Your Unconscious Bias Trainings Keep Failing Because You’re Not Addressing Systemic Bias

Photo by Jackson Simmer on Unsplash

I have watched unconscious bias training go incredibly well, but have noticed their impact diminish over time.

That is because these training opportunities only touch on the surface issues that create inequitable environments, but rarely tackle the systems of oppression and racist behavior that are endemic to the actual organization. For instance, we can learn about the impact of gender discrimination, but we don’t see the changes in the gender make-up of senior leaders of the organization in short-term or long-term measurements.

Watching the lack of change in an organization can change the motivation of people in the organization to continue working towards an equitable workplace but may not understand why.

Now we may have reasons that can be approached by organization leaders and training consultants.

We can improve our anti-biased training by tackling the underlying issues that keep it from changing the organization. Photo by Jason Goodman on Unsplash

Four Ways Systemic and Structural Issues Hamper Bias Training

Janice Gassam Asare, in Forbes Magazine, tackles the reason unconscious bias training may not work and how to address them in…