Unconscious bias has an enormous impact on an organization's ability to foster an inclusive culture. How can organizational leaders cost-effectively train large numbers of employees to understand the impact of unconscious bias and to also build skills that mitigate its impact in the workplace?

To address the barrier of unconscious bias and to build inclusion, Catalyst developed the online professional development training, “Unconscious Bias: From Awareness to Action” This course teaches employees at all levels about unconscious bias, its effect on the workplace and workplace culture, and provides step-by-step practices and skills to make better and less biased decisions. This online course is less than two hours and can be audited for free on the edX platform or integrated into an organization’s Learning Management Systems.  Catalyst Supporters will also have access to a post-course facilitation guide to help employees brainstorm on how to apply the learnings to their own departments, business functions or teams. 

General course outline:

• Part 1: Building Awareness
  • What is unconscious bias?
  • How unconscious bias affects work.
  • In-groups and out-groups.
  • Recognizing common workplace biases.
• Part 2: Taking Action
  • Learning skills by changing habits.
  • Skill 1: Testing Your Assumptions, broken down into clear steps.
  • Skill 2: Being Inclusive Every Day, broken down into clear steps.
  • Setting effective goals to make progress.

More than 387,000 learners have enrolled in Catalyst’s online trainings, which also include “Communication Skills for Bridging Divides” and three courses in the series “Inclusive Leadership Training.”

Emily Troiano