Debiasing Your Workplace

Today’s workplaces are expected to be equitable, diverse and inclusive. One of the biggest barriers to achieving such a workplace is our biases. While we all have biases, it is important to be cognizant about them in our actions. In the workplace, biases can hinder our ability to make thoughtful and informed decisions about who to hire and promote. Biases can also shape a workplace’s culture, impacting everything from contributions that are valued and rewarded, to retention practices.

In this webinar, we will explore different types of bias, how they contribute to systemic barriers that many historically and persistently marginalized groups face in the Canadian workforce, and strategies to support ‘debiasing’. By the end of the session you will have a deeper understanding of biases; how they work, how they can limit diversity and inclusion and what to do to interrupt these beliefs, attitudes, and stereotyped ways of thinking that impact our behaviors and decision making.

By the end of the session participants will be able to:

  1. Identify what biases are and why we have them
  2. Explain how biases can limit diversity and inclusion
  3. Challenge biases that impact our behaviors and decision making

About the Speakers

Rachael Sullivan, PhD’13

Rachael lives, learns and works on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) and Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) People, as a settler. Rachael joined the Equity and Inclusion Office (EIO) in 2014 after completing her doctorate in the Department of Sociology. Since then, Rachael has worked with a variety of students, staff and faculty members of UBC to raise awareness and implement practices and processes that embed equity and inclusion to better support the diversity of the campus community. One such project is the launching of the Beyond the Binary @ UBC video. Currently, Rachael is working closely with the Office of the VP of Research and Innovation, co-leading the UBC Inclusive Washroom Consultation, and supporting the engagement with conflict through Conflict Theatre @ UBCPronouns: She/her/hers

Greg Lockwood

Greg is an uninvited settler living on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) and Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) People, and an Equity Facilitator with UBC’s Equity and Inclusion Office (EIO). In his current role, Greg works closely with UBC Vancouver’s Faculty of Applied Science and UBC Okanagan’s School of Engineering. Prior to joining the EIO as a Planning & Evaluation Strategist in 2019, Greg spent seven years with the Social Research and Demonstration Corporation supporting evaluations of interventions designed to improve outcomes of marginalized populations. Greg holds an MA in Economics from Simon Fraser University and is currently a student in UBC Sauder’s first cohort of the Behavioural Insights certificate program that began in September. Pronouns: He/him/his

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