Managing Diversity and Inclusion

Let’s take a look at managing and training for workforce diversity. Diversity can be considered any dimension that differentiates a person from another. Inclusion refers to creating an environment in which employees share a sense of belonging, mutual respect, and commitment from others so they can perform their best work. Inclusion allows companies to capitalizing not only on the diversity of employees but also customers, suppliers, and community partners.

Diversity training refers to learning efforts that are designed to change employee attitudes about diversity and/or develop skills needed to work with a diverse workforce. Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) laws help ensure that women and minorities are adequately represented in a company’s labor force.

Research shows that diversity training has a small to medium effect on affective (attitudes), cognitive (acquiring knowledge), and behavioral outcomes. The most common area addressed through diversity training is the pervasiveness of stereotypes, assumptions, and biases.

Managing diversity and inclusion involves creating an environment that allows all employees to contribute to organizational goals and experience personal growth. This environment includes access to jobs, as well as fair and positive treatment of all employees. The company must develop employees who are comfortable working with people from a wide variety of ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds. Managing diversity may require changing the company culture.

Successful diversity programs involve more than just an effective training program. They require an ongoing process of culture change that includes top management support, as well as diversity policies and practices in the areas of recruitment and hiring, training and development, and administrative structures, such as conducting diversity surveys and evaluating managers’ progress on diversity goals. They also focus on enhancing diversity and inclusion with suppliers, vendors, and in the communities where the company conducts business.

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