What can you do next?

Reflect on what you have learned in working through these materials. Articulate and write down key points you want to take away and prioritise.

Identify areas where you feel you can address and can get rid of bias in your workplace and take your time to work these through. Take a look at the data in and about your department and service. What story does it tell about the composition of your teams? About the users of your services? About equity and inclusion? The data can often help to identify areas to explore further and which are a good place to start.

Here are some questions you could use to query the data you have and the practices in your organisation.

• How many staff are from black and minority ethnic backgrounds and what roles do they occupy?
• How many non-male staff do you have in your department?
• How many LGBTQ+ staff do you have as an organisation, in each team, department or in the leadership team?
• How many disabled, non-male or black and minority ethnic staff do you have at leadership level?
• Is there equal access for disabled staff in your workplace?
• What is the experience of staff from disabled, non-male or black and minority backgrounds? How does it differ from ‘the average’? You could conduct regular inclusion and engagement surveys to obtain an understanding of concerns and challenges facing your staff in your department.

Here are some other activities you might consider to promote a culture of equality and inclusion in your organisation.

• Explore reverse mentoring whereby senior leaders are mentored by more junior colleagues who, from a diversity and inclusion perspective, are different from them in some way, and therefore may experience their career differently.
• Set up schemes to encourage diversity at the senior management level.
• As a department explore, opportunities to celebrate and support events and festivals connected to a diverse range of social groups and communities.
• Set up networks for different groups but which are inclusive of all, including allies.
• Join the Freedom to speak up Guardian initiative.
• Healthcare science STP trainees could join the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Scientist Trainee Network. Further details about the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Network are available.
• Get others in your department to complete understanding bias training.

Bias is part of human nature. It is something that we can all have but we also have the ability to change. This can be done by allowing ourselves to pause for a moment to make intentional and conscious decisions, and to reflect on the assumptions we are making, instead of going with some of our brain’s automatic responses. Discovering what our biases are gives us the power to change and to have a positive impact in our workplace.