Workplace diversity training might not be effective for all participants.Credit: Hinterhaus/Getty

Online diversity-training programmes aimed at countering gender or racial bias among employees do little to change workplace behaviour, particularly among men, finds a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1. But women who participate in bias training are more likely than male participants to mentor and support women, the study shows.

In 2017, researchers partnered with a global organization to design and test a one-hour online training session, and recruited 3,016 volunteers (61.5% men) across 63 nations. All were salaried employees working for a single professional-services business. Each participant was randomly assigned to one of three sessions: gender-bias training, general-bias training or a control group that underwent no training.

In both bias sessions, participants learnt about the psychological processes that underlie stereotyping, how stereotyping can lead to bias and inequity in the workplace, and strategies for overcoming it.

Study authors logged attitudinal shifts and behavioural changes immediately after the sessions and for up to five months afterwards, by looking at participants’ responses to company e-mails requesting volunteers for an informal mentoring programme, seeking nominations for peer recognition for excellence and asking them to speak to newly hired employees.

Authors found that the training produced no measurable positive shifts in behaviour among male participants. Those who appreciably changed their behaviour were participants who themselves are generally more affected by bias — women, and participants belonging to under-represented minority groups. “The groups that historically have had more power — white people and men — didn’t move much,” says co-author Edward Chang, a PhD student researching diversity, discrimination and behavioural change at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in Philadelphia.

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Chang and his co-authors found that compared with men, women who participated, particularly those in the United States, sought mentorship from senior colleagues and offered mentorship to junior female colleagues after the sessions. “If you tell people about ways to improve diversity in the workplace, they will be proactive to overcome barriers,” says Chang.

Study authors found that during the follow-up period, participants’ attitudes towards women — such as acknowledging that women are affected by gender bias, or endorsing policies that aim to support women — improved most in nations outside the United States.

Katerina Bezrukova, a psychologist at the University of Buffalo in New York who studies the efficacy of such training, says that stand-alone diversity training might have little effect on employees’ attitudes or behaviours around bias. She co-authored a 2016 meta-analysis of more than 40 years of research on the impact of diversity training, with Chester Spell, who studies behavioural and psychological health in organizations. These results, she says, add further evidence casting doubt on the long-term impact of such sessions. Still, she says, although her research found little difference between academia and business in terms of the effects of diversity training, those in academic settings rate such trainings higher than do those in other workplaces. These findings, Bezrukova says, suggest that diversity training is better received in educational environments.

Overall, adds Spell, a faculty member at Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey, the new research is further proof that for greatest effect, “diversity training has to be part of the DNA of an organization, not an appendix”. In other words, employers who roll out many initiatives aimed at boosting awareness of bias and its effects signal to employees that the organization is serious about combating bias. That stance is likely to increase employees’ motivation to learn. Employers who offer one-off diversity and anti-bias training sessions indicate to employees that it is not a priority.

Chang suggests that employers offer repeated or longer training sessions paired with other tactics, such as deciding on hiring criteria in advance of evaluating candidates, or evaluating candidates jointly to reduce bias. “Diversity training is not a waste of time,” he says. “But employers can’t rely on it alone to solve all their problems.”