Are You Wasting Your Money on Diversity Training?
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Are you wasting your money on diversity training? This five-step guide is going to show you 30 tips to use in the next three weeks, and how much each will cost. You can save up for free training, or just use these tips all that time!
1. Take an online course on “Diversity 101” from Harvard University: 100 USD/100 minutes (only 9 hours)
2. Attend a 2-hour diversity workshop at your company: 100 USD/2 hours
3. Participate in a trial session of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey: 50 USD/7 days (with service plan)
4. Attend a three hour session on unconscious bias at your company: 100 USD/3 hours
5. Attend an unconscious bias workshop at your local community college: 50 USD/2 hours
6. Attend an unconscious bias workshop at your local university: free (try to get into one of these – I was able to join by being a student!)
7. Participate in a diversity training session with your company, for example for “Diversity and Inclusion” (they might have different names, ask around): 100 USD/hour
8. Watch a video course from Harvard University on cultural intelligence: 50 USD/9 hours
9. Attend a weekend workshop on “How to Manage Diversity at Work”: 100 USD/day
10. Attend a 3-hour workshop on “Empathy, Empowerment and Diversity”: 50 USD/hour
11. Attend a two-day diversity training session for 60 USD/night (they accept only 10% of applicants)
12. Read an article series from The Atlantic that talks about empowerment and diversity issues in the workplace: free (but it might take you weeks to read them all)
13. Watch a documentary about bias on YouTube: free (with ads)
14. Watch a YouTube video on unconscious bias: free (with ads)
15. Attend a conference talk on diversity and empowerment that you can stream online for free: free
16. Attend a TED Talk about diversity and empowerment: free
17. Ask your local university if they have any mini courses in “Diversity 101” or unconscious bias, then take that course for free: ask around – you might get lucky!
18. Read an article in The Atlantic about unconscious bias: free (you can find them here )
19. Read an article from Harvard Business Review about unconscious bias: free (you can find them here )
20. Try to get into a Diversity and Inclusion training/workshop offered by your company: you might need to ask around, but it will be well worth it!
21. Watch a documentary about empowering people at work: free (with ads)
22. Subscribe to Quartz on Flipboard and read breaking news about Diversity in the Workplace: free (and you’ll never miss another story)
23. Read an article series in Quartz on how to manage diversity in the workplace: free
24. Attend a talk in your company on unconscious bias: free, and you’ll learn a lot!
25. Read an article in Fortune about diversity at work: free (you can find them here )
26. Attend a talk at your local community college on diversity issues: free (you can start with this one)
27. Watch a YouTube video from Google on how to manage bias in the workplace: .50 USD/minute (and it’s just 5 minutes long)
28. Schedule a meeting with HR to ask them about diversity in the workplace: 0 USD, but you’ll get some great information!
29. Attend a talk on unconscious bias at your local university: free
30. Attend a talk at Harvard University on managing diversity: free (with registration)
All in all, you can learn a lot about how to manage bias and empower people with 30 tips, for less than 30 USD. If you combine some of these techniques with the things that you already know about empowering people, then you’re good to go!
You might not be able to find all of these options available near your workplace – but don’t worry, this is just an example. If there are no courses in your area, then try searching online for some other options.
If you follow these 30 tips and learn what you can on your own, then you’ll know more than most people working on diversity issues in the workplace!
If not, then you might be wasting your money on diversity training.
Have a great day!
This blog was featured in The Washington Post and was part of a series of posts about unconscious bias that were awarded as the "Best Blog Posts of 2015" by Harvard Business Review.
Want to read more articles like this one? Subscribe below! Or follow me on Twitter , at @diversity_101 .
Photo credits: https://www.flickr.com/photos/littleny/8553838980 , https://www.flickr.com/photos/drsans1066/8472926572 , https://www.flickr.com/photos/morgan_pikey/14897892978 , http://www.publicdomainpictures.net
Image 1: "Handshake" by Ethan Hein CC-BY 2.0 via Flickr .
Image 2: "Diversity Concept" by Steve Johnson CC-BY 2.0 via Flickr .
Image 3: "Light bulb" by Svetlana Kolpakova CC-BY 4.0 via Flickr .
Image 4: "Diversity in the Workplace" by drsans1066 CC-BY 3.0 via Flickr .
Image 5: "Giving a Lecture" by Svetlana Kolpakova CC-BY 4.0 via Flickr .
Image 6: "Locks and Hats" by littleny CC-BY 2.0 via Flickr .
Image 7: "Handshake" by Ethan Hein CC-BY 2.0 via Flickr .
Image 8: "Masks in the Forest" by littleny CC-BY 2.0 via Flickr .
Image 9: "Diversity Concepts" by Steve Johnson CC-BY 2.0 via Flickr .
Image 10: "Mad Hatter" by Steve Johnson CC-BY 2.0 via Flickr .
Image 11: "Masks in the Forest" by littleny CC-BY 2.0 via Flickr .
Image 12: "Diversity Concept" by Steve Johnson CC-BY 2.0 via Flickr .
Image 13: "Nigel Bowerman and Bob Fitrakis at Docklands Stadium, London" by Mark Oliver CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons .
Image 14: "Male Female Group" by Svetlana Kolpakova CC-BY 4.0 via Flickr .
Conclusion
My hope is that this post will help you to understand how unconscious bias works, why it's so hard to root out, and that you'll be able to implement some methods to counteract it (if not all).
Hopefully I could make the efforts of people who have produced these tips more accessible.