CULTURAL DIVERSITY TRAINING FOR EMPLOYEES

EFFECTIVELY WORKING IN A CULTURALLY DIVERSE ENVIRONMENT
OR
"EVERYTHING I NEEDED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN"

As the United States becomes more and more culturally diverse, employees most valuable to their employers will increasingly be those who are skilled in working with people from many backgrounds in an appropriate, professional manner. In the current workforce of the U.S., which is becoming more and more litigious with respect to discrimination and harassment law suits, "cultural competence" of employees has become equal in importance to technical competence.

Cultural competence work is best accomplished in an environment in which dialogue and experiences occur in an open but non-threatening manner. Both the style and tone of this workshop are designed to allow participants to learn at their own rate in such an environment.

The objectives of, "Effectively Working in a Culturally Diverse Environment" are to:

1. Heighten participants' understanding of the influence of cultural conditioning on their thinking and behavior, i.e., to increase their understanding of their personal perceptual system, which was heavily conditioned by their cultural experiences but which is largely out of their awareness;
   
   
2. Help participants recognize the common attitudinal, speech and behavior-based stumbling blocks to positive cross-cultural relationships in the workplace; and,
   
   
3. Improve participants' ability to have healthy, cross-cultural inter-personal relationships with colleagues who are culturally different from themselves.

Interactive learning techniques and experiential exercises including video, role play, simulations, small group work, large group discussion and lecturettes are used. A two-day workshop is highly recommended to effectively address the variety of issues around which this course is designed. One and two day workshops are available, however.

The following are among the specific topics addressed in the session:

1. How do early cultural messages and present cultural identity impact our attitudes, expectations, verbal/non-verbal communications and other behavior when interacting with a person who is culturally different from ourselves?
   
   
2. What is diversity?
   
   
3. Is there a difference between EEO,(Equal Employment Opportunity), Affirmative Action and cultural competence work? If so, what is that difference?
   
   
4. Why does cultural competence seem to be such an important issue to society-at-large?
   
   
5. Why does it seem to be so important to employers, (as evidenced by the large amount of cultural competence training being done today)?
   
   
6. What are some common, unproductive workplace dynamics, (speech and behavior) that often occur in culturally diverse work environments?
   
   
7. Why do these dynamics exist? What causes them?
   
   
8. What is an effective yet non-threatening method of interrupting such dynamics? How can these dynamics be avoided?
   
   
9. What are helpful assumptions and appropriate speech and behaviors that build trust, result in genuine connections, and form healthy relationships in the workplace among people across many cultural lines, including race, color, gender, national origin, age, religion, physical/mental impairment, sexual orientation, language, and class?
   
   
10. What are the "bottom line" behaviors that are strictly prohibited by law?
    
    
11. What norms do we want to establish for ourselves as a group, to help us develop a work environment which is more welcoming, inclusive and respectful of us all?
    
    
12. For each individual participant: "What is my personal action plan for continuing to learn about cultural differences and increasing my skills in becoming more culturally competent?"