6 Types Of Diversity Training For An Inclusive Workplace

We all know that having a non-existent DE&I program hurts your brand's value. But do you know how to lay the groundwork for a successful diversity program? It is achieved through intensive diversity training.

A diversity training program is an essential step towards creating a great company culture.

But did you know many types of diversity training leaders can choose to promote tolerance and equality in the workplace? No? Then you’re at the right place.

The Integral Need For Diversity In The Workplace

Diversity refers to differences and acknowledging people with various gender identities, race, culture, language, thought processes, and more.

A diversity-rich company can bring together a bunch of people with different yet brilliant ideas. It could be the game-changer that sets your company apart.

Diversity is not about having a wide range of people with various indifferences. Instead, an inclusive culture is essential to workplace diversity. An inclusive workplace promotes tolerance and harmony amongst employees. You can only reap the benefits of diversity by focusing on inclusion.

As humans, we treat differences with distrust. A small chunk of people do not believe in equal rights or treat everyone with empathy and respect. These people come from rigid and conservative backgrounds, which makes diversity and inclusion difficult.

To mitigate this issue, managers need the support of diversity training programs to change people’s mindsets.

So, this article will focus on some effective types of diversity training programs to achieve higher employee productivity and employee engagement. But first, let’s take a look at:

What is a Diversity Training Program?

Diversity training in a workplace provides awareness and knowledge of the unique identities of the employees- race, color, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, socio-economic status, mental ability, etc. And how they come together to form a workplace culture.

Diversity in the workplace is not only about tolerance but also about acceptance. And a work environment that eradicates workplace harassment and discrimination. Where workers coordinate and complete their projects with utmost respect and dignity to create positive company culture.

Diversity and inclusion in the workplace cannot entirely transform a person's mentality. But, it aids in breaking down existing barriers and educating oneself about underrepresented groups.

Many companies and leaders like to believe that such training programs help to:

• Develop a sense of understanding amongst coworkers
• Emphasize and celebrate the cultural, ethnic, and gender differences
• Eradicate unconscious biases.
• Encourage workers to stand against discrimination.

Recommended Resource: 7 Steps To Create A Diversity Training Program

6 Types of Diversity Training For Effective Business Growth

If you’re a manager or a business leader looking to make your workplace diverse and inclusive for increased employee engagement, you must focus on diversity training. Here are some effective types of diversity training you must focus on:

1. Awareness Training

Awareness training is one of the most effective types of diversity training. We believe every company leader must learn the skill of diversifying their workforce.

Awareness training is nothing but a training session where employees know about various people from multiple backgrounds. For instance, colleagues, old and new, get to know about sexual minorities, gender minorities, racial and ethnic identities, and many more.

You must ensure every staff member is aware of the concept of workplace equity. They must treat everyone equally, irrespective of their marginalization or identity.

Organizing an awareness training helps in:

• Collective problem-solving and decision-making
• Promoting respect and value amongst co-workers
• Uplift underrepresented people in the mainstream world
• Creating awareness about employees’ differences
• Emphasize the need for change and eradicate prejudices

2. Skill-based Diversity Training

In order to operate effectively with diverse teams, inclusive businesses must train their new workers to develop interpersonal skills.

Meanwhile, current employees must learn how to communicate and work as a team with their diverse team members.

This is highly relevant in the age of remote work and distributed teams.

This training focuses on specific areas such as:

• Creating new ways to communicate with a diverse workforce
• Reinforce existing skills
• Encourage skill-building methods
• Technical skill training for administrative purposes

3. Diversity Audits

Diversity audits training are regular dip-checks that help HR professionals mitigate and identify discrimination in the workplace.

When it comes to types of diversity training, leaders must consider diversity audits for their HR professionals. These audits are a daunting task for HR, and it requires ample training to do it effectively.

These audits help in:

• Assessing the happenings around the office and peer relations.
• Managing employee attitudes toward coworkers and ensuring that company policies are fully observed.
• It helps to identify discrimination of any sort
• Encouraging employee transparency

Hence, when HR receives the proper diversity audit training, they will learn to align employee behavior with the company values. Also, these audits ensure that no discrimination happens right from the hiring stage until the employee exit. Thus, it helps enhance employee experience in a company.

4. Intermediate Diversity Training

As an employer, you must provide employees with the necessary tools to implement change and create an inclusive culture in the workplace. And this is what intermediate diversity training does.

This is probably the most effective training where employees with tangible skills learn to work with people who are different or do not fall into the mainstream societal norms.

Intermediate training discusses personal behavior along with systemic issues. Some of the benefits of such training include:

• Identifies unconscious/implicit bias and knowing how to mitigate them
• It accommodates people with different beliefs, values, or abilities and builds a sense of belonging
• Eradicates microaggressions and makes a workplace free of stereotypes and discrimination
• Encourages cross-cultural communication and team bonding

5. Basic Diversity Training

The primary goal of basic diversity training is to foster respect and empathy among coworkers. It is about openly addressing all the issues related to culture and identity in the workplace.

Although basic training does not change company culture, it does promote better awareness of diversity.

Thus, as a leader, you must not skip this training to create a company culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

A basic training program will cover these modules:

• Anti-racism training
• Anti-sexism training
• Educating about sexual orientation and gender identities
• Cultural sensitivity training
• Human resource compliance training

6. Mobile Learning

When you are amid a global pandemic, going digital with diversity training is what your remote team needs. In 2021, diversity and inclusion have taken center stage in every company's priority lists. Your new hires need to understand your policies, especially diversity and inclusion, in such a scenario.

When we talk about new-age types of diversity training, mLearning immediately strikes our head. It is convenient, cost-effective as well as accommodative.

With the help of this training type, you can organize diversity training for remote workers as well. It will help you connect your staff with their peers and accept individual differences with dignity and respect. Also, mLearning is more accessible for people with disabilities, chronic health issues, or people from a distributed global team.

Perks of organizing mobile learning diversity training:

• You can organize this at any time of the day, depending on everybody’s schedule.
• Everyone can access it at the same time.
• You can also record it for employees to access and refer to it whenever they want

Conclusion

To bring out the best in your employees, you must focus on an inclusive work environment. In this age of modernization, where we work on multi-faceted projects, we must think beyond race, gender, sexuality, caste, creed, disability, and other differences.

To ensure your workplace is diverse, equal, and inclusive, you must implement a robust diversity training program. Depending on your need, you can select any of the six types of diversity training programs listed above.

This article is written by Gautam Gayan. He works as a Content Marketer at Vantage Circle. Apart from being a passionate content creator for HR services and employee engagement, Gautam is a theatre enthusiast, an avid reader and an aspiring poet. For any related queries, contact editor@vantagecircle.com