NO

They too often focus on the wrong things

Companies have spent billions of dollars and countless hours over the past few decades on “diversity training.” With all this diversity training, we should have eradicated discrimination at work, right?

Unfortunately, not so much. Even where companies have made gains on diversity, they tend to look diverse at entry and lower levels but remain homogenous — white and male — at the top. Companies also usually pay more attention to gender and race, but do less work on other identity categories like social class, neurodiversity, ability status, or sexuality, or at the intersections of these categories.

And finally, small gains on diversity have not been matched by gains in inclusion — ensuring employees feel like they belong, that their authentic selves are accepted and valued, that they can safely take risks and make mistakes, and that they have equal access to resources and opportunities.

So, why isn’t diversity training working now, and how can it be better?

Most diversity trainings focus on the wrong thing (attitudes and ideals instead of actions, behaviours, systems, and processes) and at the wrong level (on individuals rather than on the systems that create and perpetuate bias and discrimination).

Research shows that diversity training can at least temporarily improve attitudes (e.g., increasing knowledge about implicit biases and inequality and the desire to decrease their effects), but that it does little to spur action or inclusive behaviours (e.g., giving a high-performing woman a raise or promotion).

Moreover, attitudinal shifts are short-lived and may not happen at all among those with the most severe biases. Even worse, diversity trainings can backfire altogether, resulting in reduced diversity, backlash against minority employees, an illusion of fairness that makes discrimination less salient to majority group employees, and stereotype rebound, where suppressed biases come back bigger and stronger than before.

Regarding the focus on individuals, there tend to be two flavours of diversity training: one focused on “fixing” the people who hold the biases, and the other focused on fixing the people who are targeted by them. The application of bias at work leads to discrimination and inequality in opportunities and outcomes, but it is enabled by a system that allows and even inadvertently encourages this application.

By focusing on individuals, organizations can check the box to indicate that they have done something, without addressing the structures and systems that allow for individuals’ biases to negatively impact others.

For example, if a hiring manager automatically associates Chinese names with poor English language ability, she will have a harder time discriminating against those applicants if she can’t see anyone’s names vs. if she is simply told to reduce her bias.

The other approach, fixing the targets of bias, like women or racial minority group members, thrusts responsibility for overcoming discrimination onto people who do not have the power or access to do so, and can lead to backlash where they are seen as troublemakers or complainers and are effectively pushed out.

This reinforces the hostile workplace culture that is at the root of the so-called “leaky pipeline”; in reality, minority group employees are pushed out of the pipeline, they don’t just passively leak out. Biases live in the human mind but allowing them to influence decisions and behaviours that harm others is a systemic problem that requires systemic solutions.

To create successful diversity training programs, companies must shift their focus from attitudes to behaviour, and from individuals to systems.

Behaviour-based diversity training connects attitudes to specific behaviours. For example, like equipping employees with a clear protocol of actions to implement when faced with scenarios that call for allyship, and embedded within a structure that renders biases less powerful.

Companies also need to collect valid and reliable data to ensure these programs are having their intended effects. Finally, these programs cannot stand alone. They must be integrated within an overarching diversity and inclusion strategic plan.

For example, diversity training programs are more effective when they are coupled with initiatives like mentorship and sponsorship programs, diversity committees or task forces that are adequately resourced and have the power to hold the organization accountable to its promises, . Diversity trainings are merely a starting point, but nowhere near an end in themselves.