How Training Supports I&D Strategies

Grow your team

When you become an Inclusive Employers’ Member you grow your I&D team.

Your account manager works with you to understand your goals, your challenges and achievable next steps.

Do you need more support for your inclusive culture to thrive?

Addison Barnett, Director of Impact and Major Programmes, explains why it’s so important to embed training into your inclusion and diversity strategy, if you want to achieve sustainable behaviour change around I&D.

If you want to make your inclusion plan more effective, then consider the role of training in delivering a successful I&D strategy. Good quality, sustainable learning and development programmes can have significant impact. Read on for advice on how to achieve this.

Plan your inclusion training as part of a behaviour change programme

While people do need to know how to be inclusive, equipping colleagues to behave in a more inclusive way is more about behaviour change than knowledge.

Ultimately, creating an inclusive culture requires behaviour change at all levels of your organisation. Therefore, approaching inclusion as a behaviour change programme rather than a set of training sessions is more likely to be successful than simply a calendar of events.

I personally like using  the McKinsey model  to consider what is needed in a behaviour change plan. It tells us there are four elements which need to be in place to support behaviour change.

1. Role modelling

Any successful behaviour change needs to be role modelled – and this needs to start at the top. Ask yourself, what are leaders, managers and influencers doing? If they aren’t behaving in the way you need, then you have work to do to get them onboard first. A holistic inclusive leadership development programme will equip your leaders to role model the culture you want. Kotter’s change leadership approach suggest that while behaviour change gets ‘sticky’ when 50% of the organisation has changed their behaviour, you can get significant momentum at just 15%.

2. Understanding and conviction

To go to the effort of changing behaviour, and it is an effort for people to change, we have to feel a true need. Ask yourself, if you have clearly articulated the change story, and made it compelling for different groups? Have you considered what different motivators are at play in your organisation?

“People do what they are rewarded and recognised for. How are you rewarding people for adopting new behaviours?”

Learn more about why your organisation needs inclusion allies

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3. Confidence and skill building

When the other parts are established it’s time to understand what training is needed to help people do what you are asking of them.

Inclusion training is a little different from most other training in that it can challenge our sense of self. Deep consideration of how the training is designed to engage learners, rather than polarize them, is needed. Our consultants are experts in designing impactful inclusion training – please reach out if you’d like help.

Remember to create opportunities back in the workplace to reflect on learning and how it is transferred into everyday activities and interactions. Like any training, learners will lose the skills if they aren’t reinforced, reflected on, and applied.

4. Reinforcement with formal mechanisms

Last, but not least – have you made it easier for people to work in the new way rather than to keep working in the old one?

Ways of encouraging the new behaviour to stick can include re-design of parts of the employee life-cycle to include inclusive elements – like inclusive behaviours or leadership as part of managers’ performance review, and allyship as part of the organisation values framework.

People do what they are rewarded and recognised for. How are you rewarding people for adopting new behaviours? And what are the consequences for those who chose not to?

Exploring inclusion as a change plan

Training is a key element in driving more inclusive behaviours, but only one element of many. If we fail to recognise the wider need we are likely to be spending money and scratching our heads wondering why there isn’t a return on investment.

Well-considered change plans are much more effective – because they require true engagement from the leadership team to sponsor, support, role model and reinforce the behaviours they want to see in their organisation.

How Inclusive Employers can help

Our consultants can help you think through inclusion as a change plan and develop training programmes to support this. If you are a member, please reach out to your account manager for advice. If you aren’t a member but would like to work with us you can reach out today.

Ask us about implementing sustainable training programmes

Grow your team

When you become an Inclusive Employers’ Member you grow your I&D team.

Your account manager works with you to understand your goals, your challenges and achievable next steps.

Do you need more support for your inclusive culture to thrive?

Learn about membership today

Upcoming webinars – Members receive 5 free place on every webinar

A group of diverse colleagues sitting around a laptop on table and smiling together

May 7 2024 @ 10:00 am - 11:30 am

How training supports your I&D strategy

Grow your team

Plan your inclusion training as part of a behaviour change programme

1. Role modelling

2. Understanding and conviction

“People do what they are rewarded and recognised for. How are you rewarding people for adopting new behaviours?”

3. Confidence and skill building

4. Reinforcement with formal mechanisms

Exploring inclusion as a change plan

How Inclusive Employers can help

Grow your team

Upcoming webinars – Members receive 5 free place on every webinar