Unconscious gender bias is still one of the biggest, invisible barriers for women’s advancement in the workplace. Catalyst, the leading global non-profit focuses on creating workplaces that work for women. In 2019, Burns Group worked with Catalyst to to launch a bold campaign on International Women’s Day (IWD). The multi-faceted campaign aimed to shine a light on the power of words and inspire people to #BiasCorrect by paying more attention to theirs.

In 2020 we doubled down on our efforts to #BiasCorrect the workplace, once and for all, focusing on inclusion and the involvement of men. We expanded the campaign to 5 languages and took the experience further by creating a series of videos where our participating women describe a moment they felt defined by unconscious gender bias in their careers, helping us continue to make this issue feel more personal in order to motivate people to join the #BiasCorrect mission.

Challenge 

The truth is gender bias is so ingrained in society that it’s almost automatic, meaning even the most progressive among us can be guilty of it. The good news is once you learn how to identify your own unconscious bias, you can make a conscious choice to work against it. That’s why we created the #BiasCorrect Plug-In—a tool that helps you spot your own unconscious bias in everyday conversations, biases that are stopping women from achieving equality at work.​

The response to the 2019 #BiasCorrect campaign confirmed that many people are unaware of the impact of unconscious gender bias in the workplace, reaching an estimated 188.5 million people.The #BiasCorrect webpage received more than 114,000 visits from 89 countries across six continents, and since 2019, nearly 300 workplace teams have downloaded the #BiasCorrect plugin in Slack. What we weren't seeing; however, was engagement from men. We realized that it was important to continue to educate everyone about how language affects inclusion, so we re-directed our focus on making the campaign more accessible to men as well as non-english speaking audiences.

Solution 

For 2020's campaign, we featured 100 influential women and men sharing their experiences with bias, was spread across digital, social, OOH in 500-plus offices across the U.S., New York City bus shelters and Slack channels.

We extended the #BiasCorrect Slack plugin tool so that it is now available in English, French, German, and Spanish. The plugin, updated by WillowTree for the 2020 campaign, tags unconscious bias in real-time conversations, identifying words that create harmful gender stereotypes by suggesting alternatives, such as "passionate" to replace "emotional" and "boss" to replace "bossy." It is available as an open-source code and can be adapted for other instant-messaging platforms.

The revamped #BiasCorrect website features video testimonials from leaders and influencers who have faced gender bias; customizable social media posts for download; and information on how individuals and companies can combat unconscious bias, including a photo uploader enabling men and women to add their own #BiasCorrect words (available in English, French, German, Spanish, and Japanese).

2020 Results:

49 Million Estimated Donated/ Paid Media Impressions

361 Total Companies using the #BiasCorrect Slack Plug-In

52% Increase Photos Downloaded or Shared from the Photo-Uploader YOY

180% Increase in visiting Countries to Catalyst landing page YOY

33%​ Photo-Uploader Participation from Male Participants