We have watched the news of the murders of George Floyd, Ahmad Arbery, Breonna Taylor and many more unfold with horror. We have felt anger and sadness as protests escalated and police violence continued. We have felt fear and anguish for our team in the US (and know that our work tackling racism in the UK isn’t done either).
Mostly, the whole Hive Learning team and I have felt a need to play our part in standing against racism and discrimination in any way we can, however small.
There has been plenty of great advice on social media and in the press on how to be an ally now which we won’t seek to replicate. But for the past three years, we’ve been researching and identifying the practical ways people can be consciously inclusive and overcome the systemic unconscious bias that sits at the heart of so many of our systems.
We’ve built what we’ve learnt into our Inclusion Works programme which companies use to help their people take continuous action against bias. And today we’ve published the parts of the programme that feel relevant today on our website for free.
Our programme isn’t perfect or designed specifically for right now, but if it helps just one person make a difference then we’ll have been glad to help.
Resources range from a summary we’ve written on the book White Fragility, to a Session Guide on how to have a conversation with Black colleagues about what’s happening right now with empathy, trust and compassion, to advice on how to talk about race.
It’s important to remember that none of us are perfect and we’re all on this journey together. We all have bias. It’s unconscious, deep-rooted, and shaped by our social, political, and cultural experiences. No matter how well-intentioned we are, bias is hard to control. But we can control our actions and changing our small, everyday habits to be more consciously anti-racist is critical if we want to create lasting change.
Our programs are all about equipping people with bite-size actions to make daily behavior changes. We’ve favored speed and action over perfection in publishing lots of these pieces of content from our broader programs (which are a journey of content, conversation and reflection with your peers) so if you have any ideas or suggestions on how to make them more relevant right now, do share them with us: julia.tierney@hivelearning.com.
Visit our Resources section on this website to access more great content and feel free to share with your friends and colleagues.
A few quick links:
- Supporting Black colleagues now (conversation guide)
- Book review: White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
- How to talk about race and ethnicity
- Three ways to have bolder conversations about diversity and identity
- Diversity and inclusion glossary (including race)
- How we unwittingly leave people behind
- Book review: The person you mean to be: How good people fight bias by Dolly Chugh
- The 5 main types of privilege
