This post is written by Sebastian Salomon-Ballada, Michelle Krieger and Lila Tublin from The Behavioural Insights Team.

  • The problem: Racist practices and policies in government.
  • Why it matters: Government organisations should be advancing anti-racism internally and externally.
  • The solution: Use evidence-led strategies to ensure anti-racism is embedded in the workplace and policy.

Anti-racism requires constant work — and must take many different forms both within and outside public service. But where should you start? Here are a few evidence-informed practices and ideas that can help advance anti-racism internally and externally at your organisation.

Every public servant has the power — and duty — to resist racist practices and policies.

Internal: Becoming a more anti-racist organisation

Based on our review of research from behavioural science and other relevant fields, we suggest the following strategies to build anti-racism into your organisation.

**Establish goals or targets around diversity in hiring and advancement. **

For example, a goal could be to ensure that organisational leaders reflect the specific demographics of the general population. Targets like this, and data collection practices to back them up, provide benchmarks for success and transparency, which is critical to advancing anti-racism. The private sector has seen positive results using this approach. Once quotas for gender were mandated in Fortune 500 company boards, the number of women on boards and in leadership increased. Audits (e.g., interviewing staff and candidates, analysing data, etc.) of hiring processes and pipelines can help you determine where targets are needed and how to allocate resources to make progress.

Appoint a diversity manager and/or task force.

Designating a person or group to identify anti-racist strategies, review progress regularly, and hold others accountable, can help organisations become more diverse and equitable. A large-scale analysis of US firms showed that the presence of a diversity task force correlated with a significant increase in women and people of colour in managerial roles. However, to do their job effectively, diversity managers must have the support of leadership plus adequate resources and authority.

Make institutional changes that last.

Many anti-racist initiatives target individual or interpersonal racist behaviour. While this is important, it can be even more impactful — and more sustainable — to implement policy changes across your organisation. For instance, if one manager uses a new strategy for debiasing the interview process, but it’s not adopted within the entire department, it will only have limited benefits. People’s behaviours are shaped by their environment. If their environment reinforces the status quo, sustaining new, anti-racist behaviours will be more difficult.

External: Bring an anti-racist lens to policy advising

Beyond being anti-racist as an organisation, it is key to ensure anti-racism is embedded in your work. The following practices can be an important start.

**Ensure that racial equity is an explicit priority from the start. **

‘Colour-blind’ efforts that downplay race or remove it from decision-making can perpetuate racism because they ignore the reality of how decisions can affect groups differently. Ensuring that anti-racism goals are clearly defined from the beginning of your policy project will help set the course for stronger outcomes for all. Policies that support Black and Indigenous people support everyone.

Prioritise voices that have been historically excluded in research.

When developing or advising on policies, it’s critical to incorporate the perspectives of those who the policy will impact most. This first-hand expertise is invaluable and will lead to more innovative and effective policies. Be sure to compensate people appropriately for their time and effort.

**Consider how a policy will affect different groups. **

There is no such thing as a racially neutral policy. Every single one comes with consequences that can affect people differently depending on their race, gender, age, and more. Examining differential impacts (both intended and unintended) of policy initiatives is vital to anti-racist policy advising. Using disaggregated data can help you pinpoint outcome disparities for certain groups.

Every public servant has the power — and duty — to resist racist practices and policies. We hope you’ll choose one of these ideas to get started.

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