What is Diversity Training?
Diversity training is a vital tool in improving interactions with people of different backgrounds. Usually, diversity training sessions take the form of a program, like the accredited programs from CoachDiversity Institute. These programs help reduce discrimination, tackle unconscious bias, and provide tools for individuals to work with diverse cultures successfully.
Regardless of socio-economic status, eliminating discrimination, curbing microaggressions, and investing in DEI, corporations benefit their bottom line. Diversity training is practical when used as a form of employee training, which helps with retention and performance metrics and is the key to an inclusive culture. A training course focusing on diversity with CoachDiversity Institute can help build a solid workplace diversity training program.
Properly delivered diversity training helps individuals recognize diversity issues within their workplaces. It also helps crush production-killing discrimination issues and ushers in an era of inclusive, profit-driven inclusive environments. The benefits are clear, and diversity training makes a solid business case for widespread implementation in businesses, government organizations, and education institutes.
Why are Diversity Training Programs Important?
The need for diversity training becomes more apparent as workplace diversity rises. Organizations that value people from different cultures, backgrounds, and experiences see notable benefits over workplaces that do not have diversity or inclusion programs. These benefits include:
- Clearer Communication – Clearer communication between teams is a dream for senior leadership. Massive, sometimes costly errors happen when teams fail to communicate appropriately, and diversity training helps teams communicate more effectively.
- Decreased Harassment and Discrimination – Companies that utilize diversity training programs benefit from decreased harassment and discrimination. Ultimately, this leads to safer environments, reduced legal costs, and overall decreased conflict.
- Innovative and Profitable Teams – Diverse teams and teams who are aware of unconscious biases help fuel innovations. They also boost profits by being more productive, connecting with a broader customer base, and reduced barriers.
- Find and Recruit the Best Talent – With diversity training, hiring managers are aware of bias and become open to a wider talent pool with capable individuals from various backgrounds.
According to PennState, these are just some of the reasons to implement diversity training for corporate workforces. These intangible benefits give organizations a competitive advantage, and when enacted properly, the benefits are immediate.
Different Types of Diversity Training
Diversity training requires the commitment of individuals and companies. While a single course can help, there are several types of training to consider for your team. Exploring the different kinds of diversity training will help you determine which route is best for your organization.
Awareness Training
Bringing awareness is the beginning of fundamentally changing the company culture in your workplace. Leaders who receive awareness training are in a better position to learn about various people from different backgrounds. Using this training, these leaders can ensure every team member feels valued, is treated equally, and has their differences celebrated.
Awareness training brings several benefits, including better problem-solving, more effective decision-making, and individuals can share the importance of diversity with other team members. Enrolling teams in awareness training ensures everyone is equal regardless of their background.
Skills-based Diversity Training
Essential gaps in education happen, but skills-based training helps arm workplace professionals with the skills they need to thrive. Skills-based diversity training could include interpersonal communication development, diverse-team communications training, or a refresher course for seasoned staff.
Regardless of the need, skills-based diversity training helps organizations provide a targeted approach to building an inclusive workplace. As teams work remotely, the demand for skills-based diversity training is increasing, especially as companies globalize.
Diversity Audits
Diversity audits are an essential tool human resource professionals use to check up on diversity and inclusion in their organizations. It’s an opportunity to identify harassment or discrimination and take action. These audits are not easy, and HR professionals need all the tools possible, that includes training. Some aspects of the business that receive audit include:
- Diversity Diagnostics – A tool for determining the current state of diversity within the organization. This diagnostic effort helps catch diversity and inclusion issues before they become costly lawsuits or detrimental business impactors.
- Gender Pay Gap Analysis – A painful struggle for equality is the pay gap. HR professionals must audit their organizations and bring pay gap issues to senior leadership.
- Equality Impact Assessments – Equality impact assessments or surveys are a hands-on tool to gauge how employees feel about the workplace. These surveys are instrumental in understanding how diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives impact employees.
- Diversity Accreditation – Organizations who make diversity a top priority and are beacons of inclusion in the workplace can become accredited. Individuals can become certified with CoachDiversity Institute and help their organization grow.
Employee experience dramatically depends on successful diversity audits. Diversity audits reduce discrimination starting with the recruiting processes and continues through the exit interviews, covering all aspects of the organization. HR professionals who complete diversity audit training and successfully implement them in the workplace can change behaviors and align employees with company goals.
Basic Diversity Training
Basic diversity training starts the conversation surrounding several types of discrimination and how they’re toxic to the workplace. This type of training also helps highlight the benefits of diversity. At a minimum, basic diversity training aims to encourage respect, empathy, and understanding between individuals of different backgrounds. Training can take the form of:
- Anti-Racism Training – Training focused on including, celebrating, and eliminating biases surrounding individuals of other ethnicities. Racial bias hurts hiring practices and leads to a less diverse workplace.
- Anti-Sexism Training – Training that tackles gender roles, accepting various genders in the workplace, and how to avoid sexual harassment. Anti-sexism allows co-workers to improve work environments and enhances employee engagement.
- LGBTQ Inclusion – Eliminating harassment and discrimination against individuals who have varying sexual orientations as LGBTQ. This training offers methods of inclusion and ways of ending harassment, such as microaggressions.
- Cultural Competence – Training that highlights the value of working with people of various backgrounds. It emphasizes valuing everyone and points out the benefits of working in a diverse workforce.
Basic diversity training is becoming the primary educational tool organizations use to combat discrimination. It’s also a precursor of intermediate and advanced diversity training. CoachDiversity Institute is accredited and provides courses catered to certified Diversity Coaches.
Choose the Best Diversity and Inclusion Training with Coach Diversity Institute
Effective diversity training paves the way for diverse and inclusive workplaces, but a complete education has many components. Several forms of diversity training exist, each with a dedicated goal of ending discrimination and bringing people together. The benefits of supporting diversity and inclusion are clear, whether with basic or skills-based diversity training.
Various companies offer diversity training, but few offer the level of expertise that CoachDiversity Institute does. With CoachDiversity Institute, individuals participate in programs including Foundational Coach Training, Certified Diversity Coach, and Advanced Diversity Coach. Each course enjoys accreditation through International Coaching Federation (ICF and allows individuals to carry those credentials into organizations worldwide.
While training programs differ in many ways, the one consistent thing is CoachDiversity Institutes’ quality, accredited diversity coach programs. These programs equip individuals with new skills, expert mentoring, and certified authority to craft lasting cultural changes in workplaces worldwide. By not taking action, poor workplace culture can cost precious profits!