This International Women’s Day and beyond, help your organization fight bias

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Bias is holding women and workplaces back

73% of women experience bias at work—yet less than a third of employees are able to recognize bias when they see it. Whether deliberate or unconscious, bias makes it harder for women to get hired and promoted, and negatively impacts their day-to-day work experiences. By learning to recognize and choosing to challenge bias, we can create a fairer and more inclusive workplace for all.

That’s why we’re joining forces with International Women’s Day’s 2021 initiative to #ChooseToChallenge bias. We’re committed to supporting you in arming your employees, managers, and leaders with the tools to push back against bias and inequity—because from challenge comes change.

#ChooseToChallenge bias at work with

50 Ways to Fight Bias is a program to empower all employees to identify and challenge bias head-on. Pairing a group activity with an optional video series, the program highlights more than 50 specific examples of the biases women experience at work—including compounding biases because of their race, sexual orientation, disability, or other aspects of their identity—and offers research-backed recommendations for what to do. 50 Ways to Fight Bias has been used by thousands of organizations, including Amazon, Fossil Group, PayPal, SurveyMonkey, and The Wharton MBA Program—and 90% of employees who’ve participated say they know what specific actions to take when they see bias against women in the workplace.

50 Ways to Fight Bias is available for free digitally here, and is optimized for both virtual and in-person workshops. We created an International Women's Day-themed presentation of 50 Ways to Fight Bias to make it easy for you to bring this program to your organization. We’ll have this presentation available in Arabic, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazilian), and Spanish in the coming weeks. Plus, you can join one of our upcoming company webinars to learn more about running this program at your company.

Back of card: What to do - try asking, “Why do you think hiring women would lower the bar?” Restating their words may prompt your colleague to rethink their assumption. You can also explain why it matters. Longer term, push your company to use standardized hiring criteria.197 That way, the bar will be set before the hiring process begins, so all candidates will be evaluated against it and the notion that “we lowered the bar” is likely to fade.

Front of card: Situation - over lunch, your colleague says, “It’d be great to hire more women, but I worry about lowering our bar.”

Back of card: What to do - When a woman gets interrupted, speak up. You might say, “I’d like to hear the rest of [Name’s] thoughts” or “[Name] raised an important point. I’d like to consider it further before we move on.” If you’re leading a meeting, reduce interruptions by following an agenda and asking people to contribute in a structured way. You might say, “Let’s go around the room and get everyone’s ideas.” You can also invite individual women in the room to contribute their opinions.

Front of card: 'Situation - You’re in a meeting and a woman colleague is spoken over or interrupted.'

Back of card: What to do – Speak up. Say you’d like to hear your coworker’s point of view, and push back on the suggestion that she’s too emotional or irrational. You could say, “[Name] doesn’t seem heated to me. I think she’s making some really great points. [Name], can you go on?”

Front of card: Situation - In a meeting, someone says to a Latina, “I can see you’re getting fired up,” when she has been speaking firmly but calmly.

Back of card: If you feel comfortable, you could raise the question directly in the meeting: “Do we set these goals for women of color?” You could also speak to your manager or HR team afterward about the importance of setting goals that combine gender and race.

Front of card: 'Situation - At an all-staff meeting, your company’s leaders share concrete goals for hiring, promoting, and retaining women, but it’s clear they haven’t set goals for women of color specifically.'

Developed in collaboration with experts and partner organizations including Stanford VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab, Executive Leadership Council, Minda Harts, National Urban League, Paradigm, UnidosUS, and many more.

Get started hosting your
50 Ways workshop

Download the IWD presentation

Download the presentation in Arabic, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Ways you can use 50 Ways to Fight Bias

Incorporate into team meetings

You could discuss one example of bias—or watch and discuss one of the bias overview videos—during each team meeting throughout the month of March.

Share on internal channels

Ask leaders and managers to regularly highlight a specific example of bias on internal communications platforms (e.g., employee portal, email, Slack).

Review before hiring and promotions processes

Research shows bias often affects staffing decisions, and 50 Ways can be used to remind stakeholders how to avoid common pitfalls.

Check out more ways companies are using this program to fight bias at work.

More ways we can help you support women at your organization

Read Women in the Workplace 2020

Our latest report finds that one in four women are considering downshifting their careers or leaving the workforce—which could wipe out years of progress on gender diversity.

Connect and support the women at your organization

Lean In Circles can help you support the women in your organization during COVID-19. Circles are small groups of women who come together regularly to mentor and support each other.

Bring Circles to your organization

Visit the International Women’s Day website

For the latest on International Women’s Day 2021, resources, other events, and much more.

Visit site

This International Women’s Day and beyond, help your organization fight bias

Bias is holding women and workplaces back