Equal Opportunities legislation and the policies that flow out of that are part of how we try to realize a more “just” community. Diversity work aims to bring us all on board by helping others to feel part of the solution and not the problem. It takes a personal approach to change, and tries to get each individuals to take some responsibility for creating an overall better environment , not only inside a professional field but in a personal arena. It does not substitute the need to challenge oppression, bigotry and prejudice, but it may well challenge how we effectively do that work. The benefits of diversity training can be classified in terms of those realised directly from attending diversity training courses and those that can be realised through effective business organization practice around diversity issues.
Diversity training courses encourage participants to:
- understand the impact of current anti-discrimination legislation and how it impacts on the workplace
- understand the difference between equality and diversity and appreciate the business case for diversity
- the understanding of what actually comprises an inclusive environment
- recognise how others may perceive you and how you can reinforce or change these perceptions
- recognise your own stereotypes, biases and assumptions and reflect on how these may affect your behaviour and your human relationship with others
Benefits derived through having effective business practice around diversity issues
:
- it can help to protect staff against discrimination and harassment, which enables employers to make the most of their most valuable and expensive asset – people – through creating a better-motivated, creative and productive workforce that is capable of delivering service and product improvement
- having a assorted workforce means that you can better engager with all sections of the community
- better engagement leads to higher levels of customer satisfaction
- research by Bartlett, Scott Edgar suggests that an employer profile or reputation on diversity issues is progressively part of a bundle of goods that the most talented graduates look for in potential employers
- a strong record of credibleness in equality and diversity issues will enable employers to attract and retain staff
- fair pay, treatment and access to promotion and training means that organisations are less probable to face expensive and damaging tribunal costs
Actually Managing Diversity refers to managing a widely diverse workforce so that individuals in that workforce perform at their maximum potential by using all competencies, talents and added values. Added value is a term representing those important additional assets that individuals acquire as a result of belonging to a group and apply to some task or in some environment. These important additional assets are that group’s unique experiences, values, behaviours, skills and talents that have been learned and traditionally handed down from generation to generation. The ultimate objective of learning how to effectively manage diversity is to value identity and use the added values of a range of groups and cultures in a positive way to meet organisational needs, goals and objectives, so as to deliver high quality services. Discrimination is a belief, conscious or unconscious, that certain groups of people are inferior and other groups superior (e.g. men are cleverer than women), and having the power to act on those beliefs.
It is often based on ascribing negative/undermining/ridiculing qualities to all people in a particular group, regardless of their individuality. For example that Irish people are not clever, women are poor drivers , black people are unreliable/drug dealers, Jewish people are mean , gay men are promiscuous, all people with a disability are mentally impaired. Sometimes negative ascriptions masquerade as positive. For example, gay men are artistic; black people are athletic; all women are soft and caring. These negative ascriptions and assumptions are justifications that individuals use to explain uneven or unfair treatment that results, for example, in exclusion from jobs or unfair sentencing in courts. As well as being based upon a view that certain groups are inferior, it is also based upon a view that the dominant group and their culture, religious belief, values, politics, education, food, family, way of life are better and preferable.
The impending introduction of the Single Equality Bill, will ensure employers take responsibility to protect their employees against discrimination. Impact Training Consultancy Ltd. specialises in the provision of training, development and consultancy in the areas of diversity training, Dignity at Work and Bullying & Harassment