Google's 'bias-busting' workshops target hidden prejudices

SAN FRANCISCO — Google was the first to call out unconscious bias for contributing to the systemic lack of diversity in the technology industry.

Now the Internet giant is rolling out "bias-busting" workshops, hands-on sessions that coach Google employees on how to address hidden prejudices.

Nearly 2,000 have taken the workshops, which offer practical tips to small groups of employees, says Brian Welle, director of people analytics at Google.

Google is one of a growing number of companies educating employees on the hidden biases that people harbor in hopes of creating a corporate culture that is more welcoming to different people and ideas.

The Mountain View, Calif., company began training its workforce in unconscious bias with a 90-minute lecture in 2013. Since then, more than half of its nearly 56,000 employees around the globe have taken part.

Awareness of unconscious bias has increased with the Implicit Association Test. Millions have taken the online test, which measures racial prejudices.

People unknowingly take unconscious mental shortcuts based on social norms and stereotypes, social psychologists say. And those mental shortcuts creep into the workplace, leading companies to hire and promote more white men and pay them more than women and minorities. By making employees aware of their implicit biases, Google is trying to shift their thinking and behavior, Welle said.

"It has been tremendously eye-opening for people," Welle says. "The tech industry overall has this belief that it's the most meritocratic industry of all and that bias and discrimination do not have a home here. Once people learn that they are inadvertently perpetuating bias, they want to change."

Google's approach has made more people conscious of hidden bias in Silicon Valley, says Jonathan Brack, a consultant working with technology companies on diversity efforts. And that, he says, is a good thing.

"It disarms the whole conversation," Brack says. "Rather than thinking about this as a problem about a handful of bad apples or racist people, it creates a space where we can all talk about the different biases we have. This is a people problem. We all have this issue."

It was never much of a secret that tech companies were, and are, largely staffed by white and Asian men. But for years the workforce demographics of technology companies were a closely guarded secret.

That changed in May 2014 when Google published a report that revealed the lopsided demographics of its employees. Seven out of 10 people who work at Google are men. Latinos make up just 3% of the workforce, African Americans 2%. The disclosure set off a wave of similar reports from Facebook, Apple, Yahoo and others.

But Google was already trying to disrupt the status quo inside its own walls.

Laszlo Bock, Google's executive in charge of human resources, read an article in 2012 about a study that attributed discrimination against female applicants for scientific jobs in academia to unconscious bias. He wondered if Google might have fallen prey to it, too.

Determined to "make the unconscious, conscious," Bock asked Welle to spearhead the project.

"These biases are shaped by our experiences and by cultural norms, and allow us to filter information and make quick decisions," Bock wrote in a blog post. "We've evolved to trust our guts. But sometimes these mental shortcuts can lead us astray, especially when they cause us to misjudge people. ... Combating our unconscious biases is hard, because they don't feel wrong; they feel right. But it's necessary to fight against bias in order to create a work environment that supports and encourages diverse perspectives and people. Not only is that the right thing to do, but without a diverse workforce, there's a pretty good chance that our products ... won't work for everyone."

Bias training "introduced the language of bias," Welle says. Now it's part of the daily conversation at Google, with employees "owning it and challenging each other all the time," he says.

"I was inspired by the fact that Google was thinking seriously and deeply about this. The science behind it was really compelling," says Jason Buberel, a product manager at Google.

He says he felt helpless when talking with women engineers who said they planned to switch careers. He wanted to figure out a way for women to want to stay in engineering.

After taking the crash course in unconscious bias, he signed up to train his fellow employees.

Buberel started giving sessions about two years ago and has trained about 1,000 employees.

"It was directly applicable to my ability to be an effective leader," he says.

Google now has a culture where employees feel comfortable calling out and being held accountable for unconscious bias, Buberel says.

"Like any cultural transformation, it's going to take years. It's not like tomorrow there is not going to be any more bias at Google," Buberel said. "But at least we are headed in the right direction."

Still, some question just how effective unconscious bias training is. And Brack says it's just a starting point in transforming technology into an industry that treats everyone fairly.

"It's really a great first step to make this very accessible for people but it is just that, a first step," Brack says. "It will only get you so far."