Our bespoke training courses draw on our quarter-century of experience in building fair practice in employment and career progression. Overcoming unconscious bias is equally critical to external perceptions of you as a company of integrity, credibility and consistency, and a great place to work.

From design to delivery we focus your training on practical, outcome-based activities, as well as strategic future-proofing. Our positive, practical workshops will give even the most experienced manager new insight into the associations and assumptions – however subtle or unintentional – that may affect the decisions we make.

We also provide a range of diversity elearning courses, including our first on-demand Introduction to Unconscious Bias, designed specifically for managers.

Our focus isn’t just on the science and theory behind unconscious bias training, it’s on what people can actually do about it in their day-to-day work. In practice this means building individual awareness of unconscious bias. It means developing an understanding of the impact of unconscious bias in the workplace. And it means giving delegates a series of practical tools, strategies and frameworks they can apply to their roles straight away.

We recognise the unwritten code of how people typically progress in organisations. We want your delegates to leave our sessions with the ability to break down the barriers to advancing diverse talent. Through our bespoke unconscious bias training, we’ll show your delegates how to account for bias when they decide who gets the acting up positions, who gets to work on the exciting new assignments, or who gets what informal support.

Experiential actor-based unconscious bias training from EW Group

Reflect on the impact that unconscious bias has on organisational performance.

Then gain the tools to plan how to adjust, check and challenge future behaviours at work.

Successful diversity management depends on bringing unconscious bias to life in innovative ways. Our unconscious bias training programmes are built around experiential learning to more meaningfully engage your workforce with addressing unconscious bias in all its forms. In live actor-based workshops, we use intelligently scripted scenarios to highlight what so often stays hidden in the workplace. The difference-maker: your delegates will experience the realities of unconscious bias first-hand, up close and personal.

EW Group clients love our sessions using actors. Our scenarios help them to not only see but also experience how subtle disadvantage works, and the emotional impact it has on individuals. By experiencing unconscious bias for themselves in new and surprising ways, your staff can then set about driving genuine culture change on their return to work.

Watch the video below for an example of our actor-based scenarios on unconscious bias in the workplace. How do you think the conversation goes? Would you change anything?

Another feature of our actor-based unconscious bias training is our candid scenarios. An example: at one of our events at the Shard in London, we stationed actors in the lift to have a conversation as our delegates arrived. One of the actors plays a woman just back from maternity leave, asking to be part of a new project team. Her manager (our other actor) doesn’t handle the situation well, and our delegates overhear the whole thing. They then arrived at our event with bad practice ringing in their ears, until we revealed the actors – prompting further lively discussion and a live re-working with the actors of how the manager could have approached things better.

Collaborative design. Positive delivery. Practical outcomes.

Our unconscious bias training will be customised to your specific objectives and business goals. Led by your priorities, our diversity consultants will incorporate a range of unconscious bias training activities into your course, including:

• Presentations to set the context
• Personal experiences
• Customised actor-based scenarios
• Real-life case studies
• Facilitated exercises for individuals, small groups and the whole group
• Reflection, review and action planning.

As a result, your delegates will leave our sessions with the skills they need to:

• Clearly articulate their commitment to overcoming unconscious bias in the workplace
• Acknowledge the subtle ways in which unconscious bias plays out at work
• Understand the role of diversity best practice in their daily duties
• Feel clear about the various aspects within their roles that may be open to unconscious bias
• Identify opportunities to promote best practice and work with cultural intelligence
• Employ a set of practical tools and action plans to address unconscious bias wherever they work.

What is unconscious bias in the workplace?

Life experiences – whether positive, negative or neutral – heavily influence how we view and evaluate others. Our actions are directly informed by these experiences, which can lead to unobjective and unconsciously biased decision-making.

An unconscious bias is an association or assumption held by an individual which affects their attitudes and behaviours. Also known as implicit stereotypes, these biases are often displayed subtly and without premeditation or intention: through body language, mannerisms and conversation.

Our unconscious bias training courses use engaging, pragmatic exercises to develop participants’ ability and confidence to take practical steps to work more inclusively, and so reduce instances of unwanted behaviour. Our approach makes delegates aware that unconscious bias exists within all of us, and then introduces the practical steps they can take to address bias. Each unconscious bias training programme is designed to be enlightening, interactive and cross-cultural – not limited to single strands of diversity or protected characteristics.

Examples of unconscious bias

Areas of any business that are especially vulnerable to unconscious bias include:

• Recruitment and selection
• Performance reviews and appraisals
• Promotions, acting up opportunities and fast-tracking
• Selecting a project team
• Decision making and governance
• Supplier procurement.

Why is it important for businesses to address unconscious bias?

The effects of unconscious bias in the workplace can range from:

• Individuals feeling excluded and being less productive and engaged as a result
• A failure to maximise team performance and the other business benefits of diversity
• Instances of workplace bullying, unlawful harassment or discrimination
• Costly mediation work and/or employment tribunal.

Developing genuine awareness of how unconscious bias operates – and practical tools to overcome it – is key to your organisation harnessing the diversity at its disposal. Our unconscious bias training will enable your organisation to significantly enhance its talent pipeline: from better staff recruitment to fairer opportunities for career progression. The training will also support your managers to have open, honest and constructive conversations with their direct reports, and to sensitively unpick their everyday interactions at work.

Concerned about unconscious bias in recruitment and selection? Our ground-breaking workshops are based around a real-life interview for a current opening at your organisation. The workshops equip your managers with an awareness of when and how unconscious bias in hiring might be operating, and what can be done to avoid it. Together the fast-paced, interactive sessions provides practical tools that your managers can use in interviews to check and challenge their thought processes and actions.