Globalization has resulted in the spread of products, technology, information, and jobs across national borders and cultures. Geographical borders are no longer as relevant as they once were, and each day, we interact with people from across the globe without batting an eye. Having employees with different backgrounds undoubtedly benefits our organizations and workplace, but it can be a complex task to manage such diverse groups.
In this blog, we’ll discuss how you can create effective diversity training to help your employees understand the differences among their team members.
What is Diversity Training?
Diversity training is an initiative taken to create awareness of diversity issues and to bring about cohesiveness in teamwork environments. Diversity training is generally divided into two categories: awareness-based training and skill-based training. As a company, your success relies on whether your employees have the proper tools to maximize their development and performance and to minimize the legal risks should there be diversity-based discrimination in the workplace.
Here’s a brief description of each of the main types of training.
1. Awareness-based training
Awareness-based training is typically focused on sensitivity and awareness. It centers on the importance of diversity in business and helps employees to see their own prejudices, cultural assumptions, bias, etc.
2. Skill-based training
In this portion of training, tools are used to help move employees from the awareness stage to the proficiency stage. This training will improve employees’ ability to handle diversity in the workplace, communicate with people from different cultures, interpret cross-culture differences, etc.
Why is Diversity Training Important?
All companies, regardless of size or industry, rely on a team of specialized members. Each of these specialized members requires different attitudes and skills to perform their work successfully. Understanding, accepting, and loving the diversity of your workplace is a key element of making it successful. When diversity is allowed to thrive, it enables each individual to contribute in their own unique and valuable way.
Tips for Successful Diversity Training Implementation
Are you looking for ways to implement effective diversity training at your organization? Here are some of our tips for successful diversity training implementation.
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Clarify training goals
Before you develop your diversity training, think critically about what you want your audience to take with them and use in their daily work practices. A great way to test if this is effective is in your follow-up assessment.
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Get support from all levels
Gaining access to the appropriate resources for a successful diversity training program often requires buy-in from upper management. Engage all levels of the company and promote diversity training as employee development that’s in the best interest of everyone.
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Aim for respectful and tolerant behavior
Diversity training may be a learning experience for many of your employees. This learning can take time and thought adjustment. However, you should expect respectful and tolerant behavior from everyone and emphasize that the goal is to promote effective and productive teamwork.
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Follow-up with a post-assessment
After any diversity training, you should follow up with some sort of post-assessment to evaluate your employees’ training experience. Use this feedback to continue to develop and improve your training.
Final Thoughts
With a little adjustment in everyone’s attitude, diversity can make for an extraordinary team. Diversity training should help to make everyone tolerant not only of the differences they see in their workplace but also of the value that comes with those differences. Include a diversity calendar as part of your employee’s workplace to remind them as a daily task. Implement diversity training today to help enhance the success of your team!
