“Emotional Tagging” is Real: Here’s Why It’s Dangerous.

We have come a long way since blatant discrimination when hiring people.

Most of the time, it’s not as overt as it was once.

Openly choosing not to hire somebody because of their race, or their gender, or their physical characteristics – a lot of that’s just a relic of the past.

Or is it?

We can’t ignore the numbers.

• People over 50 years old are more than twice as likely as others to be unemployed for two years or more if they lose their job.
• Nine out of 10 women feel that discrimination still exists in today's workplace across Australia and New Zealand.
• Australia also has one of the lowest employment rates of disabled people in the OECD.

Why is this?

Well, a lot of discrimination happens unconsciously.

And much of it happens because of what we call emotional tagging.

What is emotional tagging?

'Emotional tagging' is where the brain stores a memory of an event or an action, and also stores an emotion associated with that event or action.

Think of it like playing cards. Say you are playing cards and you have to pick a card from two decks (the left and right deck). You feel no emotion because you have no experience between either deck.

But as you keep playing, you begin to experience the pain of picking up a bad card from what you would call a ‘bad deck’ - and your emotions tell you not to pick up a card from that deck again.

A lot of it happens when we are kids. We hear our parents saying something negative about a particular category of individuals, and then we grow up associating those individuals with a particular negative emotion. 

How does that work with recruiting staff?

A leader who is recruiting a staff member may have had a negative experience with somebody of a particular skin colour, age, gender, historical background, or sexual orientation.

This could be work-related or not.

This person may then experience an irrational sense of ‘emotional tagging’, where they would tag that person – and other people of a similar characteristic – with that negative emotion.

Without them even knowing it, this could adversely affect their hiring practices – leading them to favour those people who aren’t associated with a negative emotional ‘tag’.

They may have had a poor experience with somebody when they were kids or may have been completely influenced by their parents’ views.

It is all in our subconscious, whether we like it or not.

Why discrimination (unconscious or conscious) can hurt your business and your team

Whether or not emotional tagging is affecting leaders in a business, it’s patently clear that the practice of discrimination can have a detrimental effect on a workplace and our teams.

More particularly, it can have a colossal negative effect on workplace diversity. 

Some of these detriments are as follows.

• Your workplace will become narrow-minded. Everybody will think in the same way, because your emotional tagging is unconsciously stopping you from hiring the ‘different’. This will stop creativity and innovation, harming the potential growth of the business.
• Your workplace will suffer a skills shortage. You have no idea what skillsets people from all walks may have, and you’ll miss out on taking advantage of those skills. You may even end up missing a perfect candidate.
• Your workplace will lack cultural awareness. In a world where international business is vital, and Australia is becoming increasingly multicultural every year, cultural awareness and understanding is essential. This is impossible when everyone in your company is thinking in one way.
• Your talent pool is reduced. By limiting your own employees – and focusing on only what your emotions want you to do - you are ignoring a massive talent pool. The employees of which may be absolutely stellar for your organisation.
• It’s illegal. Discrimination in the course of hiring an employee is unlawful under both state and federal laws, so simple – just don’t do it!

If you catch yourself emotionally tagging a candidate with an experience you had, and an emotion you felt - stop.

It leads us to act irrationally.

And it ultimately leads us to make bad decisions.

Look at the person for who they are - not what your biases think they are.

I hope this article gives you a little more insight into why ‘emotional tagging’ when interviewing new hires is dangerous. Diversity and inclusion are essential parts of the modern workplace.