EXERCISE IN DIVERSITY TRAINING Catherine Cassell
You are the HR Director of a large multinational finance company. The company has a well-established diversity policy which covers all of the different regional locations of the company. Within the policy it explicitly states that discrimination against certain groups of the workforce based on particular differences will not be tolerated. However, you are concerned that there are different expectations and values across the senior management team in the different locations of the company. Therefore there is a lack of consistency in how difference and diversity are treated.
You are concerned that there needs to be more clarity around the interpretation of the policy worldwide and decide that you will take the opportunity to use the regular annual three-day meeting of the worldwide HR Directors to engage colleagues in a one-day training session about the challenges of managing diversity globally and the expressed company values in this area. Your aim is to ensure that all Directors are committed to the policy, and can cascade its importance once they return to their own country. Task Your task is to provide an overview of the content and delivery format of the day’s training session. Some points to consider are:
• How will the day be divided up?
• What will be the content of each of the sessions?
• How will you surface different views of the policy in a culturally sensitive manner?
• What difficulties do you anticipate with the training you have suggested?
• How will you evaluate the impact and effectiveness of the training?
