Diversity (and other) Training at Work

[Beowulfa]

As the earlier thread about workplace diversity training delivered by a named individual has been deleted, I thought it might be useful to remind lurkers that it is completely appropriate to review and query the contents of any course you're instructed/encouraged to attend.

If I go on a workplace course on lab/workshop safety, I expect the provider to be familiar with COSSH.

If I go on a workplace course on research data, I expect the provider to be familiar with the GDPR.

If I go on a workplace course on diversity, I expect the provider to be familiar with the Equality Act.

If any course misquotes the relevant legislation I would question it, and also raise with HR why this wasn't noted when the course was commissioned.

They usually get deleted because MN would have to spend a lot of time dealing with reporting and because its a small business.

Imo it always gets funny/intresting when the its all transphobic crew turn up & tbf that one poster came as close as I have ever seen to 100% captioning the Simba & Mufasa sun meme🤷🏼‍♀️

Thank you for sharing, the outcome here is really useful to know.

I’m currently questioning a comment made by a professional during a training session where someone (white) stated ‘I’m racist’ and when questioned said everyone who isn’t from an ethnic minority is, by default and not agreeing with this stance was considered an issue.

I’d like to know this too, because otherwise such “training” is akin to the pushing of an ideological stance.

This is the Mail link, in case the Telegraph share runs out over time. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11073493/Mixed-race-Sky-engineer-wins-14k-white-colleague-claimed-oppressed.html

Trying to tell people or train people what to think, if their current beliefs are reasonable, is dangerous,. And I understand research suggests it is ineffective.

Thanks to you for an enjoyably amusing thread, albeit with serious undertones.

Shame it's disappeared. It was starting to feel a little cruel, though.

Is it acceptable to smile at ignorance and incomprehension when allied with self-confident bragging? I wondered if lack of self-awareness was failing to insulate its holder just a little in the end.

Be that as it may. I still think your best strategy - supposing you have the status to get away with it - would be to go and just laugh at the nonsense. That stuff is plain daft - essentially risible. So, in circumstances where it tries to be taken seriously, it is appropriate just to laugh.

I’ve tried, oh how I have tried to question this nonsense at work. If you recognise my username it may be that you read my thread a couple of months ago about how I stuck my head above the parapet (I took the thread down, just in case, but thank you for all responses). I took my concerns to the very highest levels and to be fair, they did hear me out. However, they concluded that my views (TWANW) were transphobic and therefore at odds with our company’s inclusion stance. My arguments around the equality act, protected beliefs, diversity of belief and, later, the Forstater judgment have quite simply been ignored. The only feedback I have had is a veiled threat in the form of an official objective to "understand what it means to be a leader viz supporting our inclusion stance". I now find myself in a difficult position because every time I raise a concern (about lack of balance in training for example), people will just dismiss me as the transphobe. Maybe it would have been more effective not to have come out as GC myself, but to have expressed concern for people who might have GC/protected beliefs. I would then be able to continue raising the subject with less risk to myself and with more chance that the powers that be actually respond to my emails.

I'm really hoping awareness training dies of death pretty soon. good diversity training (it does exist!) uses evidence to support the work and there is very little academic research on trans based experiences of work because no one can reliably define what a trans person is for a research paper. Saying it's how someone identifies is a little tenuous when the majority of work and theoretical perspectives on diversity focus on how other people identify (and stereotype) you. A paper that uses the trans umbrella as a sampling frame certainly wouldn't be published in any decent journal.