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Programme Overview Discrimination is destructive and counter-productive. We know that people discriminate consciously either due to prejudice or through ignorance. What is less known is that people often make choices that discriminate against one group in favour of another without even realising they are doing it. What is perhaps more striking is that it is against their own conscious belief that they are unbiased in their decision-making. For example, did you know: Less than 15% of men are over six foot tall, yet almost 60% of corporate CEOs are over six foot tall 63% of people have felt the need to hide their accent in job interviews In the UK, 51% of HR professionals were found to be biased against overweight women - and were unaware that this was even the case Job applicants with white-sounding names are nearly twice as likely to be shortlisted for interview than those with ethnic-minority sounding names Cover-letters that mention a disability are 26% less likely to be shortlisted Women represent just a sixth of senior executives at the largest listed British companies However, once awareness of bias is raised from the unconscious to the conscious level, attitudes and behaviours change and improve the quality of the decision-making process resulting in a farreaching impact on organisational performance. This fast-paced, experiential workshop will demonstrate how this can happen and will equip participants with skills, understanding and practical, usable strategies to guard against unconscious bias. This ensures a genuinely fair and inclusive workplace where people are selected and valued solely for their skills and abilities. 1 Day or ½ Day? The half-day raises awareness of Unconscious Bias, explores how it could be affecting decisionmaking in your organisation and provides take-away tips to mitigate bias when we need to. The full day offers a comprehensive exploration of the topic whilst building the confidence and skill of attendees to reduce the impact of Unconscious Bias on the decisions and choices we make in the workplace. The full programme content is described below. Right Track Consultancy Limited. Unconscious-Bias-Training Page 1
Who Should Attend? This one day programme is aimed at anyone whose decisions can impact on others (which is pretty much everyone!) (If you would like an outline of a programme that s designed for a specific role, let us know. We have a library of courses designed to support the board, management, recruiters, HR and customer service.) Programme participants will: Understand the filters through which they view and interpret themselves and others Appreciate how unconscious bias can adversely affect judgement and decision making and negatively impact on business performance Understand how micro inequities can emerge when we least expect - and damage engagement with colleagues and customers Explore how unconscious bias affects discretionary efforts, quality and attitudes towards work Identify patterns in their own ways of evaluating, assessing and working with others Reflect on organisational values and norms, where those values and norms come from, and how they impact on the quality of your organisational and talent management decisions Explore through Implicit Association testing how unconscious bias can impact on diversity and equality organisationally Begin to explore and plan for positive, tangible change - what are our next steps? Programme Content Welcome and introduction to Unconscious Bias Activity: Things aren t always what they seem - what did you spot and what did you not? (introduces subtle nature of unconscious bias) What is unconscious bias and how can it impact on organisational and individual decision making? (Some facts and figures that will surprise!) Identifying Unconscious Bias Activity: Uncover your own world view and see how key events impact on how we engage with the world Activity: Our unconscious bias hotspots. A quick facilitated audit to discover key areas in our role and areas of influence where unconscious bias can have the greatest impact Right Track Consultancy Limited. Unconscious-Bias-Training Page 2
Autopilot thinking Activity and discussion: to illustrate how we are all vulnerable to autopilot thinking Tips: Some bias-busting tips Types of Unconscious Bias - and how they can impact on your organisation Affinity bias Social Comparison bias Confirmatory bias Activity: Illustrations and discussion on how they can impact on this organisation Bias hurts! Micro-inequities Graphic film clip and activity show how discrimination (conscious or unconscious) can cause hurt and damage Examples of micro-inequities how might they apply here? Priming How just the sight of a prime can stimulate an unconscious response that is at odds with our conscious view Activity: photo exercise to illustrate the power of primes Tips: how to strengthen against unconscious primes Self-fulfilling prophecy A false definition of a situation evokes a new behaviour which encourages the originally false perception to come true - damaging in all areas of your business including recruitment, progression and customer / client engagement Activity: The label game: A graphic interactive session which illustrates the power of selffulfilling prophecy. How does this impact on what we do here? Tips: Some more bias-busting tips Bias blinkers in our organisation: How fair are we? How fair are our outcomes? How can we be sure we are recruiting, retaining and developing the best people? And how can we ensure that our biases aren t causing us to overlook and fail to nurture much needed talent or missing opportunities for meaningful customer and business engagement? Media Clip: A graphic illustration of how unchallenged unconscious bias can cause unfair decision making processes Activity: Participants consider CV s or profiles to analyse aspects that can influence us unconsciously and skew an objective decision making process Discussion what safeguards can we put in place individually and organisationally? Implicit Association Testing Feedback and discussion This assumes that participants have taken part in IA testing before the course This session will answer any questions and concerns about the tests and explore how we can use results from the testing constructively. It s an opportunity to reassure participants that having unconscious biases doesn t make us bad people - just people! Right Track Consultancy Limited. Unconscious-Bias-Training Page 3
Activity: Colours of Association How sensitivity to different communication and information processing styles can be a valuable positive influence and minimize the impact of unconscious bias Activity: Colour profiling - how we can respond fairly to styles we perceive as different and how we can guard against hidden bias caused by our own preferred style Plenary Session and Action Planning Managing Unconscious Bias A round up of hints and tips explored during the day and a few additional pointers to take away Plenary Discussion - next steps and key priorities for us individually and organisationally Final questions and comments Unconscious Bias Psychometric Testing The most effective tool available for testing individuals unconscious bias is Implicit Association testing, of which there are a number of variants designed to assess social preferences with regards to disability, age, gender, sexual orientation and ethnic origin. Tests can be run alone or in conjunction with a workshop. We find it works well for people to undertake testing and receive feedback before the course. This means that they can use the workshop to the fullest to discover and practice bias-busting tools and tips that work for them. It is valuable for team development as well as individual and organisational development. Righttrack Style The Righttrack style is to engage, energise and enthuse. Sure, there s formal input from the trainer, but we aim to build knowledge and skills through maximum interaction and minimum lecture. We know from experience that that s the only way to leave people feeling inspired, and to make a real difference to your organisation. Depending on the learning objectives, content is created from a combination of approaches: group discussion, board games, quizzes, questionnaires, video clips, role-play, forum theatre, experiential learning, coaching, trainer/peer feedback and reflection activities. But most importantly, every programme has a strong focus on making sure each delegate understands how activity in the training room translates into action in the workplace. Right Track Consultancy Limited. Unconscious-Bias-Training Page 4
achieving business objectives, meeting individuals needs, with minimal impact on operations and all within budget! That s why at Righttrack, nothing* is ever set in stone. We can work with you to tweak almost any element of our proposal to meet your needs precisely. Your project manager will work with you to overcome challenges creatively (no matter how big or small.) Call us on: +44 (0)121 222 7313 *Except for our commitment to creativity, adaptability, truth, compassion and excellence.