Diversity Training +
There’s a lot of diversity training out there, and you want to know why ours is different. At the Equality Academy we repeatedly get glowing feedback from our delegates. Our training focuses on the main issue: how to engage with diversity in a positive way, using best practice as a guide.
We have an adult learning approach to training: we do not tell people they are wrong, or tell them what to do or what to think. We challenge them to be the best they can be by offering probing questions, realistic case study material, open & honest debate, helpful concepts and models, clear explanations and accurate information. We do not shy away from controversial or sensitive issues, but help build our participants’ confidence to deal with them in a professional, ethical and appropriate manner.
Secrets of Our Training Success
Our customers tell us that our training is “refreshing”, “enjoyable”, “challenging” but “safe”, “thought-provoking”, relevant to their work, and “different to any other diversity training” they’ve had. Our trainers are consistently rated “very good” to “excellent”. It is not unusual for a delegate to say that they came to one of our training events under protest and went away having had a truly positive, illuminating experience. Many rate our training as the “best training” they’ve ever done. What is the secret of our success?
Five Pillars of Success
We think there are five pillars that uphold our distinctive approach to training:
- One value of Equality applied to all: we treat clients and delegates with the sensitivity and respect they deserve, as our equals;
- A Practice of Engagement: diversity issues frequently bring up anger, guilt, fear and other negative emotions; our response is to invite people to a practice of engagement. In training, delegates inquire into and challenge their own myths & discomfort; to mine their own vein of experience and understanding. Out of the training room, this will strengthen their willingess to engage with difference respectfully, rather than avoid it.
- Acknowledge Prejudice…Learn to Transform it: we know that prejudice is part of human make-up, and we refuse to treat it as a guilty secret. Instead, we help equip delegates to recognise, neutralise and ultimately transform their prejudices, much as we have learned to do ourselves. This means they can more effectively leading others in taking a positive view of customer and staff diversity, and confidently challenge speech and actions that undermine staff or customer relations.
- Generosity: we have understanding for the challenges and difficulties of implementing best diversity practice in the business world, and a genuine commitment to assisting you to do so. We believe that businesses and people need chance to learn from, rather than simply be punished for, mistakes. We know that improvement doesn’t happen overnight, so we’ll go the distance with you.
- Remebering the Goal: looking at some of the realities of discrimination and exclusion can be truly depressing. However, we always remember what kind of world we want to help bring about – one in which people are not afraid to be curious about, and engage with, those who are different from them; one in which this engagement is done with respect and good humour. We aim to identify and celebrate existing good practice in your business to reinforce what already works well.
Our “Positive Engagement” training portfolio has something for leaders, managers and staff at every level of your organisation. We can provide training with a focus on specific strands, or protected characteristics, such as LGBT or disability. We also offer four levels of train the diversity trainer training, one-to-one Coaching and Mentoring Programmes.
At whatever level you engage us, our mission is to
- increase your confidence and fluency in the legal, business and values-based case for positively engaging with diversity;
- help you develop your business model with a dynamic vision of diversity at its heart, integrated with other key concerns;
- include, but go beyond, the “headline” diversity issues (such as age, disability, ethnicity, gender, religion etc) to a wider understanding of the power of difference to super-charge (or sabotage) your business;
- help you develop a newly expanded, improved, sense of organisational values – both internally for your people, and externally for your customers.