Webinar Recap: Creating Your 2020 DEI Training Strategy

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training has become table stakes for companies committed to their people. But, designing an ongoing training plan that will drive impact is a challenge for even the most seasoned DEI, HR, and Learning & Development (L&D) teams. Which content is right for different employees? How do you help your people translate learnings into action?

Recently, our CEO and founder Joelle Emerson and director Evelyn Carter, PhD, hosted a webinar for DEI, HR, and L&D leaders to answer these questions and more.

Here are some of their tips for creating a DEI learning journey that will drive impact for your workforce:

Define your audience(s)

When building your DEI training strategy, the first question to ask yourself is, “Who are my key employee populations?” Should you segment your workforce by level (e.g. executives)? Geography? Function (e.g. customer-facing employees)? Oftentimes, we see companies start by training their executive team first to get buy-in and create champions at the top before bringing content to the broader organization. In other cases, it makes sense to start by training your entire workforce on DEI fundamentals, giving everyone a shared understanding and language, then tailoring additional learning opportunities by function and level.

From there, you want to outline similarities and differences across key populations and determine how to best reach them. In-person training? Live virtual sessions? Self-paced eLearning? We find leadership teams respond well to in-person trainings, but self-paced eLearning can be an invaluable option to scale training to large or distributed workforces.

Deliver the right content

After you’ve defined your key populations, you’ll want to think about which content is right for each. To decide, ask yourself:

• What are the DEI training goals for this audience?

• How advanced is this group in their DEI journey?

• What opportunities for influence does this group have?

Make training “stick”

Before you finalize your 2020 DEI training strategy, you want to be sure you have a plan for what happens AFTER folks leave the room. How do you make sure that training has a lasting impact? Possibilities include:

• Recapping and sharing key strategies

• Facilitating smaller, guided discussions throughout the year

• Creating checklists and timely nudges that are sent in advance of activities where unconscious bias or uninclusive behavior can emerge (e.g. performance reviews)

• Train trainers within your organization who can help you scale

Once you’ve taken these three steps, you’re ready to map out a DEI learning journey tailored to your workforce’s unique needs. For more insights on each of these steps, as well as a sample learning journey for a 1,000+ employee company, watch the webinar. You’ll also have a chance to hear which questions are top-of-mind for DEI, HR, and L&D leaders from other organizations.