Workhuman Introduces Industry-First Feature to Uncover Unconscious Bias in Workplace Recognition

This article was written Derek Irvine, Senior Vice President, Client Strategy & Consulting at Workhuman, and edited by Jonathan Finlay

Words matter when building a culture of inclusion, equity, and belonging in the workplace; in fact, Workhuman research estimates implicit bias in the workplace is 20%-30% of written communications, even in a positive setting. As such, Workhuman has developed a new tool that improves how employees effectively and appropriately communicate.

Inclusion Advisor uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to detect words and phrases in an employee award nomination that may contain unconscious bias, and it provides meaningful suggestions to replace with more appropriate language. It is an industry-first tool used within Workhuman’s Social Recognition platform specifically designed to stimulate an organization’s diversity, equity and inclusion campaign.

According to Gartner, “By 2022, more than 75% of large enterprises will include diversity and inclusion (D&I) enablement criteria in their selection process for HCM technologies.”

“Companies that don’t prioritise diversity, equity, and inclusion face the prospect of missing out on recruiting and retaining the best talent,” said Eric Mosley, Workhuman CEO. “Inclusion Advisor allows for teachable moments in real time and allows companies to reinforce diversity and inclusion training at every level of the organization. And this just the beginning, as we expect to expand this to other product lines we offer.”

Workhuman – Changing Communications Workplaces

Workhuman has developed the world’s first database that catalogues bias used in everyday workplace communications. Inclusion Advisor works by finding subtleties in words that may be perceived as bias. In the example here, Inclusion Advisor identifies that the words “role model for other women” may suggest someone is only able to impact those in her own gender and recommends using gender neutral terms like “a great model for everyone” or “a great role model”.

“We recently added Inclusion Advisor in a pilot, and it’s going incredibly well because it really helps us write the language around rewarding and recognizing,” said Celeste Warren, Vice President of Global Diversity and Inclusion for Merck, an early-access customer of Inclusion Advisor. “It helps us recognize people and ensure we’re using words that are inclusive and instill confidence, and it really helps people feel good about their reward.”

Inclusion Advisor will be available to all Workhuman Cloud customers later this year. Qualifying customers can become part of Workhuman’s early-access Inclusion Advisor program now. Click here to learn how Inclusion Advisor can help drive a better DE&I strategy.