I am not a fan of the word training, especially as a diversity and inclusion trainer. Too often, when staff hear that they need to undertake compulsory diversity and inclusion training eyes roll, shoulders shrug and attitudes drop. It’s not rocket science to know that we mustn’t regurgitate the same old, tired equality training; instead we should be training for what staff actually need. However, that’s much easier said than done; clearly organisations will need to survey staff to find out what would actually benefit them in their day to day jobs rather than impose generic training content. In larger organisations, especially the public sector, staff surveys are common practice but good practice is to ask staff to self-identify a matrix of development needs where specifics can be recognised and acted upon.
For instance, the LGBT+ community are statically more likely to suffer from mental health difficulties – and those from the Trans community even more so. As such, would front line, clinical, mental health staff in the health care sector benefit from – for example – an awareness of the use of ‘pronouns’ for the LGBT+ community or the importance of not ‘dead naming’ Trans patients. They might benefit from this training but, on the other hand, if they are already aware, they might not need this. Fundamentally then the key thing to effective equality training, where staff are receptive, even evangelical, is not to repeat content, not to provide unnecessary content but to take the time to ask staff what would actually benefit them.
As a diversity and inclusion specialist, I am more interested in what support managers and staff actually want rather than simply putting on training for the sake of it. That support I also write down and publish in this blog on the diversity and inclusion challenges faced in the UK workforce. Though, in a ‘practice what you preach’ moment, I examined which of my diversity and inclusion articles were being read (and which were not) whilst exploring what people who search for diversity and inclusion information online actually wanted.
theequalityblog.co.uk has had over 1000 referrals from Google, Bing and other search engines, with the most popular search terms being ‘equality in faith schools’ and ‘equality protected characteristics’. By itself, it gives a strong indication as to the actual concerns (and the needs) of workforce staff have regarding equality. Specifically, in this case, a need for information on how faith schools can demonstrate equality whilst being selective in their recruitment and how the protected characteristics, as defined by the Equality Act 2010, impact on staff and what managers need to know to support staff with protected characteristics. Interestingly, the most visited article on the website is Ramadan Mubarak – How to Support Employees Observing Ramadan, which again highlights the support needs of workforce managers in supporting staff who observe Ramadan. Subsequently, in the knowledge of what my audience are actually seeking I can tailor diversity and inclusion articles accordingly. In this way the information is relevant and what people actually need to help them in their day to day operations.
JD
The Equality Blog 