As the director of human resources, it’s my job to ensure that our workplace culture is open, inclusive, welcoming, and safe. As a boutique health care PR agency, every new hire brings new energy and perspectives to the team and influences the team dynamic. With several new hires joining this summer, I sought to beef up our training programs.
Our culture focuses on leading from a strengths perspective and building each other up, However, to do that, we must continue to challenge our assumptions and beliefs to ensure our words and actions are having the intended effect. SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management, defines unconscious biases as “occurring when individuals make judgements about people based on gender, race, or other prohibited factors without realizing they are doing it.”
The first step to changing your behavior is becoming aware of these implicit biases that we hold. Awareness alone won’t lead to behavior change, but it is a vital first step that must be followed up with action.
To build awareness and engagement of implicit bias and its impact, I chose an online training program from the Clear Law Institute called “Unconscious Bias, Diversity, and Inclusion Training.” We had the entire team take the online training and then held an informal discussion about the content. I was pleased with the positive feedback and some of the learnings that several team members shared:
This is a conversation that we will continue to have to make our workplace the best it can be. Next up will be trainings focused on harassment.