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KPMG staff to receive compulsory ‘unconscious bias’ training

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From next month, the Big Four firm will be attempting to repair its bruised public image amid yet another scandal, this time involving Rolls-Royce.

26th May 2022
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The UK arm of KPMG will be requiring its 15,300 consultants to attend compulsory unconscious bias training with potential cuts to bonuses and impacts on performance reviews for staff members who do not complete it. 

While the learning experience has been readily available within KPMG for some time, the decision to make the course compulsory highlights a change in tack from the firm as it continues its charm offensive in the face of multiple scandals. 

The training comes after former KPMG head Bill Michael was forced to apologise and later resign due to his comments on unconscious bias training, labelling the courses as “utter crap” while chastising staff who raised concerns over cuts in pay during the pandemic, leading to a substantial backlash.

What does it entail?

According to the definition set out by The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, unconscious bias involves the innate views and beliefs an individual may have that might not be deemed as “right or reasonable”, which can then influence their decision making.

To address this, KPMG will be providing training to better understand unconscious bias in the workplace, while devising ways staff members can recognise and tackle the issue themselves.

The consultants will be looking to focus on “invisible barriers” that some individuals face and will ask staff to consider what biases can arise when staff talk about aspects of their lives with others. 

While some news outlets reported that the courses were designed to stop staff from conversing with each other about holidays, what sports they play or the type of school they attended, in a comment to AccountingWEB, KPMG has said that this is “not the case” and that “what we’re actually asking is for our colleagues not to make assumptions based on such aspects. It’s not about anyone having to hide who they are.”

Commenting on the recent changes, Kevin Hogarth, chief people officer at KPMG UK, struck a positive tone, saying: “Building an inclusive, diverse and equitable business remains a key priority for our firm. Not only is it the right thing to do from an ethical perspective, but we recognise that by having a diverse workforce, we also benefit from the wide range of experiences and perspectives our people bring to their day-to-day work. It helps deliver better outcomes for both our own business and our clients.

“Our upcoming inclusion, diversity and equity training module will be mandatory for all our colleagues and partners, ensuring it gets the attention it deserves. We want all our people to come as they are, and that can only be made possible by challenging ourselves, confronting biases and listening and learning from each other.”

Social mobility

KPMG’s introduction of a compulsory learning course forms part of the firm’s mobility action plan announced back in September 2021. The plan aims to boost the number of UK partners and directors coming from a working-class background up to 29% by 2030.

According to figures released by the firm back in 2021, 23% of partners and 20% of directors are from a working-class socio-economic background and these employees earned 8.6% less than their colleagues from more affluent backgrounds.

These figures echo that of other Big Four firms, with PwC revealing that fewer than a fifth of its staff come from a working-class background and earn 12% less than their colleagues.

Yet, while the firm is likely hoping that such a move will help to repair its tarnished image, their recent run-in with yet another scandal surrounding their dealings with Rolls-Royce may derail their efforts. The company currently faces a £3.375m fine and has been severely reprimanded by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) for its gross mishandling of the aerospace manfacturer’s audits.

Replies (18)

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ghm
By TaxTeddy
26th May 2022 10:08

I sincerely hope that the KPMG team who designed this unconscious bias course for the staff previously went on a course to confirm that they weren't suffering from unconscious bias when designing the course - otherwise their own unconscious bias could be built into the unconscious bias course, causing potential unconscious unconscious bias.

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Replying to TaxTeddy:
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By gillybean04
28th May 2022 06:26

Would the bias be unconscious if you were able to prevent it?

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By DJKL
30th May 2022 13:02

Presume unconscious unconscious bias arrives sometime during the consumption of the second bottle of scotch?

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By ireallyshouldknowthisbut
26th May 2022 13:58

Hmm, dont think this will really help the whole lying on working papers to sign off the audit problem or the keeping your eyes shut in-case you spot anything issue.

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Replying to ireallyshouldknowthisbut:
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By Justin Bryant
26th May 2022 14:31

Yes; that all being conscious bias and presumably there are no lessons/training on that.

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By Hugo Fair
26th May 2022 17:04

ACAS might be advised to read this extract from the Bible ... "first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye"

Their quoted definition (unconscious bias involves the innate views and beliefs an individual may have that might not be deemed as “right or reasonable”) is itself so wrong as to be laughable.

The first 12 words are indeed factually true and an inherent part of being human ... whereas the rest is just an opinion with no known basis in either history or science. The give-away is use of the word 'deemed' ... by whom? in what circumstances? under whose jurisdiction? and so on.

This is opportunistic demagoguery at its worst ... where a no doubt laudable initial intention has become subverted by those who wish to impose their sensitivities on others - ironically displaying their own biases (unconscious or otherwise).

Oh and KPMG? It's just more cheap window-dressing.

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Replying to Hugo Fair:
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By gillybean04
28th May 2022 06:34

At the risk of incurring your ire....would a better description be the thoughts, judgements and impressions you form based on some factor which is not a conscious factor in your mind.

The conundrum for me is that being aware you have unconscious bias doesn't prevent it. If you try to counterbalance the unconscious bias with some conscious bias, does that make you neutral or doubly biased?

But bias isn't all negative. Maybe they're going to teach their staff they shouldn't ask how high when a senior says jump? I'll get my coat.

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By Hugo Fair
28th May 2022 09:36

No ire here (I don't do it and anyway there's nothing in your post to generate such a reaction from any balanced individual). It's an interesting conundrum.

I've heard all sorts over the years ... from "can it be called bias if it's unconscious?" to the more substantive "by definition bias is a variance from the norm, so who's defining the norm for each situation?"

My father (who should've been a philosopher instead of a cog in the Civil Service) used to point out to me, back in the '60s, that if I could present to him someone without bias then I'd found a machine not a human.
FWIW although he too would have disliked/distrusted the modern tendency to apply labels to everything, his approach wasn't dissimilar to what I believe lies behind 'unconscious bias training' (or at least should) ... the ability to know yourself sufficiently well that bit by bit you can transform the unconscious biases into your zone of consciousness - enabling you to tackle them.

Of course that still leaves the problem of what is a bias (given that there is rarely universal acceptance of any particular norm)!

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Replying to Hugo Fair:
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By gillybean04
28th May 2022 10:20

To add some more fuel to the conversation, if you have a bias (unconscious or otherwise) that someone wearing a blue shirt is more likely to steal from you, but statistically a person in a blue shirt IS more likely to steal from you, is it biased or an accurate risk assessment? My first answer was bias but on further contemplation, I'm not sure.

If you then assume a person in a blue shirt will steal from you, that is undoubtedly biased in my mind. If you treat that person less favourably because they have a blue shirt, that is discrimination (although not illegal unless it becomes a protected characteristic).

Your Dad's points were interesting ones, but I think computers can be biased. In that, they will rigidly apply a rule even if it's wrong. Algorithm bias. But it all (blue shirt and computer bias) goes back to what you raised regarding what is bias exactly!

(Edit.

And if they suddenly decide to wear another colour of shirt, what impact would that have on all of the above.

Can you tell I have nothing to do today?)

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Replying to gillybean04:
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By Hugo Fair
28th May 2022 12:25

I've got plenty on my hands today, but keep damaging them (the hands) through a refusal to wear protective gloves whilst doing heavy gardening. It's lucky that blood spots don't transfer from keyboard to screen!

Algorithm bias is a real issue (particularly in the field of AI when the medical or policing system is 'trained' on sets of data that have been exclusively, or at least disproportionally, obtained from white subjects). Having said which, the label is (again) disingenuous in that it's not the algorithm that is biased - it's the people feeding it data who are (hopefully unconsciously) introducing the bias.

Similarly I don't think that your 'blue shirt' scenario quite holds water (to mix my metaphors).
If the statistics (themselves hopefully validly controlled for bias) show blue-shirt wearers as 'more likely' to steal from you - then that is fact (albeit subject to all the usual statistical nuances of SD and the quantification of 'more likely'), and not in itself bias.
But as you say subsequent steps that 'use' those facts to assumptively justify any differential treatment of blue-shirt wearers is not so much bias as discrimination (legal or otherwise).
So, again, it's the misuse of the data that can either feed or result from bias, not an inherent facet of the data itself.

Which takes me back to 'what is bias' - and an example of why I dislike cavalier use of words as a labelling mechanism.
I recall that at school we were taught about a bias being something physical in mechanical engineering (like a lump attached to an axle so that the centre of gravity no longer ran through the centre of the rod).
As far as I recall, this was an intrinsic part of conserving & transferring energy in machines designed to drive something (i.e. create motion) - with the corollary that a lack of any bias would rapidly lead to stasis (i.e. no energy or movement).
However all my attempts to search this out on the internet only take me to sites about bias in the (mechanical engineering or other) employment environment - so I gave up!

It's back to shedding blood on behalf of my unappreciative plants ...

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By mkowl
27th May 2022 09:57

I can confirm I have conscious bias against sheffield united fans (Leeds, Liverpool, Luton as well)

Is it me but KPMG should devote training more on their juniors at a basic level "How to do a bank rec" given some of the findings on Patisserie Valerie

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By DJKL
30th May 2022 13:21

Not fair- they were secret accounts.

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By mkowl
30th May 2022 15:44

From what I recall there was significant window dressing and indeed uncredited logdements that were rolled forward year on year and not ticked back to see they had cleared (on the non secret accounts)

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By HLB
27th May 2022 14:03

Auditing training may be more useful.

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By BigBadWolf
28th May 2022 11:50

welcome to woke auditing!

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By BigBadWolf
29th May 2022 23:25

Audit Risk assessments will now be based on racial, gender, ethnicity and political beliefs?

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By DJKL
30th May 2022 13:23

To do so would itself be rascist etc

I think you really need blind auditing, you do not get given any information about the company being audited in case it instills bias- maybe some larger firms are already taking this approach.

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By creamdelacream
28th May 2022 13:25

The thought police are now officially in accounting

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