SACRAMENTO, California (Press Release)– State Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones announced on Monday that unconscious bias training is being provided to California Department of Insurance (CDI) employees. Research shows that despite the prevention of explicit bias, unconscious biases can affect how people make decisions, communicate or interact with one another. Based on this research and the important consumer protection and law enforcement role of the Department, which has frequent interaction with the public, Jones decided to institute training to assist employees and managers tobetter understand and mitigate against any unconscious biases.
California is a very diverse and multi-cultural state with people of many different ethnicities, religions, cultures, races, countries of origin, sexual orientations, genders, disabilities, backgrounds and experiences. Moreover, there are four generations in the workplace at the same time – generations which grew up in very different periods of time. Differences in who we are can result in our bringing unconscious biases into interactions with people different from ourselves, which can result in misunderstanding or conflict. By increasing employees’ and managers’ awareness of unconscious bias, they can better understand how unconscious bias may influence their communications, interactions and decisions and appreciate how eliminating those biases allows their decision-making to be based on objective and relevant considerations.
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Preceding provided by the California Department of Insurance