The Impact of Accent Bias at Work

The way we speak can shape how we’re judged, often in ways we don’t even realize. In this interview, Christy Zhou Koval, assistant professor of organizational behaviour, explores the often-overlooked issue of accent bias in the workplace. She explains how judgments based on pronunciation or speech patterns can shape perceptions of competence, trustworthiness and communication ability, despite a lack of evidence supporting these assumptions.

Drawing on research, she highlights how accent bias can influence hiring, promotion and funding decisions, and why its impact is especially significant in roles that rely heavily on communication. She also examines the underlying drivers of these perceptions, including processing fluency and stereotyping, and the emotional and career costs for those affected.

Finally, Zhou Koval shares why addressing accent bias matters for organizations as well as individuals. By raising awareness, reframing accents as part of cultural identity and fostering inclusive practices, leaders can help ensure diverse voices are heard and valued.

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Christy Zhou Koval

00:06: What is accent bias, and how does it show up in the workplace?

Accent bias is basically when we evaluate or judge someone based on the way they speak. Whether it's their pronunciation, their accent, as opposed to what they're actually saying.

Research has shown that individuals with non-standard accents, so whether that is a foreign accent or a regional accent, they often face negative stereotypes. So, they're seen as less competent, less trustworthy, and even just less pleasant to have a conversation with. 

Of course, there's no actual evidence of that. And in the workplace, this shows up in some very concrete ways. There's this research showing that, compared to those with a standard accent, those with a non-standard accent are seen as less hireable and less promotable sometimes.

And this also shows up in entrepreneurial contexts, where research has shown individuals with non-standard accents are less likely to get entrepreneurial fundings. And this is pretty important, given that many immigrants who tend to have a foreign or non-standard accent often turn to entrepreneurship as a way to build their new lives in a new country.

And in other instances, non-standard accents have been shown to slow career progressions by being funneled into lower-paying, lower-prestige jobs, even though they are qualified to do much more than that. 

There's research showing that accent bias is more pronounced in jobs that have a higher demand of communication skills. So, think customer service, think management positions, or really any roles that require public speaking or client interactions.

01:51: What assumptions are commonly made about different accents?

There's this assumption that when you have an accent, you cannot communicate effectively, which really there's no evidence for. But there are some nuances to the situation as well. Accent bias is more pronounced for foreign accents, more so than regional accents. And this effect is also stronger for female candidates.

02:16: What drives these perceptions and biases?

Research on accents has identified two mechanisms that drive this negative evaluation of non-standard speakers. 

One is what we call the fluency effect, this idea that when you hear an accent that is not familiar to you, it makes you less fluent in your processing, your cognitive processing, and therefore, you evaluate that individual more negatively.

The other mechanism that has been identified in the literature is stereotyping. So, when you hear a foreign or non-standard accent, it triggers otherness, and you don't like them because of that. 

Stereotypes, again, trigger assumptions about the individual's background. So, whether their social class, their education, cascades down to a series of assumptions that people have about the individuals that may or may not be true. 

03:09: What are the costs of accent bias for individuals and organizations?

Accent-based bias can have some significant cost to individuals with an accent. So, they are less likely to be hired, to be promoted, to be put in leadership positions. But there is also an emotional toll. They might feel anxiety about the way they speak. They might feel pressured to correct the way they speak, and just in general, lower their well-being and sense of belonging in the workplace. 

And for organizations, the impact can also be quite substantial. One of the big ones is, you're losing out on talent to the extent that hiring managers have accent-based bias. They might disqualify candidates that are, in fact, suitable for the role purely based on their accents. And there's research showing that diversity helps to drive innovation and competitiveness in organizations. 

Another context in which it can be costly to organizations is how teams function and perform to the extent that the speakers with non-native accents feel anxious about the way they speak or think that they might be mocked by the way they sound. They might be less likely to speak up, and the teams lose those great and diverse perspectives that help to drive innovation.

04:37: What can leaders do to help reduce accent bias?

Leaders can play a pretty important role here. One of the very simple but powerful ways that leaders can help to mitigate accent-based bias is just a simple message, a statement to raise that accent bias exists, by bringing awareness to the organization.

Other ways that leaders can help to mitigate accent bias is through training, of course, and also to frame accent as someone's cultural background and heritage instead of something that needs to be fixed. But really, to challenge the idea that there's one perfect way to speak English or really any other language for that matter.