Unconscious bias rarely presents itself with intent. It operates quietly through instinctive preferences, unexamined assumptions, and the patterns we carry from our homes, our education, and our past workplaces.
In terms of workplaces, many leaders genuinely believe they are fair, and many employees assume they judge objectively. However, data reveals that 39% of Indian employees experience workplace bias at least once a month, revealing just how frequent and normalised these behaviours have become. When bias goes unrecognised, it becomes not only a cultural challenge but a direct business risk, especially to employee retention.
Biases that appear most often
In India, where culture has always shaped behaviour more strongly than formal policy, many everyday statements like “His English is not polished enough”, “Older workers can’t learn technology”, or “Men are better suited for travel-heavy roles” are spoken casually and accepted as normal. Yet, what we dismiss as harmless comments are actually reflections of deep-rooted bias.
Of all these, what’s mostly spoken about is the gender bias, which remains deeply entrenched, shaping assumptions about who can travel, who can manage demanding clients, or who may be limiting future availability due to life stage. Research indicates that 85% of women in India believe they have missed promotions or salary increases because of gendered expectations.
However, there are many such stereotypes which prevail over the workplace culture silently. For outgoing or clients facing roles such as sales, beauty characteristics like skins colour, height, body weight, etc, subconsciously take the centre stage. These are often perceived as determinants of how leadership ready a person is irrespective of his understand of the job.
For a culturally diverse country like India, yet another workplace constraint is ethnicity. Ethnic and regional biases continue to influence perceptions of professionalism. What comes hand in hand with the regional bias is the language bias. In a linguistically diverse country like India, fluency in English and mother tongue often becomes a proxy for potential, overshadowing skill. Employees who speak English with a strong regional influence are sometimes judged as ‘not so street smart’, even irrespective of their performance.
Sadly, the with the perks like flexibility, the hybrid work culture also brings disadvantages like losing access to the key discussions and events due to distance. Those physically closer to the teams gain more visibility, while remote colleagues struggle for mindshare. This “out of sight, out of mind” effect means many contributions are undervalued simply because their physical absence.
Two more key biases that prevail in the Indian workforce are hierarchy bias and age bias. The pre-conceived notion is that older people aren’t technically sound and often find it difficult to cope with the latest trends. On the other hand, hierarchy still affects how freely employees can challenge senior colleagues.
The root causes beneath the surface.
Most unconscious biases stem from early social conditioning and lived experience rather than active prejudice. Many Indian children are conditioned to believe statements like “boys don’t cry”, “girls must learn sacrifice”, “listen to elders without questioning”, or “people from certain regions behave a certain way”. These ideas quietly become mental shortcuts and follow us into adulthood and eventually into workplaces.
Gender bias often mirrors patterns seen at home, where roles are traditionally defined. Leaders unintentionally replicate these beliefs at work. Real-world examples underline how common these assumptions are.
A woman returning from maternity leave is quietly excluded from a strategy project “to avoid burdening her”, even though she was never consulted. Alumni networks can unconsciously support each other in project allocations or mentoring, creating pockets of privilege without malicious intent.
How discrimination unfolds in everyday working life
Employees seldom experience bias through dramatic incidents. Instead, it shows up in micro-moments that accumulate over time. High-visibility work often goes to familiar colleagues even when others have the capability. Employees with accents may be excluded from client presentations, mothers are assumed to have limited travel ability, and older employees are presumed to resist learning new skills.
Remote workers face the added challenge of being absent from informal conversations that influence key decisions. These experiences casually erode confidence and psychological safety. Over time, this emotional fatigue becomes a silent driver of attrition. More than 40% of Indian professionals say they have experienced or witnessed bias at the workplace.
Impact on retention and culture
The link between unconscious bias and retention is stronger than organisations often acknowledge. Employees rarely resign because of workload; they leave when they feel underestimated, misjudged, or denied opportunities due to assumptions rather than capability. Bias erodes trust faster than most other leadership behaviours. When advancement appears linked to visibility, comfort, or identity rather than competence, employees naturally look elsewhere for fairness and recognition. The business implications are substantial: loss of talent, increased recruitment costs, weakened team continuity, and an impaired internal pipeline.
Leadership blind spots and how to address them
Many leaders rely too heavily on intuition or gut feeling, which reinforces pre-existing preferences. Reducing bias requires deliberate effort. Training programmes and sensitisation workshops help employees recognise how certain behaviours or statements often seen as “normal” in Indian culture can actually reinforce exclusion. When people are exposed to real examples and guided self-reflection, they discover biases they never realised they carried.
Gen Z, a generation far more aware and vocal about fairness, inclusion, and identity, is already influencing change within organisations. Their willingness to question behaviours openly makes them strong allies for progress. Creating inter-team dialogues, reverse mentorship frameworks, and peer-led learning circles can play a powerful role in dismantling bias.
Structured hiring processes and transparent evaluation frameworks ensure decisions rely on evidence rather than instinct. In hybrid settings, consciously balancing visibility across remote and on-site employees prevents opportunity from being concentrated among those who are physically present.
The simplest yet most powerful tool is self-questioning. Before making decisions, managers can pause to ask: Would I make this choice if the employee had a different gender, age, background, appearance, accent, or personality? Am I choosing comfort over competence? These small interruptions to instinctive thinking create space for fairness.
Why this matters to me
Addressing unconscious bias should matter to all because it affects not only people’s careers but also their dignity and confidence. Beyond its human impact, bias is a real business risk. Organisations that confront it honestly build stronger trust, better performance, and workplaces where every individual believes they have a fair chance to grow.
