Training – what’s effective? What’s ineffective? // Employment & Incentives

[Music] Hello and welcome to the next episode in our Diversity Faculty Podcast series. I'm Simon Care Davis, Council in the Employment and Incentives team, and I'm joined today by my fellow member of the diversity faculty, Daniel Danso, our global diversity leader. And today we're going to talk about diversity training, what is effective and what isn't. So, Daniel, we used to do a lot of training based on harassment, discrimination, and bullying, and over the more recent years, that's changed much more towards diversity and inclusion. So, how effective do you think diversity training can be? It's a really interesting question that I think we get a lot of times, and to be honest, you know, training is only as effective as the people attending it let it be. It's in my opinion what happens after the training that really matters. I think we're in a hybrid world right now, we're half of us are in person, and the other half are virtual. We're trying to manage everything from our busy lives to our busy work lives, and carving out the time to get into any type of training that a business is going to put out is one thing to attend, but actually using the information that you get to inform how you work, how people around you approach you and the culture that you create, that takes effort. And I think if a business hasn't created the right environment where people can take advantage of the infrastructure that they're building, then you're just having great training that will be ineffective because, you know, not only will people not attend, but they won't feel the importance that the business places on their own. They're understanding the things that they're trying to get across in training. So when I train personally, I try to make it as bespoke as possible. I, you know, have done the groundwork to understand the groups that I'm talking to, the environments that they're in, and what they go through on a day to day basis so that it's not just awareness raising, and I think there's a big distinction between awareness raising and training. And I think awareness raising is about giving them the concept almost that, that, you know, knowledge set about the subject itself, but training is something different. It actually is designed to try and move behaviors to take that information and create the right spaces for people. So given that we're now through that awareness raising phase, as you said, is this really more about facilitation and getting people to speak up about themselves and about their own situations? I mean, I think we have to acknowledge that not everybody is out of the awareness raising phase. I think that's important. A lot of it's going to depend on where a business or a group or a team or a function, whatever, where they're at with the information that D&I is trying to get across to them. But I definitely think that the strength in training, and I'm talking training, not awareness raising, is around the facilitation. It's how those spaces are created. I mean, a lot of times, especially with the race conversations that we've been having post-Black Lives Matter, you know, this courageous conversations, we were doing that over video phone and over web acts. And, you know, we were expecting for people to have super personal conversations about their life experiences and their experiences at work, where they couldn't read the normal physical cues. They were doing it all, you know, virtually. So those things needed somebody that didn't just know the subject, but could actually make sure that those spaces where we were talking about very contentious things could be really safe, so that people could make mistakes without being, you know, pigeon-held as a racist or a sexist or a homophobe, and where people who were going through these things could actually talk about their experiences safely. So that they knew if I talked about something that happened to me at work, the next thing I know, you know, it's not like I'll stop getting, you know, promoted or I'll stop getting assessed correctly, you know, there's a lot of fear around some of those spaces. Can you talk a bit about how you make that space safe, though? We've both been in environments where we have seen issues become contentious among the people in the room, issues become difficult. These are brave conversations that we're asking people to have. So how do you give them that assurance that this is a safe training environment? I mean, I think creating safe spaces is fundamental to any of these. The first thing that I think anybody needs to do is to make sure that they're in line with the sponsors of that piece of training. So I like to work with whoever the team leaders are, the managers are, the board members, the directors, whoever is leading that function. I like to work with them first so that I can understand how best to communicate to the group of people that I'm talking to, what is their language, what is their day today, so that, you know, it's not just me coming with knowledge about unconscious bias, but it's bias in how it works out in their day today and their industry for their group, because that's where it becomes more real. And again, that's the difference between awareness raising. I can come and do a TED talk about unconscious bias, but creating a space where people can actually feel like this is relevant to them takes a little bit of pre-work, but in the room, it also takes a lot of forming. So in the very beginning, you know, a really good facilitator will kind of set the expectations for what they can and can't cover within the hour that they may have. And also really set the expectations for what those individuals need to do following that hour. Yeah, actually, you always talk about the importance of the preparatory work of getting to know the client of understanding that, sending their business, but you've also always talked about the follow-up. So let's just think about follow-ups now. Where, after you've done a training session, what sort of follow-up would you expect to be involved in, what sort of follow-up would you expect the client to do themselves? It's really interesting that, you know, we, I'll use the example of building an inclusive culture, which is a session that we designed and developed and delivered in linklators. And the interesting thing is nobody really remembers the session, but they remember the behaviors that we were trying to engender in that session. And I think that's when, you know, a piece of training transcends just whoever is facilitating it and actually is something that's a bit more sustainable. So with that, I think the unique things that I'd want to pull out were we didn't have them go in, you know, without having something at the end for them to commit to. And these things were a cachet of things that they had as opportunities in their day to day, not everybody was going to be a team leader. So, you know, creating spaces for everybody to give in a team meeting wasn't something everyone could do. But what we were able to find is what they did on a day to day basis, where were the opportunities that they could interject, that they could challenge. But the important thing for them was the homework of going out and really articulating what environments really built them up and which environment shut them down. Because we could help provide that environment, you know, for individuals, but what we can't do is, you know, mitigate every single, you know, interaction that people may have. So we tried to teach them the skills that they needed in order to find out which situations helped them challenge, how they were going to do it, if it wasn't for them to challenge. And this particular, you know, piece of training, it was, did they know the right roads to, so it was, it was more about giving them a concrete understanding that this won't work if they don't give into it. And they have to find a way for it to be natural to them. And within the context of what we as a business were going to provide them. And I think that's the way any piece of training really connects to how the business operates. So what are the trends that you're seeing in the sort of training you're being asked for? I mean, some of the biggest trends are really the discrete groups and levels that we're starting to see needing training more. The one thing about 2020 and 2021, if you think about it, those years of crisis, you know, the ones that started with political unrest and COVID and, you know, race and all of these different things that are happening. Or just starting to prove that the leaders today don't necessarily have the skills to manage today's workforce. They're still trying to use, you know, old skills. And when we have young people, like I said, that are connected to the internet in ways that they are, we're suddenly having to monitor, you know, everything that we say. We have leaders now who are regular citizens who have just become senior, who are expected to talk about things, you know, in countries that we don't even operate in. Like when Afghanistan happened, you know, our people were expecting us to have a comment on it. And so that is something that we're seeing leaders today, you know, those skills that they actually need. They're not ones that they've been provided. And so what the trends that I'm seeing are more and more senior groups of people in businesses from board, exec teams, senior management teams, really needing and wanting to have training on how they can look at certain things that come across their desk that aren't on the ground. obviously clear about DNI like COVID. At first, we thought COVID was just a health epidemic, but then when we looked at that through the lens of DNI, we saw the LGBT community was experiencing it differently, racial communities were, socioeconomically we were. So how do business leaders look at something like COVID and instantly be able to see what they need to do for the diverse groups that may work for them? And those are skills that they didn't have before and that people weren't really helping them with. So for me, the trends, you're gonna start seeing a lot more senior groups being challenged and being tutored on how to incorporate some of the diverse perspectives that they're needing to now make decisions on. And I think the last thing is that we're starting to see companies taking ownership of some of their subsidiaries, we're even seeing asset management companies looking at bringing diversity and inclusion to their entire portfolio based through their non-exec directors. So we're really seeing more of a top level educational, I guess, slant towards training and that's gonna be the trend. We've already had a whole lot of infrastructure for the main body of the population. And I think right now we're really looking at leaders. - Okay. So if you were planning a training session, what would be your top tip for planning it in a way which means it will work best? - I think I would really have to start with the leaders in the organization who are going to either support people attending these trainings or to make it real for the business and not just a tick box. I mean, again, there are loads of different brilliant training programs and a lot of infrastructure and businesses where these things are readily available but the one thing we can't mitigate for is whether or not the business values it enough to let their people go. And if they value it enough to let their people go, then it's really a departure from what we've seen previously where diversity and inclusion training was great if you had the time to do it in your busy work. And now the real implications of what we're paid to do in a business which is to create a culture around us that it lets everybody else do their best work plus do our best work. Then I think diversity training has to be taken more seriously. - If we just jump back to where I started this conversation which was the sort of the historic kind of training that we used to do which was very definitely a compliance issue, it was, you know, we don't want people to discriminate. Let's make sure that people understand what that is and how to avoid it. Do you think that the increased involvement of regulators runs the risk that we're moving back to a more compliance driven form of training? - I think that there is a risk for those businesses that didn't understand what diversity and inclusion training was actually giving them. I mean, if they're truly after creating a culture where diverse perspectives and experiences can flourish then they have to understand the diversity training is the vehicle with which people can understand how to navigate those things. They're not getting it in their regular lives which is why you see all of the challenges in the world around us right now. So we have a unique opportunity in the workplace to actually construct the culture and to inform it with things like diversity training where in the sessions in those critical spaces. But again, if a business isn't of the mindset that it is critical, it will treat it as an elective and when it's treated as an elective we see what happens, people don't go, things won't change and we will end up exactly where we are a year from now asking whether or not training works. - Thank you, Daniel. So that's all on this podcast. If you want to learn more about our training offerings and any of the issues that we've raised in this discussion please do contact us. Thank you, bye for now. (upbeat music)