ng programs conducted by a diverse group of trainers produces a more relevant, creative product and one that demonstrates the organization’s value of diversity (Gardenswartz and Rowe, 2000). Mandatory training across all levels sends a convincing message about the organization’s commitment to diversity and increases the likelihood that what lower-level employees learn will be role-modeled and reinforced by their managers. Findings clearly indicate that it is the attendance of managers, not employees, that makes the most positive impact on training outcomes (Profiting from others’, 1994). If the training is not relevant to the needs of the workforce, more harm than good may occur. For example, an organization that had a large gay and lesbian population decided to conduct diversity training without learning about the concerns and expectations of the employees. Their training program focused on racial issues (which weren’t a problem at this company) and ignored homophobia (which was a problem). Gay employees left the training feeling as if management didn’t consider their issues to be important (Caudron, 1993). Diversity training needs to be effective. There is a substantial foundation of knowledge and expertise associated with understanding the effects of diversity in organizations. The trainer needs to be proficient in the subject matter and possess good facilitation skills in order to provide high quality training (Cox, 1994). Some examples of ineffective training include training that attempts to fix the victim, by trying to get these individuals to conform to the organization’s culture, training that tries to force politically correct language onto workshop participants and training that focuses on confronting stereotypes without giving importance to developing the skills needed to bring awareness of these stereotypes back to the workplace. Raising awareness is important, but...
