier’s message holds women responsible for creating their own obstacles.
Executives also emphasised efforts to train employees on recognising and curbing their own biases.
For example, Daniel, an executive, told me he opposed implementing quotas in hiring and promotion and instead favoured approaches that rely on individuals monitoring their own biases.
While such trainings can provide a great start, individuals can only do so much to “self-correct” their own biases.
And research has found that providing training without also emphasising a shared commitment to broader organisational change can exacerbate bias.
In my study, this focus on changing individuals tended to reinforce rather than challenge executives’ assumptions about gender stereotypes.
The problematic ‘pipeline’ argument
I frequently heard the so-called pipeline argument: the idea that girls and young women lack the same interest or talent for STEM as boys and young men, which causes inequalities later in their careers.
This line of thinking locates the source of the problem outside the organisation, in larger cultural factors.
While cultural factors certainly contribute, focusing on them made some executives defeatist and complacent — they believed the organisation was incapable of doing much to solve the problem, and they didn’t seek to effect change themselves.
In departments led by executives who framed the problem as a cultural one and not an organisational one, not much got done when it came to the gender equality initiative.
On the other hand, the few executives who did not outsource the problem of inequality to larger cultural forces did take steps to change organisational practices.
For example, one departmental leader hosted a recruiting event for women and recognised top-performing women in their annual performance review process.
An organisational approach to equality
Unconscious bias trainings and mentorship programs can certainly help employees identify areas of bias and work toward changing them.
But organisations shouldn’t stop there.
Individuals alone cannot eliminate structural inequalities in the way people are hired, evaluated, promoted, and rewarded.
Change agents must also focus efforts on bucking broader cultural and societal norms, starting with making their own organisational procedures fair and equitable.
Although thinking about organisational inequality may not come naturally to many executives, scholars have identified some important ways organisations can contribute to — or mitigate — inequality:
Broaden recruiting efforts
Instead of relying on traditional channels that may focus on a narrow subset of qualified candidates, engage in more diverse sourcing.
Clarify criteria for hiring and evaluation
Research from the Stanford VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab shows that a lack of clear criteria can lead to bias in evaluations.
Establish transparent, measurable criteria for evaluating employees ahead of time, and hold managers accountable for giving employees specific feedback.
Avoid using vague or ambiguous criteria like “high potential”.
Women and people of colour are often held to a higher bar, so make sure all employees are held to a consistent standard.
Increase accountability and transparency in promotion decisions
Research shows that organisations lacking transparency and accountability in pay and promotion decisions can experience “performance-reward bias,” where rewards are unfairly distributed among employees, with women and minorities receiving fewer rewards than they deserve based on performance.
Thus, organisations should take steps to ensure that promotion outcomes are clearly linked to employee performance.
Also, consider project allocation.
Are projects assigned to employees haphazardly, or is there a formal process to ensure projects are assigned fairly?
What about choosing whom to recognise for team success?
Even consider who gets the most airtime during meetings.
Think broadly about how to ensure rewards, recognition, and influence are allocated fairly.
By considering how everyday organisational practices can be improved, we can move beyond programs that seek to address only the biases locked within people’s heads — we can begin to address structural forms of bias as well.
* Alison Wynn is a Research Associate at the Stanford VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab.
This article first appeared at hbr.org.
