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Mercedes Ballard and Kristin Bonds are co-founders of heristic, a firm that helps startups build inclusion into the bones of their organizations from day one. Mercedes has a track record in talent acquisition and culture; Kristin has spent years building TA infrastructure inside organizations of all sizes. On Reimagining Company Culture, they joined us to talk about dismantling systemic bias.
Their argument is that bias is a system property, not just a personal failing. Companies that focus only on individual training tend to leave the underlying systems untouched and produce the same biased outcomes year after year.
Why Most Bias Training Fails to Move Outcomes
Bias training is one of the most-funded HR investments and one of the least effective by itself. Catalyst research on the risks of retreat from DEI makes the case clearly. Inclusive cultures outperform on retention, engagement, and innovation, but the cultures that produce those outcomes are built systemically, not through one-off training.
Mercedes and Kristin described the trap. A company runs a half-day training, posts a statement, and moves on. The hiring loops, performance review templates, and promotion criteria stay unchanged. Bias outcomes persist because the systems producing them never changed.
Their framing is that implicit bias in systems is more durable than bias in individuals. The fix is to redesign the systems themselves, paired with training and accountability for the people who run them.
What also matters is treating bias as ongoing maintenance, not a one-time project. Hiring loops drift, performance criteria get reinterpreted, and promotion decisions develop new patterns. Strong programs review systems annually for bias drift.
How Do You Actually Dismantle Systemic Bias?
What is the first system to audit?
Mercedes and Kristin recommend starting with hiring loops. The patterns that produce who gets hired are upstream of every other talent system. Auditing job descriptions, interview rubrics, and selection decisions catches bias at the moment it has the most impact.
How do you handle resistance from leaders who say their hiring is fair?
By presenting the data. Aggregated outcomes by demographic at each stage of the funnel rarely match leaders' assumptions about their own programs. Change management research shows that leaders who see their own outcomes data tend to engage in fixes rather than defending the status quo.
What Actually Works in Dismantling Bias
Redesign systems, not just train people
Job descriptions, interview rubrics, performance review templates, and promotion criteria all encode bias. Redesigning these systems with explicit attention to bias patterns produces durable change.
Audit outcomes annually by demographic
Strong programs publish hiring, promotion, and retention data by demographic on a regular cadence. The audit forces honest conversations about what the systems actually produce.
Pair training with accountability
Training without accountability fades. Coaching for managers paired with manager-level outcome data produces a feedback loop that sustains change over time.
Where Employee Relations Fits
ER systems are where systemic bias becomes individually visible. AllVoices' DEI solution and our HR case management product give HR a clear way to surface concerns about biased treatment, retaliation, or unfair selection.
How does ER tooling support bias work?
It connects individual concerns to systemic patterns. A single complaint is one data point. Five complaints across a quarter reveal a pattern. ER tooling that aggregates and trends across the workforce gives HR the upstream view that systems work requires.
Frequently Asked Questions About Systemic Bias at Work
What is systemic bias at work?
It is bias that emerges from the design and operation of systems like hiring, performance management, and promotion, rather than from individual prejudice alone.
How is systemic bias different from individual bias?
Individual bias lives in one person's behavior. Systemic bias produces patterns across the organization regardless of any individual's intent. Both are real, and they require different fixes.
Why does bias training underperform?
Because it targets individuals while leaving the systems that produce biased outcomes untouched. Strong programs pair training with system redesign and accountability.
What systems should HR teams audit first?
Hiring loops, performance review templates, promotion criteria, and compensation decisions. These systems shape who gets in, who advances, and how they get rewarded.
How often should bias audits happen?
Annually at minimum. Quarterly reviews of hiring loop outcomes catch drift before it becomes structural.
Who should lead bias work?
HR convenes it, with DEI leaders providing methodology and senior leadership providing accountability. Without leadership accountability, audits stay reports.
The Bottom Line for HR Leaders
Mercedes and Kristin's framing is a useful corrective for any HR team that has invested heavily in training without seeing outcomes shift. Systemic bias requires systemic fixes, paired with training, paired with accountability.
The leaders who get this right share a few habits. They redesign systems, not just train people. They audit outcomes annually. They pair training with manager accountability. And they treat bias work as ongoing maintenance, not a one-time project.
Companies that hold this discipline see hiring outcomes shift, retention improve, and engagement rise across demographic groups. The investment compounds because each cycle of audit and adjustment produces better systems for the next cycle.
Industry research keeps reinforcing this view. Catalyst research on the business risks of DEI scale-back found that 83 percent of C-suite leaders say maintaining or expanding DEI is essential to mitigating legal risk. Systemic bias work is part of that risk management.
Across the conversation, the throughline was that bias is a design problem. The systems that produce biased outcomes were designed by people, and they can be redesigned by people. The work requires honesty, discipline, and the patience to hold the practice through years of incremental progress.
The strongest programs also document their methodology so the work survives leadership transitions. Bias work that lives only in one leader's head fades when that leader moves on. Bias work that lives in documented systems persists.
Strong programs also tend to produce a quieter recruiting benefit. Candidates research how companies handle this kind of work before joining, and the patterns become known in tight talent markets. The reputation that follows from sustained discipline becomes part of the company's competitive advantage in hiring.
The throughline across the conversation was that real change is operational, not symbolic. Cultures that build the discipline through years of consistent practice end up with workforces that hold under pressure and produce stronger outcomes than cultures relying on values statements alone.
Companies that handle this work well also develop internal expertise that pays back across cycles. The leaders, managers, and HR partners who develop the muscle become more valuable across the organization, and that expertise is what sustains the work through executive transitions.
Programs that hold this discipline also produce documentation and case studies that become useful internal teaching tools. The accumulated learning becomes a resource for future cohorts of leaders, and that knowledge transfer is part of what makes the work sustainable across years.
The companies that hold this work through hard quarters end up with cultures that are recognizably different from peer companies. Employees notice, candidates notice, and customers notice. That distinctiveness is what produces the recruiting and retention advantages that mature programs are known for.
Sustained programs also reshape how the company is seen externally. Industry analysts, peer organizations, and prospective talent all develop a view of the company based on whether the work holds up over years. That external perception becomes part of the brand and influences hiring outcomes for cycles to come.
See how AllVoices helps HR teams dismantle systemic bias in talent programs.
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