Unconscious Bias & Inclusion in the Workplace (Los Angeles area, 6/6)

Content

This Masterclass has 3 main parts.

Part 1 - Introduction to cognitive science and psychology to understand how the brain works. We will look into the main limitations of human perception, attention, and memory, using multiple examples. Then, we will go on into describing some of the main unconscious biases, such as the “availability heuristic” (type of cognitive bias) or the “halo effect” (type of social bias). During this introduction, attendees will be confronted with their own brain limitations and biases, and will (re)discover that we are all biased. Most of us are well-intended but still fall prey to our biases. The point here is to be able to recognize them so that we can design environments allowing us to not be confronted by these biases (since it’s nearly impossible to avoid falling prey to these biases, even when we are aware of them).

Part 2 - Since we hardly avoid falling prey to our biases, what can we do? This part focuses on “nudge” and “choice architecture”. These are well-known concepts from behavioral psychology. It’s about designing the environment in such a way to encourage or avoid certain behaviors. For example, since people can forget to fasten their seatbelts, cars are designed to beep if they start moving while seatbelts are not fastened. Similarly, the work place can be designed in such a way to encourage inclusion and go around unconscious biases (e.g. blind auditions or interviews prevent us from being influenced by unconscious stereotypes during the hiring process).

Part 3 - This last part focuses more specifically on the hiring and career development (promotion) processes, and how to design them to avoid falling prey to biases and therefore facilitate diversity and inclusion in the company. Attendees will be encouraged to find the flaws in their current pipelines and propose ways to fix them, by applying the knowledge from parts 1 and 2. We will also discuss general company culture and how to make this culture more inclusive.

At the end of the workshop, participants will have put together a list of actionables to start making a change in their workplace.

Audience

Anyone can benefit from knowing more about our brain limitations and our unconscious biases. This workshop will however benefit people taking part in the hiring and career development processes even more.