In this part of the course, you will identify the dimensions of diversity that matter most in your society and in your organization, if it applies, and think about any organizationa

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Complete the grid below.

Dimension of Diversity

In my society, who has greater privilege?

In my organization, who has greater privilege?

In my organization, are there disruptors? What are they?

Example:

Gender

Example: Men

Example:

Men

Example: We have a woman CEO and CFO, and 40% of our board is women

Gender

Race/Ethnicity

Dimension of Diversity

In my society, who has greater privilege?

In my organization, who has greater privilege?

In my organization, are there disruptors? What are they?

Religion

Education (both level and type)

Body type

Member of organized labor

Age

Sexual orientation

Work history

Note any other dimensions of diversity you think are significant:

Complete the grid below.

Examples of evidence of unconscious bias:

Note your observations:

How does this affect the way that people perceive and evaluate others? Note your ideas:

Example: Lack of women in leadership roles

Example: We only have one woman in an executive leadership role, and this has been the case for several years.

Example: I think the fact that there is only one woman in senior management sends a message to employees that women are not perceived to be as competent or able to handle those roles, and that this particularly the case in functions like operations and sales that are more “male-typed.”

Do you see any evidence of a likeability penalty?

Do you see any evidence that lower status groups are interrupted more, talked over more, given fewer chances to speak up in meetings?

Consider how success and failure are evaluated. Have you seen evidence that higher status groups are given more benefit of the doubt than lower status groups? Is the success of lower status groups more often attributed to the help of others or lucky circumstances? Or perhaps is the failure of lower status groups seen as confirming doubts while that of higher status groups is assumed to be due to unfortunate circumstances?

Examples of evidence of unconscious bias:

Note your observations:

How does this affect the way that people perceive and evaluate others? Note your ideas:

Do you see evidence that all groups are not represented in senior leadership?

Do you see any evidence that lower status individuals are penalized for not participating (while higher status individuals are celebrated for participating) in “communal service behaviors”?

Do you see evidence of artifacts that might be reinforcing unconscious bias? (One example of artifacts could be hallway portraits of the organization’s board members who are all white men.)

Consider how behaviors are evaluated. Do you see any evidence that “leadership behaviors,” such as aggressiveness and speaking up, are evaluated positively for men and negatively for women?

Note any other evidence of unconscious biases that you think you have observed in the workplace.

Complete the grid below.

Our Practice

Your Notes: How does your implementation reduce (or exacerbate) unconscious bias?

Example:

Our Hiring Practices (Are they transparent and standardized?)

Example: Our hiring practices are transparent for entry-level positions, but are less so for senior-level positions. People get hired for senior positions without an internal job posting; sometimes people don’t even know that a position was available until they hear that someone new has been hired into it. This exacerbates unconscious bias; it contributes to the perception that this is an “exclusive club” that only the privileged belong to.

Hiring Practices

(Are they transparent and standardized?)

Interview Panels

(Do we use panels to reduce unconscious bias or do we rely on individuals’ opinions? Do we use objective and standard criteria, or do we rely on individual managers’ subjective judgment?)

Internal Promotion Practices

(Are the practices transparent? Are they offered fairly? Are criteria for promotion written and standardized across the organization?)

Performance Appraisals

(Are they standardized, based on objective performance criteria, and the same for everyone?)

Accountability

(Do managers make subjective decisions, or are they held accountable and expected to be fair and objective?)

Personnel Decisions

(Do we have systems in place to monitor or evaluate personnel decisions made by individual managers?)

Performance Feedback

(Are employees told how and when they will receive performance feedback? Are they told in advance the criteria for success?)

Standardized Evaluation Forms

(Do we use standardized forms, which reduce subjectivity and bias?)

Social Networking

(Do we avoid using social networking to fill job roles, since social networking can favor people in our schematic category?)

Bias Language

Do we avoid using male-typed words in job descriptions, such as “strong leader,” in favor of evidence-based performance criteria, such as “proven sales track record.”

Inclusive Thinking

Is there a tendency for people to focus on reasons for including people – especially people who seem “untraditional” – or excluding them because they don’t fit the norm?

Inclusive Benefits

Are our benefits inclusive of employees of different backgrounds (e.g., same-sex partner benefits, flexible work arrangements)? If they are, do people feel that they can take advantage of them without suffering a penalty for doing so?

Bias Interrupters

Are people trained to identify expressions of bias when discussing competence and potential? For example, highlighting counter-stereotypic evidence, questioning whether behavior or performance has been evaluated similarly across people, or making sure that credit is given where credit is due?

Gender-Based Assumptions

Is there an assumption, spoken or unspoken, that the women in the workplace will take on “housekeeping” duties such as tidying shared work spaces, organizing social events, and remembering birthdays?

Complete the grid below.

Identified Area for Improvement:

My Recommended Solution:

Example:

Our performance appraisals are not standardized but are left up to managers’ subjective judgments.

I suggest we move to a system of standardized performance appraisals. However, in developing standardized rating criteria, we need to be mindful of biased language and use language that describes specific, observable behaviors rather than less tangible characteristics that may be more strongly associated with stereotypes of some groups than others. We need to ensure that employees are aware of the criteria that will be used to evaluate them, and encourage managers to record specific examples of employee behaviors that are illustrative of different levels of performance. Finally, in order to ensure that managers provide coaching to all of their direct reports and not just those who they may favor, employees should be asked in the annual survey whether they received useful feedback and coaching from their manager as part of the performance appraisal process.

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