USING UNITY TO DEFEAT PREJUDICE: HOW TO BUILD A CULTURE OF TRANSPARENCY AND COMMONALITY.

• Author: Cook, Amy Osmond
• Position: SILICON SLOPES

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) received 91,503 charges of workplace discrimination in 2016. That's troubling, especially when we consider that a lot of workplace discrimination goes unreported.

What can we do about that? We can start by understanding stereotyping, which may lead to discrimination. With that foundation, we can build cultures of transparency, encourage employee interaction and find commonality through our differences.

UNDERSTAND STEREOTYPING

Stereotyping is pervasive everywhere, and certainly in the workplace. In fact, even though we may not be blatantly racist, sexist or classist, we stereotype without even realizing we're doing it! And we do it all the time.

Susan Fiske, a psychologist at Princeton University, found that people judge others on two fundamental characteristics: warmth (how positive or negative the person's intentions are) and competence (how capable the person is of achieving those intentions). Assessments based on these two factors, she said, "determine our sometimes unconscious emotional responses and ultimately our discriminatory behavior toward members of a group." Fiske's factors form a quadrant of "four different kinds of prejudice that can be destructive to workplace inclusiveness."

Here's an example of how that quadrant could work with an individual's perception of class:

The quadrant works for class, race and sex. And it's easy to see how one's placement of certain groups in certain quadrants could affect the workplace. For example, let's say a hiring manager stereotypes Asian applicants as not warm, but competent. This stereotype causes her to not to hire Asian applicants for positions that involve human interaction, like HR positions, even if they're the best candidate. Instead, she hires Asian applicants for positions that don't involve human interaction, like data entry.

How can you prevent problems like this in your workplace? Whether the problem is favoritism, a lack of mentorship or resentment, you're not likely to change years of unconscious stereotyping habits. That's for each individual to work on. But you can make sure your work discrimination policies are up to snuff and understood by your employees.

You can also create an environment that fosters unity--where your employees are more likely to focus on individuals and their strengths rather than on stereotypes and weaknesses. You can do this by being transparent, giving employees opportunities to interact with...