Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER April 20, 2015 12 NEWS EmploymentSource™ New to WestlawNext® Canada EmploymentSource is your fastest route to the employment and OH&S law you need to expertly advise clients, employers and unions. Be more effective and efficient in your research with the right mix of resources in one online research tool. EmploymentSource combines exclusive expert commentary, case law, legislation and dismissal notice periods, with functionality that is easy to use. Experience the benefits • Prepare winning dismissal litigation strategies • Defend occupational health & safety charges • Advise clients/employers regarding health and safety compliance Visit westlawnextcanada.com/employmentsource or contact us at 1-866-609-5811 for more details 00224VB-A47772 and overlapped. And, personally, I take great off ence to somebody using a blanket statement that 'Police offi cers are racist' because that makes people in our profes- sion — and I think it would make anybody in any vocation — defen- sive," said Kross. " e more we can understand the diff erence between bias and racism, and the more we can cre- ate some distance based on that understanding, the more com- fortable people will be in speak- ing about their own personal bias, and how that may aff ect how they operate on a day-to-day basis." at's why it's so important to understand the concept of im- plicit bias, and that everyone — no matter how well-meaning — has some type of unconscious bias. "If you spend the extra eff ort upfront to get that understanding, once it's understood and accepted, it's easier to go through and have those other very personal discus- sion and those very personal look- in-the-mirror moments in train- ing, rather than having them feel that they need to be defensive all the way through," he said. e discomfort factor actually comes more from explicit biases, said Fridell. "In policing, much of the train- ing has focused on explicit biases and many officers come away believing that the fi nger's been pointed at them, and they've been accused of all having explicit bi- ases," she said. "So the defensiveness on the part of police around this issue comes from our misguided focus on only explicit bias. When we walk into a room — maximum 30 people — they come in with this defensiveness and hostility, and they change their attitude once they start hearing about implicit biases. People accept this. "We're going in and saying, ' is isn't about police — this is about all humans.'" at was one of the most im- portant takeaways from the train- ing, said Kross. "It's so very important that staff understand that the message of recognizing that bias exists in all of us is not an accusatory mes- sage. It's more a message of un- derstanding and self-reflecting on how to make ourselves better at serving the public." Specialized training POLICING < pg. 2 Q&A with the Toronto Police Service Canadian HR Reporter posed the following questions to a group of Toronto police offi cers who went through the FIP training. Here's what they told us: Q: WHY DO YOU FEEL IT'S IMPORTANT TO LEARN ABOUT AND CONFRONT IMPLICIT OR UNCONSCIOUS BIASES — NOT JUST OBVIOUS, EXPLICIT ONES? With the publication of the Police and Community Engagement Review (PACER) report, the Toronto Police Service reaffi rmed its commitment to ensuring personal biases are not applied in the delivery of police services. While we have appropriate disciplinary processes in place for situations of misconduct, we know the overwhelming majority of our offi cers do not act on explicit bias and we must, therefore, look at what else may be impacting their police decision-making. Q: EVERYONE HAS SOME IMPLICIT BIASES BUT IT CAN BE UNCOMFORTABLE TO CONFRONT THEM. DO YOU HAVE ANY THOUGHTS ON THE IMPORTANCE OF FACING AND OVERCOMING THAT DISCOMFORT FACTOR? Learning about bias might be uncomfortable, at fi rst, because people often hear the word 'bias' and assume that it has a negative connotation. However, in order to achieve change, it is important to overcome the discomfort around this topic. The FIP program achieves this by highlighting that it is very normal for humans to have biases and does not label offi cers as anything other than human. Once offi cers understand that, as humans, they too have biases, they can begin to recognize those biases and then fi nd ways to manage them. Q: MANY DIFFERENT ORGANIZATIONS GO THROUGH SOME SORT OF ANTI-BIAS TRAINING, BUT WHY IS IT IMPORTANT THAT THIS TRAINING WAS SPECIFICALLY TAILORED FOR POLICE FORCES? While the science of implicit bias deals with human bias, and is applicable to any industry, the responsibilities and authorities given to police offi cers are unique and extraordinary. Given this, it is important to provide offi cers with information on implicit biases in a context, and with examples, directly related to their policing duties. This enables offi cers to bring their unique knowledge, skills and abilities into the learning environment, thereby integrating their previous experiences with the material being presented. Q: IS THERE ANYTHING IN PARTICULAR YOU LEARNED THROUGH THE TRAINING? One of the key points of this training is we must manage our biases, as well as the biases of others, when dealing with the public and each other. This requires an additional level of vigilance when police managers and supervisors are making decisions with respect to subordinates, for example, in the preparation of performance appraisals. In this context, implicit bias training becomes relevant to human resource management in all industries. "We're going in and saying, ' is isn't about police — this is about all humans.'"

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