How to make diversity & anti-bias training work?

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released its last batch of race-ethnic population estimates in advance of the 2020 census, with data indicating that the national headcount will reveal a more diverse nation than was previously expected. Similarly, diversity in the U.S. labor force is increasing at an accelerated rate(1). When Gen Z and millennials (who make up nearly half of the US workforce) were asked by Gallup about what they look for most in an employer, a diverse and inclusive workplace of all people was at the top of the list.

While the U.S. labor force is becoming more diverse, the health of race relations in the U.S. is on the decline. According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, about six in ten Americans believe that race relations in the U.S. are on the decline, and of those, few see them improving (2).

Managing this dynamic relationship, between increased diversity in the workplace and the rising racial tensions in society, has become a top priority for workplaces in the U.S. to where diversity, inclusion, and equity have ranked second on The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology’s (SIOP) list of Top 10 Workplace Trends for 2020 (3).

In their attempt to address diversity issues in the workplace, businesses have increasingly relied on diversity management practices, including diversity and anti-bias training, which have become a multibillion-dollar industry (4). Although the effects of prejudice reduction interventions such as workplace diversity training remain unknown (5), nearly half of midsize and nearly all the Fortune 500 companies use it (6). Despite its wide adaptation in the workplace and the questions surrounding its effectiveness, businesses rarely conduct in-depth evaluations of their diversity and anti-bias training interventions (7).

What is diversity/anti-bias training?

Training, at its most basic level, can be thought of as the planned and systematic activities designed to promote the acquisition of knowledge (i.e., need to know), skills (i.e., need to do), and attitudes (i.e. need to feel) of training participants (9). As such, diversity and anti-bias training can be defined as “a distinct set of instructional programs aimed at facilitating positive intergroup interaction, reducing prejudice and discrimination, and enhancing the skills, knowledge, and motivation of participants to interact with diverse others” (8). Diversity training encompasses a wide range of interventions such as prejudice reduction, anti-bias, and gender or general bias reduction training, to name a few.

Diversity & Anti-Bias Training Outcomes

A review of the published literature indicates that diversity and anti-bias training effectiveness varied widely from one study to another and across training outcomes. For example, while one study found a moderate size effect of the training on trainee’s behavioral outcomes (8), another found those effects to be insignificant (7). A widely cited study suggested that diversity training may produce negative outcomes (14).

Furthermore, a recently published meta-analysis study (a study of studies) of 418 prejudice reduction experiments found limited effect of the studied measures in reducing prejudice (10). The authors concluded that the reviewed research is ill-suited to provide evidence-based recommendations for reducing prejudice. For example, that study found only one experiment that tested diversity training effectiveness as it would be naturally implemented in the real world in a corporate setting.

While the research community continues its work on producing evidence-based prejudice reduction practices, it is impractical for businesses to slow down their current diversity and anti-bias training programs . The good news is, there are several evidence-based strategies that can guide businesses to increase the effectiveness of their diversity and anti-bias training efforts.

How to increase diversity and anti-bias training effectiveness?

A deeper dive into the diversity training literature reveals the following practices that businesses can implement to increase the effectiveness of their diversity and anti-bias training programs.

1. Integrate diversity/anti-bias training into other diversity-related initiatives. Integrated diversity and anti-bias training is more effective than stand-alone training. Trainee motivation to learn is an important predictor of training effectiveness (11). Supportive work environments have been shown to be a motivator to attend training and learn (9).
   Integrating diversity training into other diversity-related initiatives signals organizational commitment and support, which can positively influence trainee’s motivation to learn. The reviewed literature consistently reported a strong positive effect of an integrated training approach on diversity training outcomes compared to stand-alone one-time diversity training. Furthermore, integrated training had a larger effect on attitudinal (i.e. need to feel) and behavioral (i.e. need to do) learning outcomes than stand-alone training (8). As another signal for organizational support’s effect on training outcomes, a research study (7) found that diversity training attitudinal based outcomes were larger when the trainer was a direct manager/supervisor than other internal staff members (e.g. HR) or external trainers (e.g. consultants).
2. Longer diversity training, that allows participants to spend more time together, was more effective than shorter training. Successful training is an iterative, not one-time, process that occurs over a period of time and therefore is influenced by the elements leading up to training and the factors after training (9). Diversity training literature studied the relationship between diversity training, overall duration, and effectiveness on training outcomes. For example, one study (7) found a significant difference in attitudinal learning outcomes when the training duration was more than 4 hours. Training duration between 4 to 8 hours was four times as effective compared to training duration that is less than 4 hours. However, the effect size remained almost unchanged when the training was more than 8 hours. Another study (8) found a significantly positive relationship between the hours of training and all learning outcomes which was attributed to the possibility that longer diversity training programs provided more opportunities for participants to interact with each other and to practice what they learned which leads to greater skill development.
3. While longer training is more effective, the dosage needs to be taken into account. Distributed practice in which training is divided into segments, usually with rest periods in between, is more effective than massed practice where all the learning material is served at one time (7). Providing the training in chunks over a period of time is how our brains learn and allow for repetitive interpersonal interaction between training attendees. Learning how to welcome diversity and combat bias is a muscle that we need to train and grow over time through distributed practice.
4. Design diversity training to be inclusive of all trainees’ characteristics. Diversity training effectiveness varied based on trainees’ characteristics. Applying a “one size fits all” approach to diversity training is one of the main reasons it often fails (15). A standardized, one size fits all training that does not consider trainees’ characteristics (e.g., race and gender) could have the effect of reaching groups whose behavior businesses are least eager to influence while alienating other groups. For instance, training that focuses on specific ethnicities might ignore others, causing them to feel excluded or unduly blamed or criticized. Hence, it is important to design diversity training to be inclusive of all trainees’ characteristics (7).
5. Voluntary or mandatory? Diversity training is different from other training (e.g., psychomotor skills training) in that it often solicits more emotionally charged responses (8). Although mandatory training may signal that it is important to the organization, it might make participants feel that an external power is trying to control their behavior (12). However, making training voluntary may result in only reaching those groups whose behavior organizations are least eager to influence (13). So the literature jury is still out on this one.
6. Maintenance: Diversity and anti-bias training is similar to any other training, such as strength or cardio training, in that once we stop practicing, there is a chance of muscle atrophy or loss of stamina. Studies found that the training effects decayed, at times significantly, over time (7 & 8). Training effectiveness can also be impacted by scenarios or situations related to the training material that come from mass media or other sources such as social justice or race relations incidents. Therefore, it is important to refresh our diversity and anti-bias training and practices (8). This can take the form of periodic training sessions, group discussions, corporate messages, nudges..etc. Think of this as a vaccine booster shot, to increase or anti-bias antibodies count, the amount of which should consider national events and conversations surrounding social justice and race relations.

The dictionary definition of bias is “a strong feeling in favor of or against one group of people, or one side in an argument, often not based on fair judgment”. We develop those strong feelings about people over time from our own experiences. Our brain observes and “saves” those experiences in two main categories: “familiar” as in safe to engage, or “unfamiliar” as in proceed with caution. Since our brains do not like uncertainty, we fill in knowledge gaps about each other with whatever we have stored in our mind that resembles (approximately) the situation we are dealing with. Those are the constant predictions we make about others, those predictions have a margin of error (bias). This prediction shortcut is our brain’s natural mechanism of conserving energy so it can focus its attention on its most important task, regulating the bodily functions that keep us alive.

Therefore, combating bias involves updating our experiences; the information we have stored about people (and things). The best way to change our attitude about others is long-term social contact — in person or online — with other groups. So as organizations march ahead with their diversity and anti-bias training initiatives, they should turn those into opportunities for their employees to get to know each other’s life stories of families, experiences, cuisines, music, hobbies..etc. Sharing relatable human experiences and stories is the best way to update our information about each other and increase our “predictions” accuracy. Over time and as we move from version 1.0 to 2.0 about each other, those shared human experiences foster a psychologically safe environment that can combat biases one human story at a time.

References

1. Toossi M. (2015). Labor force projections to 2024: the labor force is growing, but slowly. Monthly Labor Review, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, December 2015. https://doi.org/10.21916/mlr.2015.48.
2. Pew Research Center, April 2019, “Race in America 2019”
3. Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. SIOP Top 10 Work Trends. Retrieved from https://www.siop.org/Business-Resources/Top-10-Workplace-Trends
4. Sleek, S., Michel, A., & Mikulak, A. (2014). Workplace Diversity Initiatives May Mask Discrimination. Association for Psychological Sciences. Retrieved from https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/minds-business/workplace-diversity-initiatives-may-mask-discrimination.html
5. Paluck, Elizabeth Levy, & Green, Donald P. (2009). Prejudice Reduction: What Works? A Review and Assessment of Research and Practice. Annual Review of Psychology, 60(1), 339–367.
6. Dobbin F, Kalev A (2016) DIVERSITY why diversity programs fail and what works better. Harv Bus Rev 94:52–60.
7. Zachary T. Kalinoski, Debra Steele-Johnson, Elizabeth J. Peyton, Keith A. Leas, Julie Steinke, & Nathan A. Bowling. (2013). A meta-analytic evaluation of diversity training outcomes. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 34(8), 1076–1104
8. Bezrukova, Katerina, Spell, Chester S, Perry, Jamie L, & Jehn, Karen A. (2016). A Meta-Analytical Integration of Over 40 Years of Research on Diversity Training Evaluation. Psychological Bulletin, 142(11), 1227–1274.
9. Eduardo Salas, Scott I. Tannenbaum, Kurt Kraiger, & Kimberly A. Smith-Jentsch. (2012). The Science of Training and Development in Organizations: What Matters in Practice. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 13(2), 74–101
10. Paluck, Elizabeth Levy, Porat, Roni, Clark, Chelsey S, & Green, Donald P. (2021). Prejudice Reduction: Progress and Challenges. Annual Review of Psychology, 72(1), Annual review of psychology, 2021–01–04, Vol.72 (1)
11. Bell, Bradford S, Tannenbaum, Scott I, Ford, J. Kevin, Noe, Raymond A, & Kraiger, Kurt. (2017). 100 Years of Training and Development Research: What We Know and Where We Should Go. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(3), 305–323
12. Dobbin, Frank, & Kalev, Alexandra. (2018). Why Doesn’t Diversity Training Work? The Challenge for Industry and Academia. Anthropology Now, 10(2), 48–55.
13. Bezrukova, Katerina, Jehn, Karen A, & Spell, Chester S. (2012). Reviewing Diversity Training: Where We Have Been and Where We Should Go. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 11(2), 207–227.
14. Alexandra Kalev, Erin Kelly, & Frank Dobbin. (2006). Best Practices or Best Guesses? Assessing the Efficacy of Corporate Affirmative Action and Diversity Policies. American Sociological Review, 71(4), 589–617.
15. Icekson, Tamar, Tziner, Aharon, & Bareket-Bojmel, Liad. (2020). One size does not fit all: Taking trainees’ personal characteristics into consideration in sexual harassment and racial discrimination training. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 13(2), 191–195.