To Ask if your workplace has ever held diversity and inclusion training?

I work for a multi national company but our local office is small and we have one black guy and one gay girl in our office . They are wonderful and we don't need some video to tell us how to treat them . No we haven't
had diversity training , why waste money

Mandatory tick box exercise here. SMT didn't turn up and they're part of the problem not the solution.

Both of my employers ran this as CBT training once a quarter. It got to be so regular that people just clicked through and barely read the screen.

Yes, both for staff and volunteers. I co-facilitate the latter, and it's eye-opening just how "old fashioned" some people's views are, especially if they've been out of the workplace for a good while.

But also impossible to complain about because otherwise you’ll be seen as not a team player. So you just smile, nod and waste time better spent on actual work.

100% this. There is always such a focus on the “I can bring my whole self to work” question on our annual employee opinion survey. I feel like I can’t bring my whole self as if I did and spoke up about a lot of this my cards would be marked

Same. I just fast forward through the videos and click the relevant buttons until it's complete.

I've done multiple EDI classes over the years. F2F is usually the most eye rolling and inevitably focuses on anything except women and disabled people. So right now, I'd expect it to be gender woo nonsense and woe betide any of us who are gender critical daring to out ourselves. And if that happens in my workplace, I'm not partaking.

We do this every year. As an ethnically Indian women I am often very surprised at some of the things that come up on it. For example, one vocal white male repeatedly asked as a Manager how do I deal with some of “these people” playing the “race card”. One women would not accept that it would not be acceptable to have bottles of wine as rewards in a team with Muslim members and quite a number of other points raised. I think it is useful to Dali about diversity and inclusion and we still have some way to go in our workplaces.

Also have mandatory training that nobody reads, clicks through the screens and takes the test. After a few cycles of doing it once a year you know the answers without doing the training

Every week it seems to be “pick this week’s topic” awareness week. The message gets lost because it is just seen as a tick in the box from HR

I did used to really engage in all this corporate PR but now I just want to get my job done without someone telling me what box I do or don’t fit into. Not sure if it’s because I am getting older or post covid that’s made me feel this way but I just can’t be bothered with all these initiatives anymore

Yes online and totally rubbish. I complained to HR that it didn't cover the correct protected characteristics and only covered recruitment not how to be inclusive on an ongoing basis. No response because they don't care it's just a tick box thing and part of our stonewall rating

Waste of time. Box ticking exercise. But also impossible to complain about because otherwise you’ll be seen as not a team player. So you just smile, nod and waste time better spent on actual work.

If I had ran my company I wouldn’t inflict diversity and inclusion training or events on staff unless it was a legal requirement.

Similar with the awareness days / weeks / months! The group being recognised / celebrated might like it them at the time (and even then I’m not always convinced this is true) but everyone else is sick of the emails, reminders, posters and events.

Ours was very very good - I went in expecting another dull training, but it was Interesting, engaging, thought provoking and I learnt lots.

It was delivered via Zoom by a lady whose job it is to deliver these trainings - but I can't remember the name of the organization. If you're interested let me know and I'll dig through my emails

You have to complete it once every 4 years. It’s online permanently for new starters and whoever’s has expired. Have to pass a test at the end and retake it until you pass. 90% of it is completely irrelevant to our line of work. Complete waste of time

Yes, it’s a complete tick box exercise. But I am very aware of my unconscious bias which I think is important to be aware of and reminded of.

I have noticed it’s now Diversity Equity and Inclusion, so what does that mean?

Yes, annually. First year was full of gender identity and very little about anything else.

It's since been "refreshed" and has improved in the last couple of years. This year's was actually really good. About unconscious bias and the danger of groupthink - and how this can be countered by people feeling able to speak out and share a different perspective that goes against the prevailing view in the room. But that they need to feel able to do so, which goes back to people feeling that they can be included - and not singled out or treated as less than or dismissed because of their race or their sex or their accessibility needs so so on. There has also been a big push on recognising that diversity means we won't always all agree, but that we can disagree respectfully.

I recall in a previous company 10yrs ago the scenarios and accompanying pictures were very cliche. The ones that stick in my mind were:
A picture of someone bending over the get something out of the cupboard, and a person behind kicking him up the arse! The caption said that this wasn't appropriate in the work place! This was followed by a howl of laughter from the audience.

Another was a scenario about everyone going to the pub to celebrate something but they didn't invite the Muslim lady in the office as didn't want to offend her.

I always find the training fairly useless. If someone is happy to kick a colleague up the arse, they aren't going to have a light bulb moment after the training and think 'Oh, I never knew that wasn't appropriate at work!'

Yep. Online. Annually.

It’s a tick box exercise.

We do, regularly along with other ethics trainings. It’s made little to no difference to how I operate, and probably true for most of my colleagues but it does set a culture where it’s clear IDE is important, where we are all reminded of the right thing to do and know we could call out “wrong” behaviour and feel confident spotting that and be supporting in calling it out.

Yes. Had one where we had to do an online unconscious bias test then had a session run by a trainer - this was interesting.

Yes I've done it at multiple employers with varying quality. Some has been very very good at illuminating human behaviour and how to be inclusive. Some has been mind numbingly dull.

I think you get what you pay for - the best content will be in person and interactive and personalised but that will be more expensive than online vanilla off the shelf stuff.

We've had vague training on it. It would be more helpful if they would outline easy/reasonable adjustments that can be made in a workplace to help.

yup, mandatory & yearly - all video/online - people put it on at x3 speed & guess the answers to the questions at the end. It ticks someone's box I guess.

It's mandatory training at the university I work at, delivered online as e-training.

I'd agree it's bland delivered this way. Felt like very obvious box-ticking rather than a course that offers real value and insight.

Safeguarding was online too, but at another workplace we had the council come in and deliver face to face and that was fantastic. I definitely think face to face EDI training would be far better than these e-training courses.

Yes yearly...

Yes, we do have it, but honestly no one has yet forced me and it’s something I’d have to do in addition to my regular workload. Any trainings we do, there’s no one there doing the work that would otherwise be done in those hours, so I never do mandatory trainings until someone threatens me, as I just don’t have the time. That’s a whole other issue.

But I have done unconscious bias training as part of my training to serve on recruitment panels and actually found it really valuable. It made me aware of things I did and thought, well, below my conscious awareness and was really eye opening.