Effective DEIB Training Is Science-Backed!

This week, I'm kicking off an exciting series that is near and dear to my heart. We've spoken before about how to evaluate effective Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging frameworks, and we've also covered why online learning, or e-learning, works well for DEI trainings. So let's cover a still-missing piece in this series: what do great DEIB trainings have in common? As an HR, people ops, or culture advocate, what should you be looking for when you've evaluating trainings around diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and justice?

This can be a sticky situation for advocates who may not be subject-matter experts, but who are charged with infusing this into their organizations. So I'm happy to give you a cheat-sheet! For this post, we're going to talk about the first of three important points: DEIB is a scholarly area! This means that we should be looking for content that is science-backed.

Any effective DEIB provider should be able to share the basis of their scholarship, including sources, with you in order to help you understand their pedagogical perspective (which basically means helping you understand what they're trying to teach you and how). I actually don't believe that practitioners should or need to have a formal academic background in DEI work, but they should definitely be able to share their teaching perspective with you.

Why is it important to remain science-backed?

The first reason it's important to remain science-backed is probably the most obvious to you: hiring a science-backed DEIB provider will allow you to share, honestly and openly, with your people that the curriculum they'll be experiencing is grounded in facts and truth. This ensures that participants who are already bought into the importance of DEIB work feel confident and able to trust that the work they're being asked to do is reliable.

Choosing a science-backed curriculum also allows us to create a supportive and productive environment for learners who might be a bit ambivalent about, or new to, DEIB concepts. It allows us to share with them that they can relax into this content; that it isn't "soft" or "new-age" or any other labels folks use to minimize DEIB.

Finally, remaining science-backed allows us to build a foundation that can withstand conflict, should it arise throughout your team's DEIB journey.

You may have heard the adage about "attacking the idea, not the person".... but this idea falls apart if the ideas crumble under pressure! Conversely, when we present peer-reviewed, scientific truth, we present a solution-focused curriculum that allows for sharing disagreements on conclusions, but that does not allow room for personal attacks or downplaying DEIB's importance (at least, not without also challenging the validity of science itself).

Hopefully, this has been an illuminating peek into why I'm so proud that BE MORE with Anu's trainings use science as a foundation, rather than a happy bonus. If you're interested in learning more about how this works, get in touch with us today -- we'd love to walk you through our portfolio!