Workplace diversity training

Diversity training in the workplace is an area of increasing interest and challenges. As the case for managing diversity in organisations has gained more acceptance and influence, how this is translated into practice in organisations has begun to receive attention. Diversity training currently comes in many forms. The most basic kind simply involves the provision of information on the law of the land or the organisation’s policy in this area, perhaps with the hope that this will change behaviour. An improvement on this is the more practical approach of using case studies or ‘controversial scenarios’ (Johnson and Redmond, 2000). These are used to engage employees in exploring how they would behave in circumstances involving sexism, racism or ageism, for example. Most advanced are programmes that utilise teams with a diverse make-up, but an agreed goal, as a means of providing actual experience of ‘working with diversity’