Challenge:

Arm’s global diversity and inclusion strategy, ‘Project EveryOne’ has been running successfully for several years. We partnered with Arm in 2016 to develop their training on managing unconscious bias, which has been run successfully by internal Arm trainers since its inception.

As the world entered a phase of lockdown in March 2020, it was essential that Arm’s work on promoting an inclusive culture continued. Arm approached us to convert their existing face-to-face training on managing unconscious bias into a highly engaging virtual session, reaching a global workforce.

Solution:

We adapted the original face-to-face version of the training we had developed to deliver as virtual sessions. In order to keep the virtual sessions as engaging as the original ones, we reduced each session to one hour but kept the core content and interactive exercises that participants had valued from the face-to-face sessions. Moreover, we were able to deliver this training with participants from different countries joining the sessions, so colleagues were able to meet people they wouldn’t usually see and were able to discuss their different perspectives. Each session covered:

• Exploring the nature of unconscious bias and its various forms;
• Discussing the impact of bias on our decision making, relationships, and workplace culture;
• Practical tools for managing the influence of bias in the workplace.

Participants had the opportunity to discuss the topic with colleagues from around the world, and share a range of perspectives. In addition to the practical tools introduced, colleagues left with clear signposting towards Arm’s internal D&I resources, which allowed them to continue these conversations with their teams.

Outcome/ results:

The feedback on these sessions has been excellent.

Some statistics from the sessions:

• 94% of participants said that they would recommend attending the session to a colleague.
• 97% of participants left the workshop with a better understanding of unconscious bias.
• 97% of participants left feeling motivated to contribute to Arm’s inclusive workplace culture.

Quotes from participants:

• The workshop was really informative and offered great tools to apply to everyday working
• It was really good – recommend booking onto a session if you haven’t already! Well worth an hour of your time. Super informative and interactive
• This workshop must be made mandatory to all.