Understanding and Overcoming Racial Bias
Racial polarisation negatively impacts culture, productivity and service
Racial polarisation lies at the root of most problems experienced by South African businesses and is the underlying reason for problematic corporate cultures, poor productivity, and below-par customer service. Dealing with it is a business imperative.
Thankfully, these critical issues can be addressed. Humans are not born racist. They learn to become racist through a multitude of avenues, including parental teachings, childhood experiences, systemic and institutionalised racial conditioning, societal influences and deliberate isolation, to name a few.
These experiences are moulded into a set of rules that develop in our minds and which we draw on to dictate our thinking, our behaviours, and the way we interact with people who are different to us within the workplace.
This set of rules is a shortcut. It does our thinking for us. One of the reasons that racism continues unabated is our reluctance to engage in the uncomfortable conversations that are required to circumvent this shortcut and sensitise us about the underlying issues and root causes of social injustice and systemic racial polarisation.
When racism in the workplace is not addressed:
Employees do not feel safe and respected and will not focus on customer service because they do not feel the organisation cares about them.
Colleagues cannot properly collaborate or innovate because they are essentially operating in a hostile environment.
Overall workplace productivity drops, revenues decrease and customer loyalty declines.
Solving Race Relations in the Workplace
The Hatch Institute has created two virtual workshops that help teams overcome their racial biases in order to effectively work together from a place of mutual respect.
- Attendees will dig into their past and identify how both their conscious and unconscious biases were developed
- They will be exposed to the true history of South Africa and the issue of systemic racism
- They will develop a plan to challenge their own biases and develop ways to overcome them.
- They will discover what they can each do to make a difference.
- They will learn about:
Paradigms and unconscious bias
The differences between prejudice, discrimination, and racism
White privilege and Black Economic Empowerment
The impact of racism on productivity and service
The impact of race relations on corporate culture
Diversity and inclusion
The importance of a sense of belonging and common purpose in the company
VIRTUAL WORKSHOP
Addressing racial polarisation as a team
Overcoming and understanding racial bias is a virtual workshop that brings people together for a journey of self-discovery. Businesses can choose between a 6-hour condensed workshop or a 12-hour extensive workshop.
6-Hour Virtual Company Workshop: Understanding and overcoming racial bias
Condensed virtual workshop. Duration is 3 modules of 2 hours each, to be completed over a course of ten days.
| PREWORK |
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| MODULE 1 Duration 2 hours |
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| MODULE 2 Duration 2 hours |
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| MODULE 3 Duration 2 hours |
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12-Hour Virtual Company Workshop: Understanding and overcoming racial bias
Comprehensive virtual workshop. Duration is 4 modules of 3 hours each, to be completed over a course of two weeks.
| PREWORK |
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| MODULE 1 Duration 3 hours |
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| MODULE 2 Duration 3 hours |
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| MODULE 3 Duration 3 hours |
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| MODULE 4 Duration 3 hours |
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Are you ready to transform your organisation?
What our clients have to say
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