All About Accents: How to Reduce Bias and Barriers, and Increase Inclusion
For some employees, English is their first language. For others, it's not. In the globalized workplace, this mélange of English can produce communication challenges within and across teams. Discover how to manage one of those challenges: accents. Since communication is a two-way street, we consider both the speaker and the listener. It's true: accents sometimes cause misunderstandings. But equally important are listeners' implicit biases toward accents. Addressing these biases can boost productivity and increase inclusion.
Workplace Application: By the end of the session, participants will be able to distinguish accent bias from accent misunderstandings and identify strategies to overcome communication barriers, for both speakers and listeners.
Learning Objectives:
1) Distinguish accent bias from true accent misunderstandings
2) Develop effective intervention strategies for speakers: employees whose accents may result in misunderstandings
2) Develop effective intervention strategies for listeners: employees who may have implicit biases against accents
Karen Schiff
Karen Schiff, founder of Well Said Coaching, has helped hundreds of professionals speak with greater clarity, confidence, and impact. She specializes in coaching non-native English speakers—from emerging professionals to C-level executives. Her clients have worked at companies such as Google, Apple, Deloitte, UCSF Health, and many more.
Throughout her career, Karen has worked in communications in myriad ways: as a trainer, teacher, and writer in both the private and public sectors. She earned her M.A. in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University, B.S. in Speech from Northwestern University, and certification in Teaching English as a Second Language from UC Berkeley.
