Leadership
Introduction
Unconscious biases affect everyone, as they control decisions that we make on a daily basis. We as people grow up hearing and learning different things that unknowingly affect the way that we act in certain situations or how we treat others. Though many of us like to believe that we could never have a bias towards someone else, unconscious judgement still persists. Unconscious biases are shortcuts that our brain uses to understand and categorize information in a way that makes the most sense to us (Oberai & Anand, 2018). On the day-to-day these biases affect the clothing we wear, the car we drive, the bus seat we choose to sit in. Through life experiences, our brain just learns to identify certain things as good or bad, not that we necessarily express those thoughts. As mentioned in my third key insight, in SOCY350: Juvenile Delinquency, we discussed the idea of Labeling Theory. This theory proposes the idea that certain people are labeled as delinquent or criminal due to actions they committed, and those labels stick to them for life. These labels placed on them eventually cause internal bias and influence the individual to continue acting a certain way. Similar to the idea of Labeling Theory in terms of crime, labels are also prevalent in everyday life.
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Recommendations
In my experience as a mentor in the AMPED program, I was lucky enough to form a close connection with a student who had struggled during their time in school. Because of choices they had made in years prior, they had moved schools several times and were never able to form a close group of friends. They were labeled as the “bad kid” by their peers and teachers, and because of this felt that they would never escape this stereotype. They didn’t truly feel like they were a bad kid, however because of the biases placed on them by those around them, they acted out in a way that allowed them to live-up to the label they were given. The biases that others held about student resulted in the student being treated unfairly, and significantly affected their school experience.
Seeing such biases play out in the school setting translated to my desire to push for a reduction in biases all together. Knowing that I simply do not have the power to eliminate bias that every person might hold, I want to focus on how can do it in my future career. Going into the HR field, I plan on working in a medium-sized corporate office. To reduce biases in the workplace, I will create a series of lunch-and-learn opportunities for all employees. These lunch-and-learns will consist of 30-minute conversations during lunch time, facilitated by myself and other HR staff, where discussions of biases and stigmas will occur. Topics such as simply defining what an unconscious bias is, or how biases are formed will first be taught. In later lunch-and-learn sessions, we will have group discussions on how biases affect us personally in the workplace and sharing our honest thoughts and options for reducing them. This lunch-and-learn series will take place once biweekly for four months, allowing for eight initial sessions.
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Implementation
To successfully implement this series, educational materials must first be developed. Firstly, other HR staff will be recruited to aid me in my efforts of developing appropriate and applicable materials for the lunch-and-learns. Some HR staff may want to help facilitate individual lessons, while others may be more comfortable helping in the development of the materials and attending the sessions.
Once all educational materials are created, and a lesson plan is created for the series, participants must be recruited. Ideally, all employees of the office will participate, however due to hybrid schedules or other meetings, I know that is not possible. Finding employees who are willing to make time in their schedule to consistently come to each meeting will be key; these should consist of both lower-level employees, as well as upper-leadership to achieve the most benefit. Flyers for the upcoming series will be posted around the office, with the intent on garnering interest. A QR code will be put on the flyer, allowing anyone who is interested to sign up. Additionally, information will be sent out to all employees via email regarding the lunch-and-learns.
Once all participants are signed up to receive information about the series, they will be asked to sign a commitment form, stating that they will attend all occurrences. This is to ensure the benefit of those that participate, as well as maintain consistency of results for evaluation. Once all willing employees have agreed to their time commitment, the lunch-and-learn sessions will begin meeting bi-weekly.
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Evaluation
To evaluate the effectiveness of this program, all office staff will be given an Implicit Association Test (IAT) at the start and end of the program series. An IAT is an online test that measures an individual’s association of words. Words are sorted into categories based on a person’s unconscious association of that word with it’s description. The IAT doesn’t necessarily predict behavior at an individual time, rather it can be a predictor of behavior in the aggregate (Project Implicit, 2011). This test will be used on all office members to understand how their implicit biases change, or do not change, due to the result of my lunch and learn series. Results of the IAT include “sight”, “moderate”, and “strong”, meaning how strongly a person is affected by the implicit biases they hold. If some participant’s scores decrease from moderate to slight, that may indicate that their unconscious biases have lessened in strength. The IAT does not indicate causation of the lunch and learns reducing biases, however it can be indicative of correlation between the two.
It is incredibly important for all people, no matter their background, to acknowledge the unconscious biases they may hold. As I enter the field of Human Resources, I will continuously push for the elimination of biases amongst the workplace, as a truly successful workplace is one in which all employees feel safe and respected.
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Sources
Oberai, H. & Anand, I.M. (2018). Unconscious bias: thinking without thinking. Human Resource Management International Digest, 26(6). https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/hrmid-05-2018-0102/full/html
Project Implicit. (2011). Harvard Implicit Association Test. https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/iatdetails.html