Diversity Management

“The wave of the future is not the conquest of the world by a single dogmatic creed but the liberation of the diverse energies of free nations and free men.”

John F. Kennedy

Our societies have become vastly more diverse as a result of increased international travelling, real-time communication and improved awareness of people’s strength and weakness. Understanding diversity will allow us to enjoy its benefits and learn how to communicate better with those with different cultural, educational and social backgrounds.

Some organisations are still going through the adaptation phase as their workforce is diversified and this can create a tension within staff as they need to get adjusted to the new trend. A training course on diversity management can prepare them to face other people who are different from them and learn how to be respectful, patient and understanding when it comes to dealing with minorities.

The course specifically addresses two important areas within diversity; skills and awareness. Diversity management is not about walking through a number of equal opportunity guidelines and local laws to force people to comply with regulation. Instead, it is about increasing staff’s awareness to the advantages of diversity and how it can come to profit their organisation or the society as a whole. In addition to awareness, it is also important to work on skills such as listening to others, empathy, confronting inappropriate behaviour, giving feedback and so on. By progressing on these two dimensions, individuals can vastly increase the quality of their interaction and communications with those who are different from them and in turn improve productivity and efficiency.

This course applies to both staff and managers. Members of staff learn how to interact with each other and their clients and managers learn the important benefits of managing diversity systematically and successfully.

This is a highly practical course. The topic of diversity can be dull for some people. Our intention when designing this course was to make the content as interesting as possible while still delivering the core message. Through the interactive exercises, delegates are encouraged to examine their own beliefs and become more curious about other people’s way of thinking. Several optional exercises are provided for the end of the course to encourage the delegates to apply what they have learned during the course to their specific issues and circumstances. Some exercises are specifically designed as frameworks so you can customise them with your own scenarios or case studies relevant to the objectives of your diversity management training.

In this highly practical course delegates will learn:

Introduction to Diversity

• What is diversity?
• How can you benefit from diversity management?
• What is the difference between diversity management and equal opportunity?
• What are the critical dimensions of diversity?
• What is groupthink and how does it relate to diversity?
• How can you change people’s attitudes?

Managing Behaviours

• How should you deal with behaviours such as stereotyping?
• How to avoid labelling
• How can you influence people’s behaviour to change their attitudes?
• How to eliminate prejudice
• How to use three established methods to change behaviours

Perspective Taking

• What is perspective taking?
• Why is perspective taking important?
• How does perspective taking develop in us as we grow and what are the implications?

Social Integration

• What are the stages people go through when integrating into a new job, environment or culture?
• What are the implications of these stages?
• What emotions do people experience when going through these stages?
• What behaviour do you expect people to exhibit at different stages?

Handling Cultural Differences

• What are the defining characteristics of different nations?
• How can you systematically compare members of different nationalities based on a number of established dimensions?
• How can you use these dimensions to improve your interaction with other nationalities?
• How to improve your meetings with clients, suppliers, customers and colleagues of different nationalities based on strategies derived from the model

Body Language

• What gestures are most effective in putting another person at ease?
• How to avoid appearing confrontational or defensive
• How to show that you are interested and welcoming

 

Audience: Anyone

Prerequisites: None

Course Duration: 1 day.

Course Level: Beginners & Intermediate

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You can combine this course with Customer Service Skills and Telephone Skills for a comprehensive course suitable for call centre staff. You can purchase all three courses together to save 20% on the total price. 

By the end of this course the delegates will be able to:

• Appreciate the importance of diversity in organisations and learn about the best strategies to exploit it
• Respond to attitudes and behaviours related to diversity and learn how to express yourself better when dealing with others
• Understand the roots of perspective taking and stages of cultural integration to increase the efficiency of your communication with others
• Use Hofstede’s cultural dimensions to predict other nationalities’ behaviour and use effective strategies to interact with them
• Use effective body language to put others at ease and improve your communication skills

A course on diversity management highly depends on the requirements of your client or the delegates that attend the course. This course is designed to benefit a diverse group of people who work together and the aim is to help them appreciate the benefits of diversity, understand each other better and resolve their differences. To achieve these objectives, this course is easily customisable to help tutors deliver their specific message. Comprehensive trainer guidelines are provided which help trainers prepare for the course, customise the content, formulate and choose the exercises and so on.

Our experience also shows that a course on diversity may not be everyone’s favourite pass time, so we have made the content as engaging and interesting as possible. In addition, care has been taken to reduce confrontation within the training session by helping delegates to think more about their similarities rather than their differences. Providing a calm training environment and encouraging factual discussions are important when it comes to diversity training as there is a risk of participants becoming too emotional due to the nature of the topic. Again guidelines on these are provided for the trainer to get the best results.