For or Against Unconscious Bias Training?
By: Milca Agbenou
Tags: Gender Equality, Leadership, Diversity And Inclusion, International Development, Unconscious Bias

Source: Pexels by @Fauxels

Questions:

What is the purpose of unconscious bias training? Is it really effective or is it just a tick box exercise?

I read this article today, entitled: “Is unconscious bias training fit for purpose?”, and it made me think. Especially as discussions around Diversity and Inclusion in the Aid/Humanitarian sector (a hot topic for many years now) have soared in 2020, including in my organisation.

This article comes after a decision by the UK government to scrap the training for civil servants in England, on the basis that there was “little to no evidence of such training improving equality in the workplace”. The article went on to debate whether other organisations should do the same.

Thoughts:

I do think that providing unconscious bias training can be a great first step that allows organisations to 1) raise awareness and open people to the very idea of their biases (believe it or not, some people still don’t know what unconscious biases are), 2) spark conversation and exchanges of best practices in teams, groups and between organisations, and 3) provide people with effective tools that, if used on a regular basis, should allow them to mitigate these biases and their impact.

I’d like to pause at point 3. I’ve done a couple of unconscious bias trainings myself, and as much as they were great to achieve point 1 and 2, point 3 was never really covered. So as a suggestion, for organisations that have the capacity to review and contextualise these trainings, is that a gap that could be looked at? Could we ensure that these trainings do provide people and organisations with the tools they need to mitigate their biases (for individuals but also specific tools targeting systems to enable (or disable when needed?) any staff especially people managers, leaders, HR and other in roles where these biases can be more “harmful”).

Another thought that came whilst reading this article was that, we perhaps should be recalibrating our expectations around the purpose of such trainings to begin with, and be clear about what they can (and cannot) achieve! As much as going on a PRINCE 2 project management training does not make you an expert project manager in any way, but it is certainly helpful to provide the tools and processes that, if used on a regular/consistent basis, will at some point make you an expert, unconscious bias training can only provide better awareness and tools. Real behaviour change and long lasting results can only appear with time and consistent practice. This is true for unconscious bias training as much as for anything else.

And finally, any training (unconscious bias included) should never be a means to an end. To be effective, it must be followed and consolidated by other regular activities, processes and gate keepers, if we don’t want it to just be a box ticking exercise. It should be part of a well thought all rounded strategy and/or plan, with clear monitoring measures, performance indicators, incentives and deterrents to achieve true behaviour change.