Why make minorities lead diversity training?
I do not have professional expertise in workplace diversity issues and believe my colleague and I are being used by management to be the "ethnic perspective" on these issues. While I am fully committed to advancing diversity in the workplace, I would prefer the staff be educated and trained as a whole. How do I raise this without sounding petty?
A: The cynical read of this situation is that management believes diversity training is primarily for your and your colleague's benefit, so it's making you do the legwork.
Less cynically, it's possible management is being overzealous in ensuring its diversity training meets the needs of its minority professionals - or, following the principle of assignment inertia, your prior willingness to take on these trainings has made you the default choice for all such events.
However you spin it, I see two problems. First, whatever management's intentions, it's essentially putting you two in the awkward position of schooling your white colleagues as de facto ambassadors of All Nonwhite Peoples. Not a great dynamic for an organization serving an international community.
Second, if management's only focus is on racial diversity, it may be inadvertently minimizing the needs of those with less visible differences: faith, disability, gender identity and sexual orientation. Just because people are in the racial majority doesn't mean they can't be invested in promoting diversity - or that they don't also bring a minority perspective of their own.
You and your colleague could take these concerns to management yourselves: "We appreciate Company's commitment to advancing diversity, but we're concerned that consistently having just the two of us organizing these trainings is counterproductive. We think our other colleagues should be given an opportunity to provide input."
If you're not comfortable initiating that conversation, this seems like a perfect topic to bring up when meeting with your consultants, who can convey their recommendations to management about how to make these trainings truly diverse and inclusive. Given some of the policies and incidents making headlines in our national news, most workplaces could probably benefit from a refresher on preventing discrimination in all forms.
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PRO TIP: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission offers seminars and on-site training about anti-discrimination laws and practices through its EEOC Training Institute (eeotraining.eeoc.gov).
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Ask Karla Miller about your work dramas and traumas by emailing wpmagazine@washpost.com.