Working in partnership with Harworth’s People team, Steps tailored a programme that mirrored a Steps open session. This interactive pre-existing Microaggressions and Unconscious Bias programme highlighted DEI themes that Harworth wanted to incorporate and displayed the new behaviours they hoped to adopt.
Harworth had the following learning outcomes around unconscious bias that they wanted included in the programme. They wanted to empower employees to:
- Feel more confident in speaking up and starting the conversation around microaggressions and unconscious bias
- Understand different perspectives in the team (including culture, race and gender identities)
- Acquire a greater awareness on microaggressions and “seeing the subtle things”
- Gain a better understanding on allyship
Based on learning outcomes discussed above we established and developed the following Programme objectives:
1. For the participants to leave with a better understanding of microaggressions
2. To feel more comfortable & confident starting conversations about unconscious bias
3. Be able to identify when and how they can display allyship
Delivery:
The 120-minute virtual session was delivered 4 times over 2 days to groups of 30 participants. Harworth invited a cross-section of employees from different departments and different levels of seniority to each session so that there was a mix of experiences and voices in the room. This encouraged shared learning and the senior executive and leadership teams presence and participation demonstrated strong senior leadership investment into the programme.
During the sessions the participants showed a high level of engagement and the interactive sessions provided opportunity for participants to display thoughtful and empathetic coaching techniques which may not otherwise have been successfully achieved