
As a corporate buzzword, DEI has shot to prominence in recent years. The theory is that diversity, equity, and inclusion training makes all managers and workers more tolerant and businesses better places to work, driving increased efficiency, greater innovation, and an improved culture. However, getting DEI embedded within a company is just as challenging as when digital business arrived or the fight for equality across previous decades.
DEI Starts at the Top
No matter the size of a company, DEI is a concept that must filter down from the highest leadership. It is not something that can start as a pilot project in one department or corner of an office.
The good news is that many younger and progressive businesses, especially larger organizations, have DEI already baked into their operations. The bad news is that if older white male workers dominate your office, it might have a long way to go. Either way, DEI needs to be formalized and applied to everyone.
That starts with the CEO and other senior leadership explaining DEI, the objective of using it, and the benefits across the organization. It should also be highlighted that this is a long-term, non-negotiable strategy that will not disappear after a few months.
How to Get Started With DEI Training
With the big memo, HR or office management teams can start rolling out DEI training. This begins with a guide to what DEI will deliver, how it works, and why it is an everyday issue, not just a topic for discussion at annual appraisals.
The guide should highlight what the bosses said and explain how DEI results in a company that is more welcoming to people from diverse backgrounds, helps boost worker retention, and improves skills. It should also clarify how introducing different values, skills, and opinions broadens internal knowledge and resources within teams.
They drive innovation, new thinking, and problem solving, which deliver productivity and efficiency business benefits and improve competitiveness. Regarding softer skills, DEI helps develop awareness of other cultures and social groups and creates a waterfall effect to integrate with different teams and groups.
Best Practices for DEI Training
The first step toward a DEI-engaged business is to create a mandatory training program for all leaders, managers, and workers. Beyond the broad strokes, the specifics can focus on:
- Leaders: How to measure the return and value of DEI, and promote it within the organization
- Managers: How to implement and maintain DEI standards. How to drive change and avoid or overcome resistance.
- Workers: How DEI is a learning and growth experience that delivers business and human benefits.
When it comes to training, there should be a broad approach to engagement and interactivity. This can include training based on:
- Written material: to explain DEI and identify obstacles, biases, and terminology.
- Video guides: to highlight everyday real-world situations and discussions around how DEI impacts a business.
- Group sessions will add context to the above, highlight and address individual concerns, and allow people to air their views.
You can create a solid path to DEI through all of these training and awareness efforts. There should be a focus on the value of DEI and how it will show (or be reported) across the business. Over time, evaluations will be made on the success or disruption that DEI has caused and how to progress the effort.
As DEI brings new faces and teams together, a strong effort needs to be made to integrate and create allies and advocates within a team, especially where there is resistance, to create a solid foundation for future DEI efforts.
Whatever the results, a regular DEI update should focus on the added strengths that it has brought to the business, how it benefits workers’ lives and knowledge, and any growing trends of interest to the business or the market it operates in.
Going Live With and Beyond Your DEI Training
Once the DEI process is broadly in place, HR-focused training efforts can reinforce DEI-welcoming behavior. On the other hand, they can identify blockers or interference across people, processes, and at the institutional level, with the aim of educating, updating, or eliminating them.
Not all DEI efforts will be welcome or work at first, usually because of a failure of explanation or training. Revising and refreshing efforts should help overcome those problems. At all levels, efforts must be made to ensure management doesn’t slide into “commitment drift,” especially as political pressure opposes anything viewed as progressive.
Even so, there will be some cases where a few workers think that DEI is discriminating against or oppressing them, that DEI is harmful, or that it is not being taken seriously within the organization. Whatever that approach, HR should handle claims at face value and with an open mind, with the chance of arbitration or even small claims lawsuits should the business not be able to provide a satisfactory conclusion.
Not every business has the skills and expertise to deliver DEI, and they should use outside help and experience to provide the process and training. These come with the advantage that people are more likely to discuss issues outside the company’s walls, and that external partners come with less perception of DEI being a politically-charged issue.