Tag Archives: Multicultural Organizational Development

What is MCOD?!

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MCOD Progress Timeline

MCOD stands for Multicultural Organization Development, and since 2015 BHRS has been working on our MCOD plan to advance equity, diversity, and inclusion principles in the workplace. This framework was established to support BHRS’ ability to work effectively and respectfully with people from diverse cultural, linguistic, and social backgrounds.

To achieve this, the MCOD Action Plan was developed to focus on three key areas:

1) The recruitment, retention, and promotion of diverse staff at ALL levels, including leadership,
2) the creation of a brave workplace environment in which speaking out, respectful dialogue, and acknowledging differences is accepted and encouraged, and
3) promoting transparency and collaboration in decision-making and policy-making to ensure that those who are most impacted have meaningful participation.

Each of these areas has specific strategies, activities, and tasks to make progress towards a more inclusive organization. To begin this work, BHRS rolled out a survey in 2019 to measure our culture among staff. Since 2019 leadership team members have been surveyed to better understand the organizational climate and sentiment around MCOD. For example, 73% of BHRS leadership members currently agree that BHRS values diversity at all levels of the organization. In addition, BHRS executive team members were assigned, and subcommittees were formed to oversee the progress in each plan area. As we begin 2022, we look forward to supporting the subcommittee work and beginning to engage all BHRS staff in these efforts.

For more information on the MCOD action plan please click here. For any questions, please contact Frances Lobos at flobos@smcgov.org

Written by Frances Lobos, Office of Diversity & Equity

Are Implicit Bias Trainings Enough to Actually Stop Incidents Like Philadelphia Starbucks?

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On 4/12, two black men were sitting at a table at Starbucks without making a purchase and were arrested when declining a store manager’s demand to leave.

Since then, Starbucks’ CEO Kevin Johnson has announced changes to its policy including mandatory implicit bias tests, shutting down all US Starbucks stores on May 29th. This opens larger conversations about what is implicit bias, how it can be harmful, and whether Starbucks’ implicit bias test can actually make a difference.

Implicit bias refers to the automatic associations people have in their minds about a group of people, including stereotypes. They are formed subconsciously and unintentionally, but result in the prejudiced behaviors, attitudes, and actions for or against a person or group of people.

According to CNN, studies have shown that implicit bias contributes to “shooter bias”, the tendency for the police to shoot unarmed black suspects more often than white ones

Starbucks’ Implicit Bias training intends to combat the issue of implicit bias. However according to Cornell professor, Michelle Duguid’s research, sometimes implicit bias trainings have a negative effect on its audience; by explaining to people that stereotyping is common, people are sometimes actually more likely to express those biases.

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