DEI and Industry

This idea, proposed by Tharp (2012) regarding mainstreaming some of the terminologies in his article has been a struggle for our learning community. Last year we were asked by several of our members to develop a DEI-focused course that they could leverage to help educate their workforces in many of the topics and the vocabulary that Tharp suggests in his article. In some cases, we know because they told us, they were only asking for this training to "check a box." In other cases, I think there was a genuine desire to move social justice language into the community to help offset some of the challenges that our industry has seen (and as many others see). 

Our developers spent 9 months creating an industry-specific course that weaved aspects of social justice language, promotion, goals, etc into the course. It is described as a course that aims to empower each person to bring their authentic self to work, celebrating what makes us unique, and accepting our differences as a key driver to success. 

As you move through this e-learning, computer-based course, the goal is for you to complete this course feeling more knowledgeable of the subject matter and to have a foundational understanding of the importance and value of DEI. The course includes the following topics: (a) Introduction, (b) Understanding DEI, (c) Diversity, (d) Workplace Diversity, (e) Equity, (f) Workplace Equity, (g) Inclusion, (h) Characteristics of Diversity (i) Race, (j) Religious Commitment, (k) Physical Attributes (l) Sex/Gender/Sexual Orientation, (m) Disability, (n) Age Diversity, (o) Multigenerational Workforce, (p) Evaluating Perspectives (q) Misconceptions, (r) Bias, (s) Stereotypes, (t) Stereotypes in the Workplace, (u) Enhancing Human Relations, and (v) Fostering DEI. 

We pulled out all the stops to include multiple narrators, animations, interactions, and on and on. All told, other than our own organizations employees who took the course, in the past year that it has been available, we have had 7 learners take the course. To help with scale, we see over 2000 unique learners a day, and in that same time frame over 11,000 learners have taken fire extinguisher training. 

First, there may be the factor that learners come to us for safety training, no necessarily for soft skills training which DEI is a part of. Secondly, most of our learners must take certain training to work on different job sites. No one (yet) is mandating that DEI be a part of that mandated training. Still a ration of 9/11,000 is significant. 

Like Tharp (2012) discusses, there is still the belief that many of these aspects are "jargon" and I feel confident that if DEI training was mandated most of our learners would think it just "checks a box." However, even in the fire extinguisher training case, it's a "check the box" based on OSHA and the site's requirements. It would be great to see a few sites mandate DEI if only because it might help in utilizing and understanding these perspectives in their own work lives, and help main stream it. For the moment, last year, despite several large clients asking for it, no one has mandated it, nor funded it. 

References

Tharp, D. S. (2012). Perspectives: A Language for Social Justice. Change, 44(3), 21–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2012.672918