Diversity and Inclusion: A Simple Break Down

As someone who worked with different Kenyan tribes when running hotels and safaris, diversity and inclusion is a topic that is important to me.

And it should be important to you too. Why? Because employee diversity has measurable, positive effects on organizational success. Plus, on a macro level, due to the global political environment, employees are personally concerned with diversity and inclusion (D&I) issues (including gender pay equity) and want their employers to offer perspective on those issues. In this way, D&I now touches employee engagement, human rights and social justice.

Today I want to break down D&I simply, for those who see diversity and inclusion as an insurmountable challenge to tackle. We’ll start with outlining how D&I benefits company performance, including information which can be used to urge leaders to take D&I initiatives more seriously. Then, I’ll discuss how to foster inclusion at work—because what’s the point of a diverse workforce if employees don’t feel included in company culture, decision-making and upward mobility? Lastly, I’ll review some challenges that diversity brings to company culture and performance.

Four Ways Diversity Benefits Company Performance

Here are four examples of the measurable, positive effects that employee diversity has on organizational success:

1. Women increase equity, sales and ROI

Catalyst took a look at Fortune 500 companies with women on their board of directors and found that these which co? those that focus on D&I? companies had a higher return on equity by at least 53%, were superior in sales by at least 42%, and had a higher ROI, to the tune of 66%. Those are not small numbers.

2. Diverse top teams = top financial performers

McKinsey quarterly reported that between 2008 and 2010, companies with more diverse top teams were also top financial performers.

3. Diversity and inclusion identified as key driver of innovation

When 321 executives at large global enterprises ($500 million plus in annual revenues) were surveyed for the Fostering Innovation Through a Diverse Workforce study, diversity and inclusion were identified as the key driver of not only internal innovation, but also business growth.

4. Diverse groups are superior problem solvers

Groups of diverse problem solvers outperformed groups of high-ability problem solvers, according to a study by Lu Hong and Scott E. Page.

Creating a diverse staff and culture is only the first step. It doesn’t do much good without inclusion, which takes effort. Because what’s the point of a room full of diverse thinkers when no one feels empowered to share their thoughts? Here are three tips to foster a sense of inclusion amongst a diverse workforce:

How Managers Foster A Sense Of Inclusion Among A Diverse Workforce

1. Coach People To Listen More and Interrupt Less

Listening is a key element of inclusion, and while it sounds simple, it actually requires practice and intention. Leaders and managers need to coach people to listen more and interrupt less. They need to listen with their whole selves—taking into account the words, body language and energy of the communicator.

2. Encourage Equal Stage Time in All Meetings

We’ve all been in meetings that were dominated by the person with the loudest voice. And unfortunately, the “squeaky wheel” strategy does sometimes garner results in the business world. This is the opposite of inclusion. Encourage meetings where all speak up equally. This will take some careful management at first, but with time the culture of the meetings will change, and more voices will be heard.

3. Work On Your Own Bias

Our own bias can greatly influence decision-making, often preventing inclusion unconsciously. Here are six quick tips for working on our own biases.

• Start by taking the IAT test to identify biases you have that yet may be unaware of: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html
• Watch your language. Biased language is ingrained in how we speak, but can exclude diverse employees. For example, “Okay you guys, let’s get down to work,” does not include female members of the team.
• Identify particular elements in company processes that function as entry points for bias. For example, is your hiring committee all male? People tend to be drawn to others like themselves. If you identify your hiring committee as largely dominated by one gender or ethnicity, change it up.
• Include positive images of diverse groups in the workplace such as posters, newsletters, videos, reports and podcasts. This helps our brains make positive associations with groups we may otherwise be unconsciously biased toward.
• Visualize a positive interaction with toward with those you have a bias against. Visualization is powerful and can actually alter the brain.
• Encourage workers to call out bias and hold each other accountable. Yes, that means calling out leaders too.
  
  

The Challenges Diversity Brings To Company Performance Or Company Culture

Diversity increases different ways of seeing the world and how people work. For example, how a person from the U.S. views time versus how a person from China views time may be drastically different. Learning the cultural differences between team members strengthens team understanding.

In addition, the complexity of ideas increases with more diverse teams. This is more difficult to manage than homogenous ideas, which require less debate to come to agreement and make decisions. While diversity breeds innovation, it can also present a challenge and requires careful communication skills.

Welcoming diversity and inclusion into your organization is critical. I urge all leaders to take an honest look at where diversity and inclusion stands in their organization, and make it a strategic priority.

Share your questions about diversity and inclusion in the comment section below, via email, or on Twitter. Myself or members of my community will do our best to answer!

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A Guide to Developing, Managing, and Executing Effective Training Programs

Have you been tasked with developing an employee training program? Are you interested in identifying training costs and the criteria for an effective training program?

Read on as we provide answers to some of the most common training program questions, including a detailed overview and useful tips. Whether you’re conducting a training program yourself or simply learning more about the subject, we hope you find it helpful.

Table of Contents:

• What is a training program?
• What’s the purpose of a training program?
• What’s the difference between training program and workshops, webinars, facilitation and keynotes?
• What is a management development program and a leadership development program?
• How do I determine which topic is best for my organization?
• Do I need to hire an outsider to do the workshop or do I need to train myself?
• Is training better in person?
• What’s the ROI of an employee development program?
• What’s the 70/20/10 model?
• What should I expect when asking a vendor to help my organization?
• What are typical topics a vendor could provide?
• How far in advance do I need to plan?
• How do I know the vendor can provide what I need?
• How do I measure success?
• How can I learn more?

What is a training program?

A training program is designed to train employees in the specific skills they need to grow in their career. These programs are usually over a duration of time and based on organizational competencies. Since there are different employment skills needed throughout a career, the employee development programs will also vary to match the specific skill sets.

What’s the purpose of a training program?

The purpose of a training program is to serve as a guideline for employee development. When employees are empowered to grow and learn, they are more likely to remain with the employer.

What’s the difference between training program and workshops, webinars, facilitation and keynotes?

Workshops, webinars, facilitations and keynotes are all tools used within a training program. They are sometimes used as one-off events; usually, they are combined to create a diverse learning structure over time.

Below are general guidelines of what to expect for each tool:

• Workshops: half day to multiple days, in person, interactive, ranging from 20-50 people, with the objective to interactively learn information
• Facilitations: half day to multiple days, in person, interactive, ranging from 20-50 people, with the objective to bring group consensus and decisions amongst the participants
• Keynotes: 45-60 minutes, in person, minimal interaction, ranging from 50-2000 people, with the objective to share knowledge (often referred to as ‘Sage on a Stage’)
• Webinars: 60-120 minutes, online (with or without video), varying interactivity, ranging from 10-1000 people (depending on the platform), with the objective to interactively teach information to a remote audience

Download our summary guide here!

For example, if you are tasked to create a coaching employee training program, where all 500 employees know the basics of coaching and use coaching skills consistently, you could facilitate a half-day session with the HR team to create alignment with the coaching objectives and organizational mission. Once that is clarified, a 9-month developmental program could be devised that included one keynote for all employees to understand the macro concepts of coaching, followed by 10 workshops for 50 people to learn how to coach. Follow up webinars would be the next step, to help people reinforce the skills they learned in the coaching workshops. At the conclusion of the 9 months, all employees would have heard a macro keynote on the topic, been trained in the workshop and had time to reinforce the lessons learned through a webinar, creating coaching skills to be used consistently within the organization.

What is a management development program and a leadership development program?

Management development programs (MDP) and leadership development programs (LDP) are similar to the training program described above. The difference is the specificity of the audience (management or leadership team) and the identified topics needed to become an effective manager or leader. In addition, the cohort stays together throughout the entire time; for example, if an organization has 10 managers, that group of 10 managers will meet together in the workshop or webinar throughout the entire duration of the program. Finally, MDPs and LDPs often include a capstone exercise where small groups within the cohort need to develop a solution to an organizational problem, using the skills they learned. Watch the video here to learn more about our Performance Leadership Program.

How do I determine which topic is best for my organization?

For effective training, we must know what the employee needs. This need should also be aligned with the organizational vision and mission, which requires foundational work. And in order to do that work, competencies must first be established.

Sometimes referred to as ‘KSA’s, competencies are the things people need to know (knowledge), do (skills) and have (abilities) to be successful in a specific role. Competencies can be grouped into technical, foundational and leadership areas. They are defined by specific behaviors that describe what that competency would look like if someone was using it effectively. These behaviors are often laid out across a proficiency scale so the employee can clearly assess her current behaviors and understand what behaviors are needed for the next level.

Some examples of competencies are problem-solving, conflict management, technical skills and speaking up. While some competencies will be applied to every employee, others are role dependent. The CEO of a large organization likely won’t need to have specific technical competencies, and a coder on the tech team likely wouldn’t need to be competent in sales communication.

Once competencies are defined, the next thing to do is identify five clearly defined proficiency levels. For example, for problem-solving skills, level one might be, ‘asks questions and looks for information to identify and differentiate the symptoms and causes of every day, defined problems’. Level five might be, ‘anticipates problem areas and associated risk levels with objectivity; uses formal methodologies to forecast trends and define innovative strategies in response to the implications of options; and gains approval from senior leadership to solutions of multi-faceted problems’.

After competencies and proficiency levels are clearly defined, the next steps are:

1. Determine the expected proficiencies by job position.
2. Assess the employee’s competencies using a standardized process, on a regular basis. Competing an assessment will help the leader know which competencies to focus on for future leadership training.
3. Aggregate the identified competencies and assess which ones are best for the cohort in mind.
4. Develop a training program based on those competency topics.
5. Track progress using accountability measures in the leadership development training.

Read in depth about each step here.

Using this process will prevent your training program from failing. You’re developing training programs because you are invested in employee development. If you’re willing to make that investment, it’s worth doing the foundational work necessary to create effective training that elevates your employees.

Do I need to hire an outsider to do the workshop or do I need to train myself?

It depends. Do you have in-house talent and capacity to complete steps 1-5 above?  If you do, then build a plan and allocate resources to do the work. If you don’t, then an outside vendor may be what you need to complete the work.

Is training better in person?

Again, it depends. In person training programs might be best if the skill being developed needs to be verbally practiced with other people, such as coaching, giving feedback, or crucial conversations. However, small group sessions can be just as effective using video technology, avoiding travel costs.

What’s the ROI of an employee development program?

Simply put: a better prepared employee is a more productive employee. According to the Association of Talent Development (ATD), companies that invest in training employees see a 218% higher income per employee than companies that don’t.

We know that a manager cannot motivate an employee to improve; that has come from within the employee. However, managers can create the learning environment for employees to grow. How? The first step is to take an inventory of the current staff, using a consistent assessment tool such as a 360-degree assessment, with an objective lens to collect skills data. This full assessment will provide two sets of data in one assessment: strengths and areas to grow. This 360 view lets managers begin to leverage the strengths in their staff; it also shows the delta between the strengths and weaknesses, so you can create the best strategy to improve the team.

The next step is to understand how adults learn. The 70/20/10 model (pronounced – seventy, twenty, ten) for employee development is one effective tool to leverage the current talents of your staff and build stronger teams, which increases the organizational bottom line.

What’s the 70/20/10 model?

Before we explain how the 70/20/10 model can help you develop career goals, let’s look at three types of learning strategies: pedagogy, andragogy and heutagogy. Pedagogy, known as “teach-centered”, is typically used where the student learns from one direction: teacher to student. Andragogy, known as “student-centered”, is when the student learns from two directions: teacher to student and student to student. Finally, heutagogy, known as “self-directed”, is how students learn from multi-directional perspectives: teacher to student, student to teacher, student to student, inside and outside of the learning environment; with heutagogy, the student sets goals and expectations, based on their experiences. The 70/20/10 model includes all three types of learning strategies.

Most of us immediately think about the costs of going to back to school to learn new things. The 70/20/10 model shows how you can learn something new, in many cases, without spending a dime. The model says that the best learning uses pedagogy, andragogy and heutagogy, where you spend 10% of your time learning from a teacher, 20% of your time learning through others and 70% of your time learning experientially. Click here to learn more about this model.

What should I expect when asking a vendor to help my organization?

At first, the vendor will likely ask for:

• Multiple conversations with the organizational point of contact, so the vendor can better understand the objectives and organizational culture.
• Up to three calls with an organizational employee or stakeholder, so the vendor can better understand the objectives and organizational culture.
• A conversation about material preparation (slide decks, handouts, other supplies)

What are typical topics a vendor could provide?

We provide keynotes and workshops on these topics:

Coaching

1. Coaching for Managerial Success
2.  Career Coaching
3.  Coaching Skills to Motivate your Team for Peak Performance

Communication

1. Crucial Conversations
2. Listening Skills
3. Providing Feedback
4. Presentation Skills
5. Facilitation Skills

Diversity and Inclusion

1. Unconscious Bias and You
2. Leading Diversity for Improved Performance
3. Engage Every Age

Human Capital Management

1. Workforce Transformation: Oversight of Human Capital Strategy
2. HR and People Analytics

Leadership

1. Influencing without Authority
2. Strength-based Leadership
3. Leadership Development for Supervisors
4. Organizational Polarity
5. Values Based Leadership
6. Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Empowering Women
7. Workforce of the Future: Preparing Leaders for the Workforce of the Future
8. Problem Solving: Thinking Differently to Solve Problems Faster
9. Managing Conflict

Other

1. Delegation
2. Emotional Intelligence: Improve Your Team’s EI to Improve the Bottom Line
3. Energy Management and Stress Reduction
4. Mentoring
5. Managing Constant Change
6. Prioritization for Success
7. Building the Teams of Tomorrow Today

How far in advance do I need to plan?

A brand new training program will likely take 1-2 months to develop, including clarifying objectives, identifying the cohort, developing curriculum, creating the communications and designing each workshop, webinar and other tools.

In general, training programs work best when employees are fully present, so August and December are not recommended training months. Often training programs run from September-June (skipping December) or January-July. However, be sure to avoid busy times for your organization such as January-April for tax accountants.

How do I know the vendor can provide what I need?

Training and development programs require specific skills, including Instructional Systems Design (ISD), so ask about the vendor’s ISD background.

In addition, ask for client references and be sure to call those references. Finally, ask for case studies that include specific measures of success.

How do I measure success?

The objective of an employee development program is to develop new skills and behaviors, which can be measured. Some common metrics include:

• Absence rate
• Cost per hire time to fill
• Turnover costs
• Vacancy rate
• Human capital return on investment (ROI)
• Training return on investment (ROI)

How can I learn more?

Check out our free summary paper on training and development here. Or contact us here.

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.