The Effects of Accent Bias on British Business

Authored by Sally Hunter, Managing Director & Global Accounts of EMEA

Sally Hunter, Managing Director of EMEA & Global Accounts, recently spoke to DiversityQ on accent bias in recruitment, inferring that affinity bias - when people hire people that are more like themselves - is unconsciously hindering accent diversity in the workplace.

Whilst everyone is capable of unconscious biases, especially those concerning accents, Sally pointed out how certain types of firms are inherently better at avoiding them. Yet with social mobility being a critical factor in driving a company’s success, some are finding biases against accents to be a much larger problem than they imagined. Further issues arise since they are more difficult to measure than other DEI&B aspects.

Diversity of accent within the workplace should be actively promoted, as it allows employees to slow down and listen more carefully whilst also contributing to a friendlier, more productive, more inclusive, and more tolerant workplace. So, companies should be trying their best to find ways to minimise this bias. Sally suggested a few ways to do so, and who to look to for help.

Cielo’s recent report, for example, found that organisations working with an RPO struggled less with these sorts of problems arising from a lack of DEI&B.

Read the full article here.