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

[postingfortrafficabout]

If so, what was it and did you find it valuable?

This is something being considered for our workplace, but just wanted to hear others experiences with it. What did you feel you gained from it, if anything?

And if you're workplace aren't doing it do you think they should be?

Yes, we all had to do an online training module which took a couple of hours. It was, of course, a load of simplistic patronising bollocks pitched at the intellectual level of a six year old.

I certainly didn’t need to be told that not only is it both morally wrong & commercially stupid to discriminate against people because of their age, sexuality, ethnicity, disability etc etc it’s also illegal.

Oh, and unconscious bias training can be really valuable if it’s done well, but again I think the only way it works is in a tailored group session, not a bought in e-learning.

Yes, we have it annually. Over recent years, it's main focus has been to tell us all the ways we can be nice to men who like to pretend they're women. Women are ignored almost completely. Disabled people get a small mention. All else is ignored. The only trans woman in the whole company gets chance to feel special and gets very annoyed if challenged. It's a joke.

I have to do a one hour training session on it every year. Since COVID it has been online, and ends with a quiz where you have to get a certain number of questions correct to get a certificate of attendance.

I had some 'diversity and inclusion' training way back in the 90s. It was delivered by a black man who, as part of it, said that we, as white people, should be down on our knees apologising to him

Fuck the fuck off. This was the only time in my life I felt racist and justified. BUT only against that entitled (and overpaid) individual. He told us that 'only white people are racist' and that we are all evil and should apologise to the rest of the world.

I believe people are individual and should be treated that way. I am responsible for my actions (and values and beliefs) and I am not responsible for anyone else's. I challenge discrimation on any gounds when I can. THAT MAN WAS (AND PROBABLY STILL IS) A TWAT

Annually online. Nothing about women or elderly and very little on disability.
Tick box exercise and mostly irrelevant (sample question -“what year was Equality Act passed? “ knowledge of which doesn’t change attitudes in the slightest.

We had an excellent company do some training/awareness with a set of managers in the organisation I work for owing to the link to slavery in the foundations of setting us up.
This is alongside a slightly more formal network of lived experience and allies on topics from previous posters.
It was great but the company recognised owing to our feedback that this didn't translate into how we operate for a number of reasons.
Our CEO has outlined future plans which sound great (however I'm working my notice for other reasons).
I think it can add value but as previous posters have said it can if not delivered correctly it can be patronising and hollow.

@Itsausername91 Thank you!

I work in the VCFSE sector and this type of training is something we do quite often - done right it’s very valuable to think about the judgements we all make, unconscious bias, levelling up and making sure we are inclusive and that our services are open and accessible to everyone
Some of it is very subtle - we talk about the terminology we use - are you a ‘client’ ‘service user’ ‘beneficiary’ ‘partner’ or just “Jim” who we’ve helped with X

All the time and no. Not useful IME, very large international corporate and you can just run it in the background and it ticks off that you have completed it.

Yes when I worked for the NHS a trans woman gave a talk. I couldn't take it seriously then nor now if it were to happen again

We don't. The area we live and work in is predominantly white British, and although lots of our employees move here from around the country and we have staff from lots of different countries, from the outside we may not look diverse. What we do have is an extremely close knit and supportive company, who looks after all of its employees equally and with respect. And that applies between the staff too - we're very lucky. We have a few disabled staff, have had several gay marriages between staff that have met at work and make sure everyone's religions (or lack of) are equally catered for. Sometimes, you don't need a box ticking exercise - just decent people who just view everyone as people.

We do a lot of training in my charity/ advice sector and EDI is central. I created a session on neurodiversity recently to present to the organisation. We have lots of training in equity, disability awareness, discrimination. In the work we do it is essential, we are expected to be advocates for people experiencing discrimination and exclusion and need to understand what that means.

Few different things available, but didn’t really answer any questions or enable me to do my role better so it was a useless tick box as far as I’m concerned.
My role requires me to be quite on the ball where EDI is considered so the basics were no help to me, as I knew them, and the training wasn’t equipped to handle anything more.

No. We're a tiny 100% female group and work with a racially diverse group of children. Never anything official. I think we should have further training.

The "main" EDI training was bland and not very useful. It was all a bit obvious (unless you're a bigot, in which case you wouldn't be paying attention anyway). I attended a separate session on unconscious bias which I found a lot more valuable.

Yup. Felt like a tick box exercise. Nothing outside of common sense.

Yes seemed a waste of time in both companies I did it in neither where in offices that could ever accommodate physically challenged people, one was such a toxic environment they just referred to EDI as a joke and another way to take the micky out of people. To be honest the course probably highlighted how bad the work environment was even more. It was just a tick box exercise for both companies nothing ever changed.

Yes it was full of nonsense

When challenged, (sex is determined in utero) she said "we'll have to agree to disagree".

Yes but it focussed alnost entirely on transwomen with the odd bit thrown in about gay people. A comment was made about Jews and the Holocaust (as in it would be not nice to mention) but someone complained about the fact every time the word ‘Jew’ is mentioned ‘Holocaust’ is spoken in the same breath. The training is now cancelled and is being ‘remodelled’ for the future.

It’s part of our mandatory training…it’s an online module…takes about 5 mins to do

We've had some really good training in this space with actors around microagressions. It focused on all types of diversity and really made me think

Me too. Another pointless waste of money.

I've done many over the years and often find they are biased so out of 4 people one stands put obviously so you can pick that person as the diversity person. In reality they may be well looked after but another of the 4 actually is in need of support. Like others have said it rarely looks at females.

I also find it can be very "one size fits all" assuming you all work in an office. I am a lone worker and I do not have the luxury of easily accessing my manager. I speak with her once a week I can't just have a quick chat. I would like diversity to look at wider roles too

Also work in a university and have to complete this and a number of other online courses annually which ends up being a tick box exercise as you only get a month when you are "due" to complete all 7+ training courses before names go to senior staff for follow up and mine has ended up being in our busiest time of year due to when they moved to this model, so it's just a case of getting it done, passed and onto the next one.

Like others have said, it'd be better if it were delivered in person and specific to higher education (where EDI is clearly important!) rather than some outsourced general online product with the uni branding, and you could do it at a time when you had time in your workload rather than being forced to do it at a random point dictated by a computer.