that it means that you’ re more likely to hire a candidate on the basis of their real rather than perceived strengths. This also improves an employee’ s overall well-being in the workplace too, as it means that their true qualities are more likely to be recognised and rewarded.
Although during the interview and recruitment process you might not have much time to assess a candidate, being aware of unconscious bias here can help stop you from making snap judgements about an employee.
Unconscious bias training for employees
It is helpful for employers to recognise unconscious bias( or identity bias, as it is also known) in themselves. However, it is also the case for your employees. This is so that your employees can cooperate successfully in the workplace, and it helps to avoid workplace bullying. Unconscious bias training can be incorporated into your HR team’ s diversity and inclusion strategy.
Providing appropriate and successful unconscious bias training can be a complex task on multiple levels. Whether unconscious bias training has long-term benefits is widely debated, however, a Harvard Review study showed that UB training led to a heightened awareness of bias within teams.
It might be a good idea to ask your employees- particularly minority or disabled employees- for feedback on this training, so that you can incorporate it into future training sessions. According to a psychologist, it is useful to focus on the long-lasting impact that this will have on your team. This can be part of your ongoing skills training strategy.
An unconscious bias training session can start conversations among employees about their own biases and how to tackle them. This might potentially have positive long-term benefits. Awareness of unconscious bias is important, but you can give employees strategies to reduce their own unconscious bias. Creating a follow-up assessment of your employee’ s unconscious bias after any training might give you an indication as to whether it was successful.
Unconscious bias training ideas
A training session can give your employees the initial tools to spot unconscious bias in themselves and others. A good strategy to build on conventional bias training is a prejudice habit-breaking strategy. This involves teaching employees how to spot implicit bias, and then having them take an Implicit Association Test. This reveals the extent to which everyone experiences unconscious bias.
Following the test, you can guide employees through group and individual reflection. This can take the form of a group discussion, crossteam presentations, and encouraging employees to call out instances of unconscious bias in themselves and other employees.
Short-term unconscious bias training may lead to greater awareness within your team, but it is a good idea to consider the long term. Incorporating unconscious bias awareness into your overall HR and business organisation might have a longerterm impact on your business.
Unconscious bias training as part of diversity and inclusion
In order to communicate your unconscious bias training effectively, you might want to involve your diversity and inclusion team in your strategy. If you do not already have a diversity and inclusion team, you can appoint members of your HR department who you believe are suitable for the role.
You might want to choose candidates who already have a good understanding of inclusion issues such as unconscious bias. These might be HR employees who are from ethnic minority or other minority group backgrounds. As unconscious bias is a sensitive issue, having a team behind your strategy here can help you decide the best approach for your employees.
This way, they can use their own experiences to inform their communication of any diversity and inclusion strategies. To communicate these issues effectively, you can look out for traits such as emotional intelligence, as well as strong prior knowledge.
Dr. Clifford J. Ferguson is the Managing Partner of Rainmakers, and Board Member of Glad’ s House Kenya. You can commune with him on this or related matters via email at: Drcliffordjferguson @ me. com.