In the modern world, if you are still thinking why diversity should be a priority for leadership development programs, then the answer is very simple. The new-age workforce prefers an environment that promotes diversity of cultures, gender, and special needs. Also, organizations that leverage diversity and inclusion in their business strategy also generate higher profits. Promoting diversity training through leadership development programs helps attract great talent, promote positive work culture, and increase revenues. As per the latest reports, companies that rank higher for racial and ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to earn higher profits than their competitors(1). Therefore, it is important to promote diversity at the workplace to unlock business success and accelerate organizational performance.

As per the Harvard Business Review, 78% of employees said they work at organizations that lack diversity in leadership positions. The same study said that a lack of diversity in leadership hampers innovation and prevents minority groups from being recognized for their contributions(2). Let’s discuss the best practices adopting which organizations can deliver effective diversity training and create a better workforce:

• Delivering Training for Diverse Audiences

You may need to train high potential leaders from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and skill sets. Adopting different training methods for different audiences help drive engagement and knowledge retention. There are multiple ways to deliver online training. Blended learning is one of the effective methods based on 70:20:10 framework where 70% of training is experiential, 20% is collaborative learning, and the remaining 10% revolves around formal training. The perfect blend of training strategies such as job aids, simulations, and mentorship help increase the overall impact of leadership training.

• Incorporating Interactive Visuals

Interactive visuals incorporated with eLearning content help promote diversity and inclusion. Whether you are creating short video nuggets, sharing an infographic, or finalizing images, you must ensure to promote diversity through training. Representation of training content is important, and learners understand more when they ca easily relate to the information.

• Getting Employee Feedback

You must ask employees to share their feedback during the development and implementation phases. Asking for frequent feedback encourages employees to leverage opportunities on sharing valuable insights on inclusion and diversity. Getting employee feedback enables leaders to create an effective training plan to meet the personalized training needs.

• Tracking your Talent Pipeline

You must monitor participants who successfully complete the leadership development training. This helps identify issues associated to diversity. For instance, when tracking a learning program, you may find a group of learners who are not selected for leadership training. So, tracking employees’ pipeline can help assess overall learning uptake and realign training strategy to make it diverse and inclusive.

• Focusing on Diversity into your eLearning Program

Including the topic of diversity into your training program sends a strong message to employees that diversity is important. It is also an effective way of showing employees about different ways to promote diversity and inclusion at the workplace.

The Final Thought

The above-discussed ways help organizations to deliver successful leadership programs that promote diversity and inclusion. In addition, remote diversity training can be aligned to leadership training, resulting in an improved workplace culture, better training effectiveness, and increased revenues. An inclusive and diverse workforce drives innovation and overall employee satisfaction which is a win-win situation for everyone.

To know more about importance of diversity in leadership training, watch the video 5 Questions Your High Potential Leadership Program Must Address that highlights the need to deliver effective development programs for consistent HIPO identification and retention.

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