Our latest Gender Equality Network was one of the most fascinating yet. DCA’s Research Director, Dr Jane O’Leary, delivered an evidence-based overview of inclusion nudges – highlighting what they are, why they’re important, and providing examples of how it works.
Organisations who have implemented inclusion nudges in their own workplaces also talked about the challenges and opportunities they faced while rolling out this innovative approach to building inclusion.
So … you’re interested. You have questions. And here we address some of the most common ones …
What are nudges?
Nudging is based on behavioural economics. It’s a hack, if you will. And focuses on changing the environment to outsmart and interrupt our unconscious biases, rather than just relying on individuals to do this themselves. So at work, it involves tweaking and making adjustments to office organisational policies, processes and practices. Nudging people, rather than just training them, towards more inclusive choices.
The bottom line is, it can be a lot easier just to de-bias the environment rather than take on the might of the human mind, with all its complexities and implicit biases. Research shows that training has mixed results and limited success.
Why are nudges important?
For the reasons mentioned above, you cannot rely just on training. To de-bias the mind takes constant vigilance. And in the modern, always-on work culture, this kind of constant vigilance can be overwhelming, unsustainable and ineffective.
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