What is DEI Training?
DEI training is training for diversity, equity, and inclusion and is meant to teach your employees about these things so that people will be treated more equitable. You want to have a diverse workplace where everyone will feel that they are valued. The more valued your employees feel, the more likely they are to work harder for you.
There are many places that you can get DEI training, you can even do it on your own in your workplace. Another place that you can get training is from https://clearlawinstitute.com/blog/2022/04/26/dei-training-for-organizations/, they have training for every business. You can learn more about them by doing a little more research.
This article will list some of the things you need to do if you are planning to do your DEI training on your own. These are just a few of the things that you need to learn, there are more that you can research. There is lots of information that you can find about it on the internet.
Steps to Teaching DEI
- Understand Your Audience
You need to understand your audience before you even get started. You need to see what they know and what they need to learn. You can get a group of volunteers together from all around your workplace. From them, you can learn about what they know, and you can go from there. Take their input seriously and do not belittle their suggestions, if they are telling you something it is because it is a problem they are seeing.
- Define Goals and Measurement
After speaking with your employees, set some goals that pertain to what they said. Will your goal be to help your employees to foster a culture of inclusion and working together? Or it will be to help your employees to thrive in a workplace that is diverse? Either way, you need to set goals and then find a way to measure those goals so that you know when you are successful. You can look at this site to learn more about measuring goals. It can be really helpful if you can understand the techniques.
- Adopt a Cross-Functional Team Approach
You will want to work with teams all across the workplace to make sure that everyone is feeling included, and everyone has a voice. Make sure that everyone knows that this is an ongoing training so that your team will be willing to help for the long term. You want people that are going to want to be there for the long term.
- Identify Resources
You will have to have a budget, so you will need to identify the resources that you will need. This will include employees and all the materials that you will need to use. You need to discover all the resources that you might need for this training. This could include paper for copies, printing costs, and any other expenses that you might have related to the training.
- Use a Variety of Touchpoints
When you are planning the training, you will need to have a variety of touchpoints to talk about. This can be Women’s History Month, Black History Month, Hispanic History Month, and all the other months that pertain to diversity. You can also use information from your workforce to get more touchpoints.
- Engage Members in Your DEI Outreach Efforts
You will want to engage your workforce in your efforts, many of them have stories to tell that can help the entire workforce. They can also recruit others who have information that you might not have. You can also use one of your touchpoints to engage the neighborhood around you, as well. You could even present your information to the neighborhood in a fun way that would bring them to your event.
- Measure, Evaluate, Evolve
Once you have taught a few sessions, you will need to measure the understanding of the workforce. You can evaluate their learning by quizzing them, talking with them, and watching them interact with their peers. Once you have learned what they know, you will need your lessons to evolve to include what they already know and what they still need to know. You will evolve your lessons so that you can continue to teach and to learn through them.
You will also want to inspire your employees by showcasing their talents and their learning throughout the training. This will help them to stay engaged with the learning as you continue to train.
Conclusion
DEI training is an ongoing process that will last for years to come. Times change and so the training as we learn more about diversity, equity, and inclusion should change, as well. You will want to make sure that you stay up to date on these changes so that you can train your employees in the latest techniques and information.
You, as the employer, can also learn more about diversity, equity, and inclusion through your training. You can use this knowledge to help others and to make your training even better.
