My first exposure to any sort of serious form of diversity training started at the university I went to. I was on a university diversity committee, somehow suckered into the role by my boss at the time. I walked into the room and, not surprisingly, nobody looked like me. I remembered how miserable I was because it obviously lacked effectiveness and it took up quite a bit of time. Imagine going to a two hour meeting and feeling like you went in the opposite direction of where you should have gone every time? That was every one of these meetings.
In these meetings, we talked about fostering understanding, creating an environment free of hate or celebrating our different cultures. We talked about getting speakers, free concerts, movie nights, or [insert any event where we offered free food to poor students]. Everybody patted each other on the back at the end and said great job so I didn’t have the heart (or the guts) to tell everyone that we didn’t accomplish much.
It was one of those moments where I promised myself “Never again.” It was also a moment where I saw HR could be a big factor in actually fixing some of the things that hurt diversity. And I wasn’t going to do it through holding worthless meetings.
Fostering understanding, creating an environment free of hate or celebrating our different cultures is important. It is also a band-aid, an oversimplified solution for a serious problem and completely ineffective. Imagine if female employees were angry about differences in pay. So you go on a retreat, talk about people’s feelings and end the camp by everyone holding hands and singing kumbaya. Great retreat, right?
Wrong. Failure. Utter failure.
You go back to work Monday morning and female employees are still being paid differently. Nothing has been resolved. People may understand the issues but they don’t fix it.
Having an understanding about different cultures and promoting a hate-free environment may feel good but it doesn’t fix anything. Actions fix things. Actions are more important (but more difficult).
So while you are patting yourselves on the back in your diversity committee meetings this month, ask yourself what have you done lately? Have your actions resulted in less of a need for a diversity committee? The main goal of diversity committees should be eliminating the need for a diversity committee right? Really great employers have relieved many of the institutional barriers that hold back people from succeeding.
How far along are you in eliminating your diversity committee?
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Thankfully, this is one committee I’m not on!Yet.
Well, have you tried taping different races to your foreheads yet? Or a clever acronym like HERO?
Bekki -
I have not tried that. Maybe our next exercise will include more of that.
That all sounds great, but what kind of action would you suggest?
That really depends on what you need to fix, right? If it is a compensation issue, take action to fix it. If there seems to be a lack of diversity, broaden your recruiting focus. If there is a lack of acceptance of diversity, train your managers to properly deal with it.
Penn & Teller have a great show on SHOWTIME network called Bullsh*t. Season 6/Episode 7 called “Sensitivity Training” digs into this issue in great depth and exposes the reality…corporations, schools, even sports teams offer these inane “trainings” just to cover there “assets” in this litigious society we live in. It’s cheaper for their bottom line to offer these courses and protects corporate interests when a million dollar harrassment lawsuit crops up in the workplace.
You seem to be confusing diversity with discrimination. Diversity in your work place is a legitimate objective (as long as you don’t discriminate in trying to achieve it). Discrimination on the other hand is never morally acceptable. In your example, if the female employee is being discriminated against on pay issues, it is a matter for your HR and legal people and should be dealt with aggressively. The fact that she is there at all suggests you already have “diversity” at least with regard to gender. Too often the term “Diversity” has become a code word for “it’s OK to discriminate in order to achieve this business objective”.
@ Murphy – You’re right. That’s what is sad about this whole thing. Meeting the legal requirements is more important than doing something that is meaningful.
@ Jay – I disagree that I am confused about the issue. I didn’t say that it was a certainty that discrimination was happening. I am just using the example that these sorts of issues (whether it be pay, employee relations, morale, etc…) are often tackled through diversity trainings and other useless tactics that do nothing to help the diversity nor the discrimination issues.
Yo, Dawg! Ya’ll gots me straight trippin’!