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Taking time to consider these items will help to ensure that an inclusive environment has been created and your audience will be better able to focus on the material as well as provide value to the organization. Consider factors such as course content, any activities that may be a part of the course as well as awareness of their background and skills. For example, when creating a course, ensure that you truly keep your audience in mind. It is imperative that L&D practitioners consider multiple factors when preparing for a course. Diversity and inclusion, especially in the L&D space, is about ensuring that there are “checks and balances” in what we do. Organizations want to make sure they can mark the checkbox. This is vitally important as often that is exactly what people tend to think of regarding diversity and inclusion. Note that Bersin’s definition did not mention race or gender. Bersin defines diversity and inclusion as “the variety of people and ideas within a company, and the creation of an environment in which people feel involved, respected, valued, connected and able to bring their “authentic” selves (e.g., their ideas, backgrounds, and perspectives) to the team and to the business.” We so often focus on developing programs that offer a consistent message, language, look and feel that we often forget the most important aspect of all design: the people.ĭiversity and inclusion has different meanings to different people, but let’s all work with this definition for the purposes of this discussion.
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The learning experience is varied and should be represented as such in training programs. Incorporating diversity and inclusion is perhaps one of the most important roles of an L&D professional. They nod in agreement, but you are not sure they fully understand your concerns. You felt as if your experiences were not taken into consideration. Now, there is nothing wrong with this per se, however, once the training was concluded, you felt slightly disconnected from what you experienced. Not only was he a white male, you guessed it, he was also the leader. No women, no people of color, no differently abled individuals, or underprivileged persons. No one looked like you, behaved like you or like many of your peers. The one thing it was missing was a diverse set of characters and experiences. As learning and development (L&D) professionals, we have probably had an experience one time or another that is similar to the below scenario.Ī colleague designed a virtual course that marked all the boxes: length was great, it was engaging, interactive and it was informative. Diversity and inclusion (D&I) is one of those teachable moments. Oprah Winfrey often talks about what she refers to as “teachable moments” – moments when something bad occurs and you can turn that bad situation into something positive.