Diversity training is training for the purpose of increasing participants' cultural awareness, knowledge, and skills, which is based on the assumption that the training will benefit an organization by protecting against civil rights violations, increasing the inclusion of different identity groups, and promoting better teamwork. [1]
Diversity training has been a controversial issue, due to moral considerations as well as questioned efficiency or even counterproductivity.
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According to Michael Bird,[2] many project managers may feel that they are treading new territory as they lead project teams made of individuals from different cultures, heterogeneous mixes, and differing demographics. This signals a lack of understanding of the techniques required to manage diverse teams which can lead to project managers being less efficient and effective. This in turn can cause the team member motivation, satisfaction levels and productivity to drop due to the lack of knowledge and skills needed to lead diverse teams. Bird further states that the project manager will need to refine and improve management techniques and should complete a post project evaluation to measure the overall results of managing the diverse teams.
Based on Bird’s research, the following positive approaches can be adopted by the project managers leading such heterogeneous teams in order to seek positive effects of managing diversity in project teams effectively:
Bird further concludes in his article that managing diversity provides greater opportunities for project teams with better performance, and greater strategic awareness, which enables them to be more innovative and responsive.
Observers characterize diversity training in very different ways. Its proponents consider it morally right, because it respects diversity, recognizing the value and contributions of every human being. They also view it as economically sound, because it enables organizations to draw on multiplicities of talents and strengths.[3]
According to Hans Bader, its opponents consider it an oppressive ideological re-education tactic, that actually injures the ability of organizations to attain their goals. It has been suggested that diversity training reinforces differences between individuals instead of concentrating on their commonalities, thus helping to further racialize the workplace and creating situations where people "tiptoe" around issues such as how to relate to people of different cultures as opposed to people learning to communicate with and truly understand each other.[4] It may also, according to law professor Gail Heriot, amount to a "rather blatant form of racial and sexual harassment".[5]
These opinions have been confirmed by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals which, in Fitzgerald v. Mountain States Tel & Tel. Co. (1995), noted that "diversity training sessions generate conflict and emotion" and that "diversity training is perhaps a tyranny of virtue."
In a paper published in the American Sociological Review,[6] the authors concluded efforts to mitigate managerial bias ultimately fail in the organization's aim to increase diversity in the management and leadership ranks. In contrast, programs which established specific responsibility for diversity, such as equal opportunity staff positions or diversity task forces, have proven most effective in general. However, the results also indicate that White females benefit significantly more from these structural changes. The benefits for African American females and males were appreciably lower than European American females. Networking and mentoring, which were considered bias mitigating approaches, served African American females the most. African American males were the least likely to benefit from any of the methods.
The news media and bloggers have used the study results to question the merits of financing the sizable diversity training industry. In January 2008, the Washington Post used quotes from “longtime diversity trainer” Dr. Billy E. Vaughn (Diversity Training University International) and others to make the point that Kalev’s research [7] suggests other strategies may be more effective than diversity training for mobilizing people of color and women into management roles. Dr. Vaughn responded in his blog,[8] the Kalev and his colleague’s assumption in conducting their research diversity training is useful for breaking the glass ceiling was ill-conceived.