Diversity Has Become a Hot

Diversity has become a hot topic among society today. Moreover, diversity has become an issue in academia, business, and government. It has been 40 years since Congress passed Title VII, which banned workplace discrimination based on sex, race, color, or creed (Fisher, 2004). It is becoming a more popular topic, especially, among the workforce. Today, it is rare that a company not have a diversity policy in place. According to Karp et al. (2000), diversity is one of the greatest concerns and one of the top ten legal issues that face human resource professionals today. Organizations have become more concerned, these days, about fairness in the workplace. Many organizations and businesses today have developed diversity training programs which tend to focus on making changes in the awareness and the attitudes of diversity of its participants. The strategy of many employers is to create changes that will have long-term positive effects on their organization, with the objective of creating and maintaining a safer and more productive work environment (Karp et al., 2000). According to Fisher, one example of a company that is utilizing a diversity program is Enterprise Rent-a-Car (2004). Enterprise Rent-a-Car hires a diverse team of recruiters: male, female, black, white, Asian, and those over age 40. In addition, the company uses a diverse group of actors for its commercials. The company also likes to reflect their local market and rewards managers who hire, reflecting their particular area of market. For example, they have been known to say that they want to hire workers who "speak the same language," figuratively (Fisher, 2004). This paper will discuss the necessary steps to carry out the development of an effective diversity training program.

First of all, when developing a diversity training program, it is important to think of the following:

Who conducts the training.

Who gets the training.

Dealing with attitudes and/or behaviors.

What's being said and how it's being said.

Working with resistance.

In deciding who will conduct the training, it is important to keep in mind that it is important to establish a good rapport with trainees. Because of this, it is important to mix up the staff that will be doing the training. For example, to avoid alienating employees or making them feel uncomfortable, an ideal presentational situation is to utilize a training team made up of one minority trainer and one straight white male trainer. In addition, make sure the training team has the ability and willingness to relate to the trainees, as well as to the message (Karp et al., 2000).

Who might attend diversity type trainings, you may ask? Diversity training often speaks to different parties, such as victims, perpetrators, and managers who want to set a tone for their work environment (Scully et al., 2005). Specifically, employers may want their staff to attend these types of trainings in order to help open their minds by increasing their awareness and moving toward a change of attitude about diversity. Important things to remember when organizing a diversity training program is to make sure that the audience will be made up of a diverse group of people and make others aware that being aware of differences is everybody's task. Finding a common ground among all in the group is a positive and productive approach.

In dealing with attitudes and/or behaviors when designing a diversity training program, an effective approach is to start with a clear statement of goals and/or values. For example, "Participants have an absolute right to state how they see things, in complete safety, so long as boundaries for good taste are reasonably observed" (Karp et al., 2000). It is important to validate people's values and then move on to looking at the specific behaviors that cause pain and problems within individuals.

What's being said and how it's being said is very important to keep in mind when developing the curriculum for the diversity training program. At the beginning of the program, the trainer states their intentions of the program and asks that participants refer to the diverse issues that come up, during the session, with the respect that they would like themselves. An agreement can also be made, for example, if a person gets offended in any way, during the program, the person can yell a key word, such as "Ouch," at that time the issue will be discussed, with closure immediately resolved. This tends to keep the program alive and it places responsibility with the injured person.