Many workplaces today are becoming increasingly aware of the culture and climate of an entire company, a specific office or even a department or unit within a large company. Often these issues with poor workplace culture and climate stem from an unconscious bias that starts with the management team and includes a large majority of the workforce.
What is Unconscious Bias?
When these unconscious biases are negative against a specific group of people, which could be based on age, gender, ethnicity, religion or other factors, it limits diversity and also reduces the successful hiring of highly qualified individuals.
These unconscious biases are often not known or not considered by the individual that has the bias. They are often deeply rooted thoughts or perceptions about people, groups or things that stem from a very early age.
Through unconscious bias training, people can learn to recognize how these previously unknown biases may be influencing the way they make decisions in who to hire, who to promote and even who to allow to work in certain areas or on specific types of projects.
Training Outcomes
Most people dread going to professional development training. However, unconscious bias training is very different than a typical seminar or lecture. Instead, there are activities, surveys, discussions, and presentations that help people learn more about themselves.
Top programs offering unconscious bias training are carefully designed to allow participants to share and become involved in the large group activities to their comfort level. However, for most people, recognizing that everyone has both positive and negative biases is both insightful as well as unifying.
Within the training, everyone will learn to recognize his or her biases. This allows people to reflect on the choices they are making and to determine if the decisions made are based on information or if a bias is activated and influencing the process.