Section C: Case study analysis (40%)

Read the case provided below and answer the questions.

The complicated battle over unconscious-bias training

Starbucks and Google have been doing it. So have Sephora and Papa Johns. The UKs Civil Service will no longer be taking part, while the Labour Party has been criticised for doing it in 20-minute chunks.

What these organisations have in common is that theyve all introduced some form of unconscious-bias training, which educates people about the knee-jerk preconceptions they hold and how these beliefs may affect their actions.

But while well-intentioned, theres mixed evidence that unconscious-bias training works. If theyre not carefully designed, training sessions may become eye-roll-inducing obligations, and some high-profile organisations have controversially dropped the programmes. But before we throw the baby out with the bathwater, its important to ask: What, if anything, should replace unconscious-bias training?

Unconscious bias refers to the deep-seated prejudices we all absorb due to living in deeply unequal societies. Unconscious or implicit bias can lead to instinctive assumptions that a nurse must be a woman or an engineer must be a man, that an Asian woman wont make a good leader, or that a black man will be an aggressive competitor. (In contrast, explicit bias leads someone to deliberately and wilfully discriminate against others.) Unconscious bias can be present even in people who genuinely believe theyre committed to equality; its harder to spot and root out than obvious discrimination.

But that doesnt mean unconscious bias is insignificant. This under-the-surface form of bias can affect health and life in dramatic ways. For example, many medical professionals in the US believe that black patients are less susceptible to pain, and less likely to comply with medical advice than white patients. The quick-fire judgements of police officers are also very fraught; some research suggests that US police instinctively see darker faces as being more criminal. There are also lots of examples of unconscious bias at the recruitment stage. Hiring managers may gravitate to candidates who are similar to them, assume that male candidates are more competent, or see a black-sounding name on an application, and instinctively associate that person with aggression.

As the Black Lives Matter movement has driven demand for reforms, many organisations have considered adopting unconscious-bias training to address their roles in perpetuating racism and inequality. This kind of training seeks to make participants aware of their biases, in a blame-free manner.

The training can take many forms, in-person or online. You might take some form of implicitassociation test, in which youre presented with a quickfire series of images, and have to make rapid judgements of them, e.g. black, white, good, bad. You might attend a presentation about how biases affect people from stigmatised groups, and the ubiquity of such biases.

You might roleplay as a hiring manager, to consider how differently you evaluate mock candidates from different groups. And you might participate in workshops that suggest strategies for overcoming bias, for instance through repeated exposure to counter-stereotypes.

Together with other forms of diversity training, unconscious bias training has become a massive industry. McKinsey estimated in 2017 that each year about $8bn (5.8bn) was spent on diversity training just in the US.

According to Fatima Tresh, a social and organisational psychologist who works for the UK diversity consultancy Delta Alpha Psi, theres been a rapid rise and fall of such training. In 2020, even as organisations have grappled with their anti-racism responsibilities, there was a distinct trend of workplaces moving away from unconscious bias training.

The UKs Civil Service scrapped this training late in 2020, and urged other public-sector organisations to do the same. The UK government argued that implicit bias training had little impact on behaviours or long-term attitudes. For instance, such training had had little effect on the representation of women in management.

Private companies have also experienced conflict over this issue. KPMG is one of many large firms providing unconscious bias training to its employees, which its been rolling out since 2014. In an online meeting made public in February, KPMGs UK chair, Bill Michael, called the concept of unconscious bias complete and utter crap, adding: Because after every single unconscious bias training that has ever been done, nothings ever improved. His comments (on Covid-19 as well as bias training) led to an outcry from staff and others, after which Michael apologised and resigned.

Tresh believes that the backlash against unconscious bias training stems from the attitude that its a tick-box exercise: if everybody in the organisation just attends this e-learning module or quick training session, that will fix all of our problems or will show that were not a biased or discriminatory organisation. Employees may sleepwalk their way through a training session that seems like just an item on a checklist to boost a companys image. And a one-and-done approach to training can create the harmful impression that prejudice can be swiftly and neatly dispatched before returning to business as usual.

Moreover, although this kind of training may be well-intended, a significant body of research suggests that it has limited effects on changing beliefs in the long term, or improving representation of minority groups in the workplace. In the worst cases, the training can backfire making participants feel that they dont need to worry about bias anymore because theyve done the training, or teaching them that such bias can never be eradicated.

Section C: Case study analysis (40%)

Read the case provided below and answer the questions.

	Provide your answers in the spaces provided below	Marks
C1	As a manager, would you support conducting unconscious-bias training in the workplace? Why or why not? Provide at least two justifications (6 marks) 1. 2.
C2	Identify two key stakeholders in the above article. What impact could the issue have on them? (6 marks) Stakeholder 1: Stakeholder 2:
C3	According to this article, evidence suggests that unconscious-bias training can allow employees to be aware of their biases, in a blame-free manner. However, research has also shown that this training method has limited effects on changing beliefs in the long term, or improving representation of minority groups in the workplace. As a manager in a large marketing company, how would you use evidence based management to decide whether unconscious-bias training should be implemented in the workplace? (16 marks)
C4	Can we use ethics to make to make better managerial decisions? In reference to the article above, discuss two potential ethical approaches that we can adopt to make better managerial decisions (12 marks)