Leveraging communication campaign to educate 10k+ workforce on Unconscious Bias
Background: An Indian MNC with a global presence had the strategic goal of increase its female representation. Towards this, they were keen to sensitize all the employees on how biases manifest at the workplace and become roadblocks in both hiring and retaining female employees. Re-Link was consulted to design a powerful education program, that would address all the employees at once.
The Challenge:We had to address three key challenges in designing the right solution:
1) Ensuring a common understanding of gender stereotypes across the 10,000-strong workforce.
2) Addressing employees with different levels of understanding. The program had to speak to all.
3) Overcoming the logistical challenge of organizing sensitization sessions for such a large group across global locations and time zones.
Our Solution: Our signature intervention- The Hidden Mind campaign was recommended as a solution. Delivered in a story-telling style through comics, the theories and the science behind biases was shared. A variety of mediums were used to speak to different learning styles: Gamification, Videos, Creatives and Emailers. Gender stereotypes were challenged by sharing of fun-facts and bite sized content, using the internal platforms.
We used this format in order to engage employees in a constructive manner, with a focus on self-awareness and self-discovery on biases, behaviours and attitudes.
The program also had a built-in mechanism to check for understanding and application of the learnings. Scenario-based Quizzes, online games and invitations to reframe the biases in different situations formed part of the campaign.
In order to make the messaging culturally relevant, as a pre-work, we carried out a listening exercise through one-to-one interviews. This helped us to surface the issues that were relevant to the organization’s internal culture.
Outcomes: The Hidden Mind campaign garnered an overwhelming response:
- 68% of the employees actively participated in the learning journey.
- At least 30% of employees mentioned that they appreciate how exclusion can impact one’s well-being.
- 75% of the Leaders and People Managers acknowledged that they became more aware of their biases and gender stereotypes.
- Post the campaign, the leaders also openly shared their dilemmas which often stops them from hiring women. We therefore designed another program to educate the leaders on their dilemmas and ways to address them.