The Significance of Addressing Unconscious Biases
Discussion:
:From your readings this week you became aware that unconscious bias influences individuals at different levels of management. They act as hidden drivers which can harm business decisions. The detrimental effects can range from messing up with the workplace diversity and turnover rate to promoting an incoherent culture in organization. In addition, they hinder innovativeness, creativity, cohesiveness, and inclusivity in the workplace. Unconscious biases can undermine the recruitment and individual development efforts in an organization, thereby creating a narrow pool of people.
In this week’s discussion, you will address the following:
What steps have you taken in your organization to bring awareness to unconscious biases?
How are you as a leader identifying where your unconscious bias lies.
What steps are you taking so unconscious biases can be removed.
Respond to Student #1 Devin
Conroy’s Legal Services Corporation understands that every person has implicit biases based on the influences of their lives and the people who had a part in raising them. The organization recognizes that each person may have implicit biases about other cultures, genders, sexual orientations, and an assortment of things taught to them during their youth. Conroy’s Legal Services Corporation releases monthly policy checks through Lexipol, which encourages people to stay within specific policies. These policy checks often address biases, diversity, and inappropriate workplace behavior. The organization also requires employees to take bi-annual training on implicit biases, so they can work on self-reflection that might help them understand their own biases and why they have them. Implicit bias education, which includes the science behind biases, the history of racism and how that correlates to biases, and understanding how mitigation strategies of people are ways for people to understand better their own biases and how to recognize and address them. ignore these behaviors (Sabin et al., 2022). Employees will often understand the meaning of something, but not necessarily the why behind it. This means that employees can truly struggle with the concept that they have unconscious biases. The employee needs to understand what their biases are, how to be self-aware of them, and what different ways they can work through processing and improving their biases.
As a leader, it is important to constantly self-reflect and work towards informal education efforts. Leaders who continue to work on improving themselves yield strong results towards improvement. When leading, it is crucial to be hyper-aware of how you might feel in certain situations when dealing with specific people and what you say around those people. There are also tests that leaders can take online, that help them narrow down their unconscious biases.
Again, as addressed prior, it is essential to enlist employees in department-wide training for unconscious biases. Employees need to understand the importance of self-education and ways that they can improve their personal and professional lives with self-awareness. Employees are also tested often through daily training bulletins (DTBs) which help them better understand policy and procedure. Lastly, employees are often shared articles and federal cases where they can educate themselves on an assortment of issues like diversity, unconscious biases, and harassment in the workplace.
Response to student #2 Amani
It is an unfortunate reality that we all likely suffer from unconscious bias in our lives. Whether it was our upbringing, environment, or a learned behavior, it is there, and we often do not recognize that it is happening in the moment. Unconscious, or implicit bias effects the way we view and treat others, which can lead to negative circumstances. At the Clinton Family Foundation, we work diligently to ensure that children from underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds are able to receive quality education. At the same time, our aim is to educate those who walk through our doors, whether they are employees or clients, therefore bringing awareness to unconscious or implicit biases. Training is often the first step of many in situations like this, and it is important to understand that trainings such as these might not truly change the stereotypes that we have, but it allows space to change behaviors (Schmader et al, 2022). Unconscious bias can be difficult because if our behaviors are not directly pointed out to us, we might not realize what negative effect our behaviors have on others.
As the director of my foundation, I will be taking part in the various trainings that are offered, and also work to hold the members of my organization accountable for their behaviors and actions. I believe that it will benefit members to spend time outside of their comfort zone, in situations, and around circumstances they hold bias toward, to see that the biases they hold are not always true. I believe that exercises like this, in-depth trainings, and a vow to hold ourselves and each other accountable are positive; steps toward erasing unconscious bias. Awareness is no long enough. Instead, deliberate actions must be taken.
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