Ugly Stats on the Impact of Bad Diversity Training...

Want to hear some ugly stats?

A recent study found the impact of most diversity training efforts to be counter-productive, according to a comprehensive analysis of 31 years of data from over 800 medium and large US workplaces.

See a review of the full study results at the Washington Post.

Here are numbers - The kind of diversity training offered by most companies was followed by a 7.5% drop in the number of women in management, a 10% drop in the number of black women in management, and a 12% drop in the number of black men in management.   The study cites Asians and Latinos as suffering similar fates, even while pointing to the good intentions of companies embracing diversity training as a way to make their workplaces more inclusive and to cater to a more diverse workforce and customer base.

The analysis did not find that all diversity training is useless. Rather, it showed that mandatory programs -- often undertaken mainly with an eye to avoiding liability in discrimination lawsuits -- were the problem. When diversity training is voluntary and undertaken to advance a company's business goals, it was associated with increased diversity in management.   That's good to know, but hard to explain to the OFCCP when they want a list of your good faith efforts in conjunction with your Affirmative Action Plan...

So the next time you're doing Diversity training, you might want to roll out the demographics of your customer base as a part of the package...and <gasp> make it voluntary?

Comments

[Bruce Barondes]

Good timely topic. thank you for your input
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