Issue
You need effective diversity and inclusion
training that
provides meaningful business results! Diversity training,
when well planned and implemented, informs people
and provides them with the knowledge, skills, and tools
needed to realize the objectives of a diversity and
inclusion initiative.
Too often, though, diversity training modules
or programs fail to achieve the intended outcome or to
have a meaningful impact on business results. Common
problems include:
- Backlash, usually due to failure to "meet the learners"
at their current stage of development.
- Use of diversity and bias training activities that
do not link with business purpose.
- Lack of a business-driven measuring strategy for diversity
training.
- Lack of clear diversity training objectives.
- An unclear understanding of why diversity training is
needed.
Why is this disconnect between
intent and outcome so common? It frequently starts in the
planning stage where training is considered in isolation.
For diversity training to be effective, the planning
must clearly answer these questions:
- What changes do we need
to make in the workforce and/or work environment?
- Why are these changes needed, in terms of business outcomes
/ results?
- How does the training fit into our overall diversity
strategy?
- How does the training help achieve the strategy’s
objectives?
- How do other elements of the strategy reinforce the
training?
- How do we plan to measure the results, in terms meaningful
to our senior leadership?
- For whom is the training intended? For example: New
hires during employee orientation? All or some current
employees? New managers? Senior executives?
- Do we know the participants' stage of development regarding
diversity and inclusion so that we can design the training
for minimum backlash and maximum benefit?
In this context, training
can be a meaningful tool that has the needed impact with each
part of your leadership and employee population.
Solution
Training is most effective when it is
part of a strategy focused on improving business results. The diversity training
should achieve certain workforce and work environment changes
that will help meet business objectives. The changes might
involve developing new knowledge, skills, experiences, or
action plans.
As business diversity training consultants,
we design diversity training to meet
your specific business needs. We use the planning questions described above and
base the design on your key business objectives and the training
outcome you need in your workforce and work environment.
Typical
learning outcomes from our custom diversity training may
include:
- Assess the business impact of your own culturally-based
preferences, biases, and cultural norms and define developmental
plans to help move forward more effectively.
- Define and
differentiate among, diversity, inclusion, intercultural
competence, Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO), and Affirmative
Action. State how each is relevant to business.
- Describe
how you and the team in which you participate intend
to work differently so that you achieve the full benefits
of diversity and inclusion.
- Describe what an inclusive
work environment looks like and its benefits to all employees
and to our business.
- Start
your own personal action plan to help the organization
achieve a more inclusive work environment.
In our custom
diversity training we typically use the following learning
methodologies:
- Action planning
- Business story telling
- Dialogue and discussion
- Experiential exercises
- Handouts / job aids
- Writing note charts
|
- Individual and/or group assessment and
feedback using the Intercultural Development Inventory
(IDI)
- PowerPoint Presentation
- Role plays
- Video
- Visualization
- Distributing employee and manager toolkits
|
The
Intercultural
Development Inventory (IDI) is an invaluable tool in many
diversity and inclusion training situations. IDI measures
how individuals, teams, and organizations currently experience
cultural difference. It provides the data needed to design
training matched to the participants’ current
developmental stage. This helps deliver the most effective
developmental benefit and minimizes the likelihood of creating
backlash.
Frequently, diversity training is intended to
build peoples’ knowledge and competence in communicating
and working with people of different cultural backgrounds.
In these instances, IDI also provides a basis for constructive
team learning and individual coaching integral to the diversity
training.
MDB Group is certified to provide IDI as part
of our diversity training services.
Please
call
us to speak
about your specific situation. We will gladly help you assess
your needs and then design and implement the most effective
diversity and inclusion training for your situation.
We also apply these techniques
in a more-focused manner specifically for
senior
executive team diversity briefings, seminars, and workshops.
Sample results
See representative results achieved by MDB Group's principals
at
Diversity Training.
Related links
Diversity training helps meet the needs of many diversity
and inclusion change initiatives. Click the links below
for further insight:
