Research shows that even individuals committed to equality harbor unconscious biases that impact everyday decisions and interactions. In the IT workplace, unconscious gender bias can mislead employers, both male and female, to make inaccurate judgments in hiring, performance reviews, and promotion. This case study focuses on the profound effect unconscious bias can have on the recruitment and selection process — from crafting and distribution of job postings to interviewing and hiring. Steps are offered for overcoming this bias.

This resource highlights ten important recommendations supervisors or managers can readily adopt to improve visibility of their employees. These recommendations are particularly useful for improving the visibility of women, as well as employees from other underrepresented groups.

Encouragement increases self-efficacy, which is the belief in one’s ability to successfully perform a task. Because we are more likely to engage in tasks that we believe we can perform successfully, encouragement may be especially useful for attracting women to male-stereotyped fields such as computing. Encouragement is a powerful tool for increasing employee confidence and engagement, but it seems to be underutilized in the workforce. The example in this case study illustrates the profound positive impact a simple encouraging conversation can have on a career.