Why do we say we don’t offer “training” on diversity, inclusion and bias?
As a company which spends so much of its time talking about the importance of education, you might think it’s strange that we say we don’t offer “training” on diversity, inclusion and bias. We’re always very clear that what we offer isn’t “training” – we don’t think you can train people to be inclusive or unbiased, or to be allies. We work on the assumption that real change happens when individuals do the work themselves. We like to summarise our approach to education using this Benjamin Franklin quote:
“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”
Our highly interactive workshops support the beginnings of conversations for our clients. Our objective is that everything we do results in individuals taking concerted action to make a difference, so regardless of how the content is delivered, that’s always our primary goal.
We tailor everything we do to our clients' requirements, because we know that all of our clients are totally different to one another. This tailoring means everything from content to language, tone and delivery mechanisms.
Our content can be delivered in a number of ways:
1. In-person workshops: We love the opportunity to spend time in a room with our clients to start a conversation in person, and we’re hopeful that at some point in the not-too-distant future this will be an option again.
2. Virtual workshops: Using the magic of Zoom, we facilitate highly interactive online workshops for our clients. We know how much more energy it takes for our participants to stay fully engaged through these virtual sessions, and we adapt our styles accordingly to make sure that everyone involved still gets as much out of the sessions as possible. We typically recommend no more than 15 participants in a remote workshop to preserve the learning experience.
3. Video podcasts: We love this covid-generated innovation which we initially developed for the amazing folk at Bauer Media. Our client was seeking a way of getting a really consistent set of content out across the organisation, based upon an inclusive recruitment workshop we’d previously delivered face to face. This soon became a series of video podcasts on inclusion, bias, inclusive recruiting, interviewing and ally-ship. We retain the focus on action for our participants by providing “light-touch” pre-read resources, and a series of follow up actions in the format of “Book Club” style reading notes and questions.
All our content is tailored so that it links seamlessly with the culture of our clients, and we’ve run workshops on everything from Inclusive Leadership to a beginners’ guide to D&I, to ally-ship and bias. If you want to see and hear our team in action, take a look at some of the snippets here.
At A New Normal, we work with our clients providing everything from one-off interventions around Unconscious Bias, Inclusive Leadership and ally-ship at work, inclusive recruitment audits and workshops through to large-scale culture change programmes. Our clients sit in sectors as diverse as pharmaceutical, tech, media, not for profit and consulting, and are as geographically dispersed as you’d expect them to be, so we work across the UK, with team members based in London, Hampshire, Surrey, Hertfordshire and Dorset. If you want to make a change in your organisation, why not get in touch – we’d love to hear from you. Hello@anewnormal.co
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