The Diversity & Inclusion Confident Manager
In-House Training, Available As:
- Full or half-day workshop or 1 hour interactive webinar
- In-person or live virtual
- Fully customisable
- Option to enhance with actors
- Embed learning with Toolkit Takeaways
The Diversity & Inclusion Confident Manager Training Solution
This immersive workshop has been designed to empower managers with everything they need to become confident champions of equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). They’ll unpack stereotypes and assumptions, get to grips with unconscious bias, learn about relevant legal frameworks, and gain practical tools to challenge exclusive language and behaviours to promote inclusion within their teams and beyond.
The workshop emphasises the role of managers as key drivers of change, empowering them with the knowledge, tools and confidence to lead by example and make a lasting impact.
Learning outcomes:
- Find a personal motivation for championing EDI and understand why it is important.
- Understand relevant equality law and its implications for the workplace.
- Recognise the impact of assumptions, bias, and stereotypes, with a pledge to addressing these barriers whenever they encounter them.
- Understand the lines between banter, bullying, harassment, and discrimination, with the confidence to challenge effectively.
- Understand the impact of micro-behaviours and how to adopt micro-affirmations to challenge negative behaviour.
- Learn effective strategies to promote and role model inclusive behaviour consistently.
- Make a commitment to integrate inclusive practices into their team’s goals and strategies.
Workshop Outline...
(1) Championing Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion: Managers will embark on a journey of self-discovery to uncover their own motivation in advocating for equality and inclusion. They will reflect on why these principles are crucial for a productive and positive workplace. A short video exploring the assumptions we all make provides a foundation for continued discussion.
(2) Unconscious Bias and the Assumption Trap: The impact of assumptions on our interactions with others shouldn’t be underestimated. Participants will gain insights into how assumptions, stereotypes, and bias can affect decision-making processes, relationships, and inclusivity. We’ll emphasise the importance of managers challenging their own assumptions, as well as those observed in interactions with others.
How this looks with actors: Managers will witness a true-to-life scenario performed by actors, depicting a management situation where assumptions lead the conversation astray, resulting in tension and misunderstanding. This immersive experience offers a powerful learning opportunity, as participants observe first-hand the consequences of unchecked assumptions in the workplace. They’ll be invited to dig deeper into the motivations and feelings of the characters, provoking thoughtful discussion and perspective-taking that we’ll build on as the session continues.
(3) My Circle of Trust: The “Circle of Trust” activity is designed to enhance development of managers by prompting introspection about trust dynamics in their professional relationships. As managers become more aware of their biases, particularly affinity bias, and how they affect trust, they can build stronger, more authentic connections with their team members. They’ll make a start on their personalised action plan – a roadmap of practical steps they can take beyond the session.
(4) Manager’s Tour of Equality Law: We’ll give an overview of relevant equality law, focusing on its relevance to the workplace. Managers will examine the business case for diversity and inclusion, understanding how they contribute to organisational success and innovation.
(5) Navigating the ‘Banter Line’: Through carefully crafted scenarios, “Communication Breakdown” and “A Step Too Far”, participants explore the complexities of real-life manager-employee situations and begin exploring the impact of micro-behaviours. With an interactive quiz, “Fine Lines”, participants then sharpen their ability to discern acceptable behaviour from inappropriate conduct and to distinguish between discrimination, harassment, bullying and banter.
(6) Tools for Courageous Conversations: We share a practical framework, “Wait a SEC”, to approach what can sometimes be difficult conversations, in a constructive and non-confrontational way. Managers will explore assertive communication techniques, emotional intelligence, boundary setting, and perspective taking approaches. We’ll also share inquiry strategies to promote open dialogue, and these insights will be used to further develop personalised action plans.
How this looks with actors: Managers will observe a scenario highlighting common communication pitfalls. The dialogue will initially take the wrong turn, and managers will be invited to engage, applying their newly acquired skills to challenge and steer the conversation towards a more productive and positive outcome.
(7) Commitment to Inclusion: The workshop concludes with participants creating a plan to integrate inclusive practices into their team’s goals and strategies. They will make a tangible commitment to applying what they’ve learned, ensuring that the principles of EDI are woven into the fabric of their management approach. Action plans can be shared with project sponsors to be progressed internally.
Let's Talk!
We’re advocates of crafting tailormade solutions that ensure you meet objectives and maximise budgets. Contact us to book a meeting to scope the right solution for your organisation, together.
What About Actors?
Through clever script writing, goosebump-inducing delivery and professional facilitation, we love to bring learning to life with actors…
We can select scripts from our library or write them specially for you, based on typical scenarios you see within in your organisation. For larger projects where budgets don’t allow for live acting, we can professionally film bespoke scenarios to create video content which can be used in the training as well as induction, toolkits, and beyond.
Using actors in workshop give delegates the opportunity to:
- Test out alternative ways of approaching what can sometimes be difficult situations, without the pressure of role playing themselves!
- Explore what is acceptable and what isn’t; intent versus impact; and both the subtle, and not so subtle, behaviours we see play out in the workplace
- Be immersed in an interactive learning experience that engages hearts and minds, and sticks in the long-term memory
Don't Just Take Our Word For It
Nina Darling
UoP SHCP Teaching Fellow, University of Portsmouth“The course which Paula provided was really engaging and nicely presented. The use of the actors was particularly good and actually bought the whole thing to life and made it really valuable learning. Thank you very much – it was fantastic!”
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