Workshop 1

Inclusive Decision-Making

5 June 2024, 10.00 - 13.00 (online - Zoom)

This workshop will:

• Set the context, including a brief explanation of the questions – why here? Why now? Why so important? What has changed? The conversation will involve an exploration of common perceptions of racism and comparing these to modern racism with its far-reaching impact on education, careers, health, and everyday well-being. This will lead into a discussion of why racism is hard to discuss in the workplace, and therefore hard to change.
• Outline the mindset and behaviours of an inclusive manager
• Show the links between the race exclusion experience, performance, and well-being.
• Define the relationship between diversity and inclusion, and the instrumental role of managers to promote both.
• Discuss the nature and power of unconscious bias and how it plays out in people-related decisions (e.g., in performance management).
• Show the impact of homophily and the propensity to managerially favour those we feel we have something in common with.

Workshop 2

Inclusive Relationships

2 July 2024, 10.00 - 13.00 (online - Zoom)

This workshop will:

• Define and explain the impact of micro-incivilities on the workplace experience of minority ethnic employees, compared to their White colleagues. This will include an examination of power dynamics.
• Highlight some common leadership missteps that hold these micro behaviors in place so that they go unnoticed (e.g., traditional notions of ‘talent,’ and the criteria used assess career potential). Whilst managers can have a strong intellectual engagement with these topics, the presence of these missteps, can lead to racial stereotyping, inaccurate assumptions, and the misinterpretation of behaviors. This is particularly in relation to career progression at Imperial, and about how talent is measured.
• The implications of ‘in and out groups’ in the team, and how these disrupts connectivity for ethnic minority staff, leading to feelings of exclusion from the team and their managers.

Workshop 3

Building a Race Inclusive Culture and Psychological Safety

5 August 2024, 10.00 - 13.00 (online - Zoom)

This workshop will:

• Focus on how managers can create an environment of psychological safety, to ensure that minoritised staff have equal voice, and are safe to speak up without fear of rejection, ridicule, or misjudgment.
• Identify the types of behaviors that make a genuine difference in creating a more race-inclusive working environment, including the managerial complexities of hybrid working. These may include perspective-taking, allyship, advocacy, and curiosity.

Workshop 4

Review and action planning

6 September 2024, 10.00 - 13.00 (online - Zoom)

If the expectation is that conversations about race and racism must become part of managers’ everyday thinking and dialogue, then it is important to consider how to keep the momentum flowing.

Participants will be asked to come prepared to share their experiences of actions taken since the programme began – what they did differently, what they observed, how they felt, and an assessment of the outcome. Also, they will be asked to consider what priorities these steps signpost for their future as race-confident managers serving a globalised community in the University.