KateNasser.com

Leaders, have you suddenly discovered you have a biased company culture? Would you be ready if you did? Recently, the large franchise Jersey Mike’s Subs ended up in the news when a manager fired an employee for being pregnant. How can this happen in 2018?

Biased Company Culture: Are You Remaking Yours?

Biased Company Culture: How Does It Happen?

Yes, this is 2018 (not the 1960’s) and a manager fired an employee for being pregnant. To Jersey Mike’s credit, they fired the manager. Yet we are left with the question how this bias and discrimination can still be around? Some say …

• Lack of management training.

• Greedy company culture that focuses ONLY on money.

• Biased company culture that undervalues female employees.

Others claim that training can’t fix bias. They say that each company should simply have a well-known channel to report bias to the top.

Having channels to overcome bias is helpful in a biased corporate culture. However, remaking the culture must be the goal.

Biased Company Culture: Remake It This Way

1. Ask questions during hiring interviews to unearth bias about women, race, age, etc… Don’t hire those with bias. Also, use the same questions & scenarios before promoting someone to management. Assuming people no longer have old biases is a big mistake.

2. Make discussions about employee value an everyday occurrence at work. It builds a culture of respect, teamwork, and high performance. If leaders speak only about the company goals and profits, they skew what’s important.

3. During employee and management training, focus on the value of having diverse employees not just the laws that prevent discrimination and bias in the workplace. Telling employees we can’t discriminate because it’s illegal leaves people thinking but if we could we would.

4. Hire and promote diverse employees into management. It’s a living example that speaks volumes.

Be proactive and create a non-discriminatory business. Provide training that helps employees see when they might slip into biased remarks or actions. Include role playing on what to say to a boss who is showing bias. Make everyone aware of channels to report it if management doesn’t change their behavior.

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™

©2018 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com for permission and guidelines. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

Tags: attitude, beliefs, bias, business, company, corporate, culture, human resources, leaders, Leadership, management, managers, Mindset, training, values