Earlier this summer, the Ukie team took part in a day of unconscious bias training to ensure everyone at the trade body was aware of its impact (and how to mitigate it).
The training, which was provided by RightTrack Learning, provided an interactive way for the entire Ukie team to get to grips with unconscious bias training.
Beginning with affinity bias, micro-inequities and the halo effect, and moving on to contextualise these to a Ukie ‘day in the life’, as well as to the games industry more broadly, participants reflected on practical ways to safeguard important decisions from personal bias and influence from organisational culture.
“The training was a great opportunity to work with everyone at Ukie from the CEO to the newest member of staff to explore a range of topics. On the day of the training there was an atmosphere of anticipation and all participants fully engaged in what was a wonderfully collaborative event,” said RightTrack Learning’s Diversity & Inclusion expert, Paula Whelan.
The Ukie team got plenty of practical benefits from it too. In a short survey completed after the workshop, the number of people who rated their level of knowledge and understanding of unconscious bias as ‘knowledgeable’ or ‘extremely knowledgeable’ increased from just over half the team to encompass everyone on board.
This is helping the team to shape the way they manage their work on a day to day basis, think about how it speaks to the industry and that the body's incoming diversity initiatives reflect what was learned on the course.
Dr Jo Twist OBE said, “We are committed to making a difference to how modern creative workplaces are shaped to recruit and retain the right people. With games played by such a wide range of people across the world, diversity and inclusion in the workplace is key to making even better games.”
RightTrack Learning has produced a Diversity Benchmarking Tool and Health Check; Attraction, Selection, Development and Retention best practice guides to support the industry in its efforts to tackle challenges such as unconscious bias training.
You can gain access to these guides by signing into the G Into Gaming Diversity Charter.