I’ve been in HR management for over 25 years and I’ve either taken or taught diversity training classes every one of those years- and chances are you have gone through some type of diversity training too. It’s been popular in corporate America and touted by HR department for the past 30 years as a way to increase awareness and be sensitive to differences in culture, race, class, sexual orientation, religion and gender along with helping create an atmosphere of trust and acceptance; with the additional goal that it will decrease harassment and possible lawsuits. The training run the gamut from multi day retreats to a short videos but the bottom line is that businesses in the United States spend billions on this type of training, that’s right- billions of dollars for diversity training. However a recent article in the Boston Globe has reported that these programs are, at best, not very effective. The article cites multiple studies by leading social science researchers that there is basically no empirical evidence that diversity training does much to change attitudes or make the workplace better for minorities. “Even with best practices, you’re not going to get much of an effect,” says Frank Dobbin, a Harvard University sociology professor “It doesn’t change what happens at work.” Does anything really change our perceptions and bias? Alexandra Kalev, a sociologist at the University of Arizona along with Dobbin and Erin Kelly of the University of Minnesota, set out to see what works. The researchers found that while diversity training was by far the most popular approach, it was also the least effective at getting companies to hire and promote women and minorities. Some training programs were more effective than others: Voluntary programs were better than mandatory ones, and those that focused on the threat of bias and harassment lawsuits were worse than those that did not. Required training and legalistic training both make people resentful, the research suggest, and likely to rebel against what they’ve heard. What worked much better than even the best training, the researchers found, were more structural measures: minority mentoring programs, or designating an executive or a task force with specific responsibility to change promotion practices. The billion dollar business of diversity training isn’t going anywhere soon and harassment based on misunderstanding or prejudice isn’t going away either which means lawsuits or EEOC investigations will continue. But if you are serious about making your workplace a good environment for minorities and reducing lawsuits related to harassment consider taking these additional steps:
1) Establish a minority outreach programs or even better a voluntary affirmative action programs that sets gender- and race-based promotion targets and making a very senior executive responsible for them.
2) Create a mentor program
3) Review your diversity training program to make sure it matches the best practices discovered in recent research.
Join the conversation: What do you think about diversity programs?