Favouritism and bias
As humans, we naturally warm to some people more than others, usually because they are similar to us – we have ‘favourites’. Having favourite people isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially when it comes to our friends and times when we’re not working. However, if we give preferential treatment to people we like at work it can create issues, especially if you’re their manager.
Here you’ll find a range of information and activities to support you with learning about this and play your part in creating a more inclusive culture for everyone:
It isn’t easy to work out when you might be picking favourites. This quick guide helps you to work out where you might be using your preferences and friendships to make decisions.
Bias is a tendency to prefer one person or thing to another. It’s more than just having favourites and often we don’t even know we are biased, even though we all have biases. Learn all about it in this guide.
People don’t like being judged unfairly. This is a great exercise to get people to share the ways they think they are judged unfairly and to help everyone understand each other better.
Our brains are wired to make automatic or ‘snap’ judgements based on appearance. This activity explores the different judgements we can make and how this is affected by our unconscious bias.
Additional resources for managers and leaders:
The people who are most similar to us often become our favourites. These can be the people we rely on more than anyone else. This exercise helps you to find out who your favourites are.
This toolkit has been designed to help build your knowledge about favouritism and bias and support you to have the right conversations with your teams to create a more inclusive culture.
Creating a culture where everyone feels respected and included is up to all of us. Watch this short video from your colleagues talking about what this means to them: