This is based on unconscious bias in the organisations. Explicit bias can be eliminated by policies. But, mitigating unconscious bias is more challenging as it is influenced by the values and beliefs of an individual.

1. ELIMINATING UNCONSCIOUS
BIAS TO PROMOTE
WORKFORCE DIVERSITY

2. Introduction
 Importance of Workplace Diversity: Promoting
diversity is necessary for modern
organizations to enhance creativity and
introduce new ideas at the workplace.
 Creative ideas leads improve
competitiveness.

3. Diversity and Workforce
Development
 Diversity is essential innovation.
 Diverse organization can hire individuals from
different backgrounds and skillsets.
 Therefore, new ideas are introduced.
 Using new ideas, the businesses can remain
unique and maintain quality of services.

4. Diversity and Brand Image
 The diversity improves the brand image.
 With a positive brand image, businesses easily
attract customers, investors and the potential
employees.

5. Diversity and Unconscious Bias
 Unconscious bias is considered as an
automatic response for every individual
(Apsc.gov.au.,2019).
 unconscious bias affects diversity.
 The unconscious bias is shaped by the values
and beliefs of the individuals.
 It causes unintentional discriminatory
behaviour.
 It prevents development of a fully inclusive
workplace (Williamson & Foley, 2018).

6. Literature Review of
Unconscious Bias
 Allen and Garg, (2016): Professional
development programs increase awareness
on unconscious bias. These programs have a
positive relationship with the diversity.
 Noon (2018): training does not impact on
diversity.
 Williamson & Foley (2018): unconscious bias
trainings are effective when those are paired
with sustained interventions to eliminate
discrimination.

7. Types of Unconscious Bias
 The in-group/out-group bias: It is the tendency of the individuals to give
preferential treatment to own group.
 The confirmation bias is the tendency of people to remembering information
as per initial impression.
 Halo effect indicates the tendency to considering everything as positive or
negative based on the attitude towards him/her (Apsc.gov.au.,2019).
 Stereotyping is the tendency of expecting certain characteristics in an
individual based on the background.
 Status-quo is the tendency to maintain the situations.
 The group attribution is s the tendency of attributing the characteristics of
an individual as per the group characteristics.
 The groupthink is the tendency to mimic the thoughts of others in the group.
 It prevents innovative ideas.
 It can be mitigated by making people aware of hidden biases through
education. The programs mitigate unconscious bias by identifying the
automatic responses and modifying those mindfully (Apsc.gov.au., 2019).

8. Literature Review Continued
 Emerson (2017): traditional diversity training
does not address unconscious bias. It also
indicates that the conventional diversity
training does not mitigate the stereotypes.
 In such cases, the training on unconscious
bias is effective to promote diversity in the
workplace.

9. A Google Study
 At Google, the employees who have taken such
training programs, show increased knowledge of
unconscious bias (Rework.withgoogle.com.,
2019).
 They developed the motivation to overcome
unconscious bias.
 A follow-up review revealed persistent changes
after one month of the training.
 Participants viewed Google culture as objective,
fair and diverse than the control group.
 It supports effectiveness of unconscious bias
training to increase workforce diversity.

10. An Opposite View
 Noon (2018): there is no relationship between the
bias and behavioural changes.
 The behavioural change of a single group impacts
less on the entire organization.
 As evident from this study, the training does not
have sociological value.
 The study highlights the need for conducting
further research on the use of different tools and
techniques.
 The study also reveals the importance of
identifying particular contexts to enhance
effectiveness of trainings.

11. An Integrated Approach on
Unconscious Bias Training
 Williamson and Foley (2018) :the integration between other
techniques to promote diversity and the unconscious bias
training (UBT) is crucial.
 Integrated trainings reduce stereotypes, but do not increase
gender equity or diversity directly.
 However, the positive relationship between the training and
reduction in stereotype supports its efficiency.
 the multifaceted interventions and bias training together
reinforce the learning among the professionals.
 Therefore, the multifaceted approaches mitigate unconscious
bias more effectively.
 Targeted strategies need to be used to reduce the effects of
bias.

12. How to Eliminate Explicit and
Unconscious Bias
 The modern organizational leaders eliminate
explicit bias by developing policies. However,
reducing the unconscious bias is still a challenge
to them.
 :The values, beliefs and stereotypes cause
unconscious bias. It poses invisible challenges to
the vulnerable groups and affects organizational
equality.
 . The unconscious bias training enhances
awareness among employees and so, it is
beneficial for the organisations.

13. References
 Allen, B. J., & Garg, K. (2016). Diversity matters in academic radiology: acknowledging and addressing
unconscious bias. Journal of the American College of Radiology, 13(12), 1426-1432.
 Apsc.gov.au. (2019). Balancing the future: The Australian Public Service gender equality strategy 2016-19 |
Australian Public Service Commission. Retrieved 1 August 2019, from https://www.apsc.gov.au/balancing-future-
australian-public-service-gender-equality-strategy-2016-19
 Apsc.gov.au. (2019). Unconscious bias | Australian Public Service Commission. Retrieved 1 August 2019, from
https://www.apsc.gov.au/unconscious-bias
 Behaviouraleconomics.pmc.gov.au. (2019). Going blind to see more clearly: unconscious bias in Australian Public
Service (APS) shortlisting processes | Behavioural Economics. Retrieved 1 August 2019, from
https://behaviouraleconomics.pmc.gov.au/projects/going-blind-see-more-clearly-unconscious-bias-australian-
public-service-aps-shortlisting
 Emerson, J. (2017). Don’t Give Up on Unconscious Bias Training — Make It Better. Retrieved 1 August 2019,
from https://hbr.org/2017/04/dont-give-up-on-unconscious-bias-training-make-it-better
 Noon, M. (2018). Pointless diversity training: unconscious bias, new racism and agency. Work, employment and
society, 32(1), 198-209.
 Rework.withgoogle.com. (2019). re:Work - Guide: Raise awareness about unconscious bias. Retrieved 1 August
2019, from https://rework.withgoogle.com/guides/unbiasing-raise-awareness/steps/learn-about-Googles-
workshop-experiment/
 Williamson, S., & Foley, M. (2018). Unconscious Bias Training: The ‘Silver Bullet’for Gender Equity?. Australian
Journal of Public Administration, 77(3), 355-359.
 Woolworthsgroup.com.au. (2019). Diversity Policy. Retrieved 1 August 2019, from
https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/icms_docs/183931_Diversity_Policy.pdf