Effectively Implement Diversity Training in Your Organization: 9 Best Practices for Success

Diversity training goes deeper than being politically correct. 

To stay competitive in a global and diverse world, you need ongoing diversity training. 

Why?

Challenges are part of life for everyone. However, some of us experience discrimination because of our skin color, sexuality, gender, or other attributes. This discrimination is due to subconscious bias programmed into us collectively. 

Diversity training aims to reveal and remediate just that. 

Besides ethics, companies embracing and leveraging organizational diversity see better results. Plus, given the rise of remote workers, diversity training is vital if you want to attract and retain top talent and improve business outcomes!

In this article, you will learn the what, why, and how of diversity training. 

• What is diversity training?
• Why is it important?
• How can we do it successfully? (Including nine best practices.)

🌈 What is diversity training?

Diversity training aims to educate employees on how people with different backgrounds can work together.

Its goals are to:

• Showcase privilege and raise awareness around subconscious bias and beliefs, that is, treating others unequally because they differ from us in specific attributes.
• Increase tolerance and promote moving beyond tolerance and into respect and reverence for our differences. 
• Understand how to leverage differences in perspectives for productivity and performance.

Successful employee training focused on diversity will reveal subconscious bias and create a better work environment for everyone, one of equality and respect. It is a feature of a better future that we create now!

💡 Discover 32 ways to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace.

❗️10 Reasons why diversity training is important

Imagine a workplace where everyone is seen for who they really are – and not who they're supposed to be according to factors like skin color or sexuality. 

Inevitably, the more your employees know each other, the better they can collaborate and perform! 

Diversity training in the workplace exists to do just that: remove prejudices and uncover each individual's strengths. By helping employees overcome unconscious biases, we create a better work environment for everyone.

We can divide the benefits of diversity training into two broad categories: people and profit.

On the people side, diversity training has shown the following benefits.

1. Increased employee engagement 

When your employees feel recognized and their talents are valued, they get more motivated to do a better job. 

Considering recognition is among the top factors behind employee motivation and retention, rated more important than a salary increase, recognizing employees of all backgrounds is a key driver to engagement. 

2. Talent attraction

Employers known for celebrating diversity get more popular and attract more talent.

Making diversity center stage cultivates a work environment where your employees become your biggest cheerleaders and help attract top talent. 

3. Increased workplace satisfaction 

People are often (unconsciously) afraid of the unknown for survival reasons. And if not scared, it can confuse and act as a distraction. They may also fear doing something "wrong" and unconsciously contribute to discrimination. 

Raising awareness around the challenges and benefits of diversity reduces the unknown. It also helps everyone understand how they can best respectfully treat their peers. 

Diversity also contributes to employee satisfaction by increasing physical and psychological safety for everyone. 

When your people feel satisfied, they'll better focus on the tasks, achieving higher performance!

🆘 Are you striving to build high-performance teams? We rounded up and explained eight drivers of success and eight steps for building high-performance teams. 

4. Respectful and inclusive work environment

In an increasingly global world, asking about how the workplace handles diversity during a recruitment interview is becoming as standard as discussing salary.

You will want to have concrete examples of how you maintain a respectful and inclusive work environment. 

5. Positive systemic change 

A workplace where diversity is honored ripples out into the world, contributing to positive systemic change. 

Change starts with you. 

Before you know it, competitors will gaze at you, wondering how you handle diversity so well and why everyone chooses your company ahead of theirs. 

And these pros are also related to profit.

6. Better decision-making

More diverse employees bring a broader collection of experiences and insights.

With a more diverse workforce, your team can make more well-rounded and thoughtful decisions.

7. Increased talent retention

Employees who feel welcome and included have fewer reasons to leave the company. 

Regular diversity training is a critical factor in talent retention. In addition, considering the costs of high employee turnover, diversity training is crucial for companies that care about profit.

8. Outstanding employer branding and positioning

Companies well-known for promoting diversity are sought-after.

Favoring diversity thus contributes to a positive employer brand and increases chances to attract talent, find business partners, seed influencers, and get collaborations.

9. Increased innovation 

Diverse talents give different points of view, and draw inspiration from different, sometimes unconventional places.

"Companies that reported above-average diversity on their management teams also reported innovation revenue that was 19 percentage points higher than that of companies with below-average leadership diversity—45% of total revenue versus just 26%." BCG, Diversity and Innovation Survey.

"Ideas aren’t created out of thin air. They’re created by people—by teams of people.

And the more diverse these teams are along many dimensions—culture, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age, experience level, educational background, expertise, etc.—the more likely they are to draw inspiration from seemingly unrelated places. These idea combinations lead to more unlikely—and more innovative—ideas." Frans Johansson, Founder and CEO of The Medici Group.

10. Improved problem-solving

A diverse workforce is better at solving problems since it naturally includes different perspectives.

Ultimately, the two (people and profits) are intricately related: 

• Happy employees deliver better results. 
• Engaged employees make for satisfied clients that may even refer your company to others.
• Employees who feel seen and recognized may choose to stay within the organization and apply for senior positions, which cuts hiring and training costs. 

Win-win-win!

Diversity training exists not to shame anyone – but to invite everyone to do better.

And it works! Research from McKinsey shows that diverse companies are more likely to deliver above-average results. 

The higher the representation, the higher the outperformance.

👩🏻‍🦯 6 Types of diversity training

Below are some examples of diversity training program activities you can incorporate.

Awareness training

Awareness training is one of the most common diversity training types. It aims to increase employee awareness about different minorities and the challenges they can encounter.

Awareness training can help:

• Understand the need for change.
• Eliminate prejudices.
• Support people from underrepresented minorities.
• Contribute to increasing the diversity in mainstream representation.
• Solve problems better and increase innovation.
• Increase respect and thus workplace satisfaction.

Diversity audits 

Diversity audits are regular snapshots that HR does to showcase the organization's diversity status. These audits aim to identify and, ideally, prevent discrimination. They also help normalize everyday conversations around diversity and encourage transparency from employees.

Successful diversity audits: 

• Encourage employees to open up.
• Assess work environments and relationships with colleagues.
• Evaluate company policies and ensure diversity is infused into them.
• Ensure the employer maintains a respectful attitude toward all team members.

Basic diversity, equality, and inclusion training 

In basic diversity, equality, and inclusion training, the participants will learn how to prevent:

• Racism
• Sexism
• Gender-based discrimination. 

The participants will also learn how about cultural sensitivity and human resource compliance. 

Skills-Based diversity training 

Skills-based diversity training in the workplace is the next step after awareness. 

Awareness training focuses on making employees conscious of diversity and the various challenges people from minority groups encounter. 

In skills-based training, everyone learns how to work together, adopting diverse approaches and perspectives. 

One central concept is communication. For example, people can have different ideas of what constitutes a respectful tone of voice. The same goes for what "common sense" means.

After successful skills-based diversity training, people are not only aware of and respectful of their differences – but also know how to leverage them for increased productivity.

Safe zone training 

Safe zone training help create secure environments where everyone feels welcome and accepted. It is related to inclusion in a company's diversity, equity and inclusion program. 

For example, a safe and inclusive work environment caters to disabilities. It also has nursing rooms and spaces for prayer or meditation.

Ally training

Ally training discusses how to become an ally for people with diverse backgrounds. 

Participants learn how to support others respectfully by being an ally without making the conversation about themselves. 

An ally is someone outside of a specific diversity who actively promotes diversity and inclusion and inspires others to do the same.

Diversity training programs should also address:

• How people are represented in text, visual, and video content. 
• How to engage in difficult conversations.
• Ways to prevent discrimination together with an action plan. 
• Cultural sensitivity.

💪 Get started with diversity training: 6 Essential elements for success

Focus

The main focus of diversity training should be to help people embrace differences and facilitate collaboration. 

It is easier to understand and have solidarity with others when: 

• Eliminating prejudices. 
• Raising awareness around how we are all different and face different challenges depending on attributes we cannot control. 

The more we can put ourselves in someone else's shoes, the better we will understand how their human experience differs from ours. This is the foundation for improved communication.

The right materials

It is essential to select suitable materials for the needs of your workplace. 

Tip: One way of measuring the efficiency of the materials is to measure the skills before and after the training. 

Another is to implement feedback from the participants on what was most helpful and where there's room for improvement.

➡️ You can easily customize our training evaluation form with appropriate questions. 

Delivery method

Equally important as the most suitable materials is the delivery method. Online training has the advantage of being accessible to everyone in distributed companies. It is also cost-effective. 

Microlearning

As the human attention span is dropping, microlearning is exploding in popularity. Bite-sized pieces of information are easier to retain – and microlearning can fit into a jam-packed schedule. 

Microlearning can be used together with gamification. Gamification is an engaging and entertaining delivery method.

Mobile learning

Mobile learning is increasingly popular. Therefore, it is helpful to offer diversity training adapted to mobile devices like smartphones and tablets to accommodate each person's preferred way of learning. 

Introduction of the training

How you implement the training matters. 

For example, just telling everyone to comply can cause resistance. 

Thus, diversity training can have the opposite effect if not implemented properly. Therefore, you need to know how to handle defensiveness. 

In general, it can be helpful to return to why you implement diversity training and ensure that everyone understands its benefits. 

If you meet resistance, remember that unwillingness to change often comes from deeply rooted fears. You can expect faster progress if you can identify and address those fears while highlighting the benefits of diversity training. 

Patience

A key component in diversity training is patience. It can feel frustrating if the progress is slow.

Still, with properly implemented training, you can trust that something is happening. 

You invite your employees to change a lifetime of limiting beliefs and preconceived ideas. Depending on their personality, they may be more or less open to change. 

Managing bias

Diversity training can trigger long-standing beliefs and uncover unconscious biases.

Therefore, it is vital to understand and raise awareness about how biases work. 

And it starts with yourself – when leaders look honestly at where they might be biased, it is easier to recognize and call out biases in others.

💡 9 Best practices for successful diversity training

1. Develop an understanding of diversity and inclusion

Change starts with you. You need to know the topic to be able to select and implement diversity training – even if you're outsourcing it to an expert. More and more companies include diversity in their corporate values. If you don't, it might be a good idea to reconsider your values. Make sure that diversity doesn't stop at pompous words on paper but is alive in the company culture.

2. Extend and maintain diversity and inclusion training over time

Diversity training is not something you do once to tick it off your list. 

To overcome diversity issues and give successful results, diversity needs to be a foundational company value. 

Suppose your only encounter with diversity is via a brief training course once or twice a year. In that case, there's a gap between learning and its applications and effects.

3. Tailor diversity and inclusion training to your company 

All companies have different opportunities for growth in the area of diversity. It is wise to tailor diversity and inclusion training to the constellation of your team and the challenges that arise. 

However, letting everyone go through the same training is strongly recommended. Otherwise, diversity training can have the opposite effect. 

4. Plan an integrated approach 

Besides regular training, there are things that you can do every day to honor diversity. Recognizing holidays from different cultures and beliefs is one example. Learning greetings and customs from various cultures is another one. 

Tip: The HR department can also allow for flexible holidays since only some celebrate Christmas or Christian holidays. 

5. Include workers of all levels

Employees on all levels must participate in diversity training – not just the lower levels. 

Suppose the staff at higher levels are excluded. In that case, people may perceive it as unfair, and the training won't have the intended effect. 

Plus, we recommend diversity training as a mandatory part of leadership training. 

Giving the training as microlearning makes it efficient so that no one can say they don't have time to participate. Including everyone also creates a stronger, united workforce with the feeling of togetherness that comes from working toward a common goal.

Check out Zavvy's Leadership training course. You'll train your leaders in the flow of work with interactive, weekly microlessons that teach practical concepts in 10 minutes or less.

6. Discuss power and privilege 

Everyone has some level of privilege, but the amount varies widely. Privilege is directly related to power, so acknowledging it is a crucial step in honoring diversity. 

Remember that having more privilege does not mean having zero challenges in life. 

Privilege simply means that you have certain advantages because you happen to belong to a majority. 

But, remember that privilege is a relative concept: a black heterosexual man has more privilege regarding gender and sexuality than skin color.

7. Prevent microaggressions 

The term microaggressions was coined in 1970 and refers to repeated intentional or unintentional derogatory comments and negative attitudes toward someone in a marginalized group.

Here are some examples:

• Asking someone where they really come from when they share their nationality.
• Assuming a person of color is a service worker.
• Believing a woman to be an assistant, not the leader. 
• Counting on the white man to be the leader of a group.

Microaggressions are assumptions based on stereotypes and prejudices. They can be sneaky since they are often subtle and can even come from good intentions combined with a lack of awareness.

Tip: Impactful diversity training should include how to deal with microaggressions.

In case microaggressions occur, remaining calm and assuming good intent while informing the person about the situation is most helpful. If it happens repeatedly, you will want to discuss it more profoundly with the person and their manager/team leader.

8. Consult expert advice

Diversity training is a complex topic. It is not necessarily easy to get it right, even for experienced leaders. To avoid making matters worse, consulting an external expert can help contribute to outstanding outcomes.

9. Collect feedback and keep improving

Finally, successful diversity training has regular feedback from all participants to pinpoint where there's room for improvement.

➡️ Implement diversity training in the flow of work with Zavvy

Diversity training is the new lunchroom ping-pong tables – something employers can use to stand out and attract talent. And it's a lot more than that. 

Diversity training helps everyone feel welcome and seen. Successful implementation will directly translate into increased profit.

Continuous learning in the format of microlearning is often more efficient than a potentially overwhelming full-day training once a year. 

Sign up for diversity training with Zavvy to let your employees learn and live diversity with only 5 minutes of training a day!