Equality and diversity training

The more diverse your workforce the greater the likelihood of your company having people with the skills and knowledge to achieve business success.

A diverse workforce can bring alternative perceptions, broader thinking and enable increased commercial results through offering a more varied approach.

This one-day course will enable delegates to understand and appreciate important individual differences and create value from the diversity of your organisation’s workforce. This is very different from simply paying lip service to political correctness or ticking the right boxes. It is about laying the cornerstones to build synergistic relationships and creating a harmonious culture.

Delegates will have the opportunity to examine and discuss values, attitudes, perceptions and behaviour. They will be able to identify strategies for dealing with relevant workplace scenarios and create action plans, which will encourage cooperation between staff to utilise diverse experiences.

To help you decide if this programme is likely to be of value, answer ‘yes’ to two or more of these questions below on behalf of your company:

• does your workplace recognize and value difference?
• do you want to increase understanding in how to create value from the diversity of your staff and colleagues?
• do you want to build better working relationships?
• would you like to create a harmonious culture and attitude in your workplace?
• would you like to increase the organisation’s business success?

Who should attend

All front-line staff involved with interacting with customers and the general public. Anyone who handles information about members of the general public. Managers seeking to ensure key principles and methods are applied.

Programme objectives

If you answered yes to 2 or more of the questions above, then you know what the objective is that you need for your organisation! We will work with you to help you achieve it. The content is likely to include relevant topics from below:

• personal objective setting for the course
• what does equality and diversity mean to you?
• the definition of diversity
• exploring the differences between equal opportunities and diversity
• consideration of your organisation’s equal opportunities policies and procedures
• assessing how equality and diversity is currently promoted within your own organisation and how it could be improved
• exploration of what influences workplace atmospheres and behaviour
• discussions around stereotyping, assumptions and pre-judging people
• a look at what constitutes bullying in the workplace
• positive interventions for managing bullying and harassment
• recognising the sources of our values and beliefs
• exploring how we are valued in the workplace
• understanding how our personal rights are protected at work
• reviewing current legislation for equality and diversity
• understanding what the current legislation means for the individual
• comparing the differences between legislation and your own organisation’s policies
• positive action versus positive discrimination
• case study work exploring specific diversity scenarios
• exercise around appreciating the benefits of having a diverse workforce
• recognising the consequences of not being diverse in the workplace
• strategies to encourage equality and diversity in the workplace
• action planning to consider how you will implement the learning
• agreeing an individual/departmental action plan to look at next steps

Outcomes

A workforce who are aware of the requirement and benefits of respecting differences in others with delegates able to:

• explain what equality and diversity means to them as individuals
• recognise and discuss how values and beliefs shape our identity
• examine individual rights and responsibilities in the workplace
• compare current legislation with their own organisational policies