Employers help make workers aware of biases
Program helps make workers aware of unconscious biases
Akua Serwaa-Sefa, a professonal development program employee at Unum, joined the insurance company from Atlanta two months ago, in part because she says she saw Unum as an inclusive employer interested in promoting a diverse staff for the future.
But even the new hire who is working in Unum’s office of diversity and inclusion concedes she discovered some of her own unconscious bias toward others Monday from an interactive audio program designed to teach people about ways to “check your blindspots.” After listening to how a landlord was reluctant to rent to a single mother, SerwaaSefa said she realized how often single mothers are viewed differently and she signed a pledge to avoid such bias.
“All of us, whether we want to admit it or not, have some biases and we need to constantly be aware of that and takes steps to counter those biases,” she said after going through the mobile training unit brought to Chattanooga Monday by the CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion.
Unum, EPB and BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee are among more than 700 companies across the country which have joined the business coalition to help develop better ways to promote equity, diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
Kelly King, a partner in the accounting firm of Pricewaterhosue Coopers, which helped start the CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion, said the training bus in Chattanooga helps people see how they may be making judgments or assumptions about people’s character, abilities and potential.
“That’s our unconscious biases or blind spots at play,” she said. “Left unchecked, these unconscious biases can hinder progress and influence the way we treat each other, especially in the workplace.”
King said creating an inclusive workforce is not only good for society,it is good economics for businesses as they try to recruit workers in a tight labor market.
“People want to work where they feel included,” she said.
The Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce is also trying to promote more diversity across the community to help attract more talent to the city and to help retain more workers in the region.
Christy Gillenwater, who became the first female CEO of the Chattanooga Chamber last year, said working toward inclusion and diversity is sometimes hard.
“People have to be thoughtful about the words they choose and how they act,” she said.
But as a training bus offered workers interactive videos and exercises to highlight ways that people may inadvertently display their biases against those who are different from them, Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke appealed to Chattanoogans on Monday to do more to stand up against explicit examples of hate and discrimination. In the wake of the weekend mass shootings, Berke appealed to Chattanoogans to stand up against racism and hate like what was exhibited by a shooter in El Paso who shot 46 persons, killing 22 of them, in a crowded Walmart on Saturday.
“This weekend, 20 people were murdered by a white supremacist in El Paso, Texas — a city that looks a lot like ours,” Berke said. “In the past 18 months, 63 people have been murdered by white supremacists in our county. This is wrong; this is not what we are about, and on behalf of Chattanooga I stand up here and say hate has no harbor in our city, we do not accept this and this is not the way it is going to be in Chattanooga.”
Berke, who created a Council Against Hate 18 months ago, said some initially questioned why such a council would be necessary.
“Isn’t everybody against hate?” Berke asked. “In fact, what we have seen in the past year and a half is that it is sadly relevant in 2019. For all of us, we have the duty to speak out. For us to not only be safe but to flourish we have to fight back against the forces that are all too prevalent in our society.”