Importance of Workplace Diversity Training
What is Diversity Training?
Diversity training is training delivered to make participants
more aware of diversity issues in the workplace, their own beliefs on
diversity, as well as provide skills to help them interact, collaborate and
work more closely with people that have different qualities to their own. Effective diversity training raises employee
awareness of the importance of working together with people from different
backgrounds, cultures, and views. Employees learn the way to recognize and
manage behaviors that will undermine individuals and teams, along with
positive actions that, along with management’s commitment and the right
policies will produce a culture in which everyone has opportunities to thrive
and participate in the organization’s operations and leadership.
From a business perspective, diversity training is seen to possess more benefits such as increased collaboration and relative skills, protective against violations of discrimination legislation and empowering those from underrepresented teams to feel a lot of assured and valued within the workplace.
As organizations notice the benefits
of a diverse workforce, diversity and inclusion is becoming more of a business
imperative. Organizations are making diversity and inclusion programs,
establishing diverse task forces, hiring diverse officers and
conducting diversity training in
the workplace.
As part of a holistic approach to
building a diverse and inclusive culture, training is an effective tool to
promote diversity, and educate employees on what diversity and inclusive
thinking means in their day-to-day interactions with co-workers, customers,
partners, vendors, etc.
Advantages of workplace diversity training.
1. Recognize and overcome biases
Everyone has implicit bias. It stems from our brain’s tendency to seek patterns, and is influenced by social conditioning and life experiences. Unconscious bias training is a good first step toward learning to recognize and overcome these biases.
2. Build a more inclusive recruitment
process
Diversity recruitment training will facilitate the craft of better job descriptions, the source for diversity, and build an overall more inclusive recruitment process. Interviewer training may also facilitate creating a more equitable recruitment process. For example, interviewers should know how to conduct structured interviews and how to complete their interview scorecard. A more inclusive recruitment process will facilitate an organization to attract, engage, and close a more diverse slate of candidates.
3. Build a more inclusive workplace
Without an inclusive workplace, diversity recruitment efforts will be all for naught. Team members who don’t feel they belong may not be comfortable sharing their diverse views, thus hindering collaboration and innovation. Sensitivity training can help increase belonging and inclusion.
An inclusive workplace will
encourage team members to bring their authentic selves to work. This can lead
to higher employee engagement, as team members feel their opinions and
contributions are valued. Engaged employees often go above and beyond in their
work, resulting in higher productivity and profitability for the organization.
4. Maintain compliance and mitigate the
risk of litigation
Workplace diversity training will facilitate better
compliance with the law. For example, pay equity training will facilitate understanding how to measure pay equity, and how to address inequities. Other
compliance training may facilitate understanding a pregnant or breastfeeding
mother’s rights, for example. Many laws have been put in place to ensure
workplace equity, and following them can both keep out of trouble and help to
create a more inclusive culture.
Conclusion
Implementing a diversity training
program in an Organization is a very important step in helping to reduce the
risk of workplace discrimination and harassment claims.
Reference list
Slattery,C.(2021)
Exploring
the Importance of Workplace Diversity Training.[online]Available
from:https://www.hr.com/en/app/blog/2021/03/exploring-the-importance-of-workplace-diversity-tr_kmdq77hc.html[Assessed on 2 May 2021].
HRZone(2021) What
is Diversity Training.[online]Available from: https://www.hrzone.com/hr-glossary/what-is-diversity-training[Assessed on 2 May 2021]
Good article. Diversity training is helpful for the employees to interact with the people from different cultures, experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives. To create an effective diversity training programme, the organization needs to define strategic goals, get stakeholders onboard, establish benchmark, reinforce values and behaviour based training, mix up teams and measure progress.
ReplyDeleteDiversity training is to make employees understand that even if there are differences amongst the team members that they are working with, a little adjustment in one’s attitude will make for an extraordinary team. To make them not only tolerant of the differences that they see around them, but to value those differences as a part of successful teams.
ReplyDeleteTo bring out the best in your workforce, you need an inclusive environment. In this age of globalization, when we work on multi-faceted projects, we have to think above the conventional diversity aspects of gender, race, caste, creed, and disabilities. We have to choose a team based on a value system that will decide the individual’s capacity to adjust, accommodate, understand, and cooperate in addition to his/her professional acumen.
Diversity training helps employees to understand different perspectives of their colleagues and encourage them to think about how their actions could unintentionally offend someone. Increased workplace sensitivity is a strong step against discrimination and harassment.
ReplyDeleteDiversity and composition have become more than just something HR can mark off a list; they’ve turned into a cultural appearance that, when performed perfectly have a direct impact on the bottom line. These days, it’s more essential than ever to ensure that the workplace is properly appropriating and including diversity and inclusion.
ReplyDeleteMany organizations attempt to address organizational diversity through formal training. For that, A diversity training program must be carried out by human resource management teams. One of the immediate reasons is the growing ethnic and racial diversity in the workplace. However there are more Types of Diversity Training that works such as Awareness training, Skill-based diversity training, Diversity audits, mentoring for Diversity and etc. (Source: Sandip University Article)
ReplyDeleteOrganizations contribute diversity training for various reasons, essentially to promote a corporate culture in which each employee feels valued and appreciated and, as a result, is more liable to be occupied and productive. Having a reputation for being a diverse workplace is also expected to attract the best job applicants. A desire to avoid claims is also a motivator.
ReplyDeleteThis is really good article because of this focus how to adopt hr changes with training and development. Basically people can be develop through training and development.
ReplyDeleteAs more corporations turn global to develop new business models and new market shares, diversity training in the workplace takes on new meaning and importance as employees, no matter where they are, must learn to adapt, respect and communicate with a diverse group of cultures and people. Diversity training not only prepares employees for what they might expect from people of other nationalities, but also helps global staff perform more effectively.
ReplyDeleteGood practices of creating and enhancing workplace diversity gives employers the opportunity to acquire quality employees and maintain worker loyalty. Enhancing communication and investing in cross-cultural training and development are essential in managing diversity relations. Diversification in the workplace involves all employees and charges management to carry out strategies that support employee differences.
ReplyDelete