1. Dr. Banaji did a great job this morning talking about unconscious bias
Dr. Banaji did a great job this morning talking about unconscious bias. The purpose of this session is to give you a framework for effective training at your organizations. This session will be divided into four parts:
Effective training on unconscious bias needs to begin with raising awareness within program participants. To that end, we will begin with a review on how unconscious bias manifests itself.
The next step for effective training is helping participants understand why mitigating unconscious bias is important to the organization. We will talk about the hidden costs of unconscious bias, and their impact on organizational effectiveness.
The next step for training is to equip employees with methods for mitigating unconscious bias in the workplace.
The final step in effective unconscious bias training gives suggestions for the organization to institutionalize the mitigation of unconscious bias through policy change.

2. How Does Unconscious Bias Manifest Itself?
The first piece of talking about bias is raising awareness within each person.
Sometimes our minds work to reaffirm our unconscious bias, even when we have strong conflicting data.

3. Filling in the gaps (1/2)
Read the words on this list (don’t write them). You will need to remember them for the next slide.

4. Filling in the gaps (2/2)
Now, write down all the words that you saw on the first list.
We sometimes “remember” items being in a group of other similar items, even when the item is not there. Put another way, our mind will sometimes fill in “gaps” with false memories.
The way people are asked questions sometimes triggers false memories (car crashes, eye witness accounts).

5. When are “obvious” facts not really facts?
The availability of information to us strongly influences how we interpret the world.

6. In-groups and out-groups
Describe the terms “in-group” and “out-group”
Talk about the wide array of factors that humans use to determine “in-group” vs “out-group”
Our personal identification of our “in-group” and how we feel about that group affects how we feel about ourselves.

7. Implicit Association Test
Describe the Implicit Association Test. Talk about how the test is designed to raise awareness of our hidden biases.

8. The Hidden Costs of Unconscious Bias
The business case for mitigating unconscious bias is multifaceted. We will cover some of the ways that unconscious bias impacts workplace effectiveness.

9. The hiring and selection process
Unconscious bias often impacts the hiring and selection process, negatively impacting the overall talent pool in organizations.
Applicants with identical resumes will receive a different rate of response to their resumes based on the gender and ethnicity indicated at the top of the resume.
“Time and again, the research shows that interviews are poor predictors of job performance because we tend to hire people we think are similar to us rather than those who are objectively going to do a good job.”

10. Meetings and Discussions
One of the key attributes of successful organizations is their ability to effectively leverage the input of their employees. Meetings have emerged as a key setting for information sharing and decision making. The contributions of out-group members have less credibility than members of the in-group.

11. The evaluation and promotion process
Unconscious bias often impacts the performance evaluation and promotion process. Members of the out-group sometime cite the performance evaluation and promotion process as unfair, leading to lowed employee engagement.
Compromised performance evaluation and promotion processes allow for the systematic career advancement for the in-group, and career stagnation for the out-group.

12. Review stats

13. Review stats

14. Mitigating Unconscious Bias
We cannot eliminate unconscious bias, but we can do things to mitigate our biases. This section will cover some of the methods that have been used to mitigate unconscious bias.

15. Choice points
Choice points are decision-making opportunities that influence outcomes.
The cumulative impacts of many small choices can be as significant as the impacts of big decisions.
When we’re conscious of choice points and the related impacts, we’re less likely to replicate implicit bias and the status quo, and we open new possibilities for equitable change.

16. Examples of Choice points
Review slide

17. Separate ourselves from triggers
One way to mitigate our bias is to separate ourselves from information that may trigger a bias. “In 1970, fewer than 10 percent of the instrumentalists in America’s major symphony orchestras were women, and women made up less than 20 percent of new hires.” “After the adoption of blind auditions, the proportion of women hired by major symphony orchestras doubled from 20 percent to 40 percent.”

18. Prime the pump
For biases we have identified within ourselves, we can “prime the pump” with positive associations.
“…subjects viewed ten admirable elderly people…Those who saw the admirable elders showed weaker IAT-measured young = good associations than did subjects who instead saw pictures of admirable young people.”

19. Positive Association
Similar to the concept of priming the pump is positive role models that a person can interact with.

20. Implement guidelines for decision making
We can mitigate some of our bias by implementing guidelines for decision making. The guidelines remove our bias by giving us a rubric to follow. This approach works well for some situations, but not others.
Pit-bulls:
Are they on average more vicious than other dogs? (yes, according to data)
Are all pit-bulls vicious? (no, only a small proportion)
Should you assume that any new pit-bull you encounter is vicious?
Middle-aged women
Are middle aged women less likely to have heart attacks than middle aged men? (yes, according to data)
Are all middle aged women unlikely to have heart attacks? (no, plenty have heart attacks)
Should doctors assume that any new women they encounter have no risk for heart disease?

21. Reduce in-group bias
In-group favoritism may be the largest contributing factor to the relative disadvantages experienced by already disadvantaged groups.
Mentoring outside of one’s in-group is a way to address in-group favoritism.

22. Organizational policies and Procedures

23. Maternity and Paternity Policies
Strengthening maternity and paternity benefits.

24. Employee Surveys
Ensure that anonymous employee surveys are conducted company-wide to first understand what specific issues of hidden bias and unfairness might exist at your workplace. Each department or location may have different issues.

25. Ethics office and Ombudsman
Offer an anonymous, third-party complaint channel such as an ombudsperson or ethics office; since most of the behaviors that employees perceive as unfair are not covered by current laws – e.g. bullying, very subtle bias – existing formal complaint channels simply don’t work.

26. Online Training
Implement short bias training modules (electronically) for those joining a hiring panel, or for those soon to conduct performance reviews.