There is always someone at the office who seems to fly in the face of social norms and customs. They may not do it with malicious intent, but they end up hurting people with their speech and actions nonetheless. As a human resources manager, what do you do? Do you punish these individuals? Do you try to correct their behavior? If so, how?
A solution to this dilemma could be sensitivity training. It is a way for people to broaden the horizons of their minds by recognizing their own prejudices and being more open-minded to others.
So, what is sensitivity training? As it says in the name, it is a kind of training or exercise aimed at making people more open-minded. In a workplace, you are bound to have a lot of different kinds of people with very many kinds of beliefs. You have to make sure that the office is a safe space for all of them.
To foster a safe environment, sensitivity training can be assigned to anyone. It is an exercise where people from different backgrounds come together to talk about different issues. Everyone takes part, making it a very interactive activity aimed at understanding it and reaching a solution that benefits everyone.
What this does is encourage understanding among coworkers, teaching them things about each other helping everyone be more accepting of the diversity inherent in the workplace. It helps those who have acted out of line before to learn what is right and wrong and correct themselves.
Finally, it brings people closer and improves interpersonal communication vastly.
To implement a sensitivity training session and have it take effect, you have to make sure you follow the three steps discussed below:
The world needs to change and upgrade, and your employees need to keep pace. This can be done by enforcing open communication without judgment. Whatever may have happened in the past, people need to speak their minds in order to find what misconceptions were had before - and then move past them.
As a result of open communication, everyone is now aware of the values held by someone. They can now engage with them openly and honestly. A discussion ensues, in which everyone comments and makes known their opinion, working towards a solution and making a decision about what can be improved and what the new way to think should be.
As a result of the discussion, new values are cemented in the minds of all those who took part. Nobody came away from it quite the same. Old perceptions were challenged, and some were forced to change. Depending on how these new values so earned are put into practice at the workplace, the training can be counted as a success or a failure.
The workplace is a difficult maze to run, but Lanteria is equipped to help you deal with all the HR problems you face. Having 200,000 clients in over 40 countries, we are well poised to increase employee engagement and satisfaction. What’s more, we offer tools that make your job easier: with our solutions, you can schedule sensitivity training, set reminders, and upload materials to the employee portal for review. With this kind of automation, you’ll free up plenty of time to be spent on more complex and rewarding tasks.
