Top 10 Diversity Training Courses

Effectively managing a multicultural workplace can be challenging. Varying backgrounds, conflicting viewpoints, and generational differences can bring unintended misunderstandings within the team and difficulties with recruitment, which then become barriers to innovation and success. Implementing workplace diversity training and gender inclusivity training courses within both small and large organizations are great for managers to bridge these divisions and foster healthy employee collaboration instead. 

Through diversity training, leaders can address topics such as intercultural & cross-cultural awareness, unconscious bias training, microagressions training, and stereotyping. Diversity inclusion training courses also raise awareness of the importance of understanding other’s ethnicities, cultures, genders, races, perspectives, and experiences and how this can help eliminate discrimination within teams.

In this article, let’s explore the top 10 diversity training courses you can use to build a more inclusive workplace. 

1. Karamo’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Training

If you’re a big fan of Netflix’s Queer Eye and are seeking for a course that will engage your team, look no further because this is the ideal training material to use. Karamo’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Training course was developed with none other than resident culture expert, Karamo Brown, to help companies develop an inclusive work culture.

This free elearning resource begins by defining what diversity, equity, and inclusion are then goes into exploring what unconscious bias is and how it affects the workplace. There’s also a lesson on microaggressions which gives examples along with relatable sample scenarios. After learning about diversity concepts, learners will discover how to make the commitment to practice inclusion through different tips and create a “diversity statement”. By the end of the course, learners will also know how to stand up for one another and make the workplace a safe space.

With EdApp, setting up your learners shouldn’t take up your whole afternoon. Once you’re ready to launch your course, simply invite your learners by email address or invite link to start training in minutes.

• Price: Free
• Best for: All employees
• Duration: 5 to 10 minutes per lesson (Flexible)

Sign up on EdApp for free and start implementing your own diversity training courses.

2. Diversity and Inclusion

The Diversity and Inclusion course is a free EdApp course that covers diversity key concepts like unconscious biases, inclusive language, and how to cultivate an inclusive organization. This 4-part course discusses the different types of workforce diversity which include internal, external, organizational, and worldview diversity. The lessons also dig deeper into topics like gender diversity, and the differences between race and ethnicity. 

Your team can receive training lessons every day and retain key concepts because the course is divided into easily digestible 5 to 10-minute microlessons. And with gamification features and fun scroll elements included, employees become more engaged and motivated to complete the whole course. Sign up on EdApp for free and try this course for your team’s diversity and inclusion training.

• Price: Free
• Best for: All employees
• Duration: 5 to 10 minutes per lesson (Flexible)

3. Leading with Effective Communication (Inclusive Leadership Training)

Discover the best ways to manage your diverse teams in the course, Leading with Effective Communication (Inclusive Leadership Training) presented by CatalystX. Some of the topics covered in the 4-week course include working through communication roadblocks, communicating across differences, testing assumptions, and debunking communication myths. Through this diversity program, you can develop the communication skills that you need to inspire your team, engage in difficult conversations, and promote inclusive dialogue. CatalystX also offers risk assessment courses that can help you develop the skills you need as a leader to identify and manage risks in your workplace.

• Price: Free (9 USD to include verified certificate)
• Best for: Leaders or managers
• Duration: 4 weeks (1 to 2 hours per week)

4. Communicating with Diverse Audiences

Hosted on FutureLearn, the Communicating with Diverse Audiences course by the University of Surrey explores the best strategies that your team can use to communicate among diverse peers and audiences. Through this cultural-diversity course, you’ll learn about the barriers you might face when talking to people from different cultural backgrounds & demographics, and the role of language in communication. Once you sign up and start going through the lessons, you can even join an international classroom and engage with learners from all over the world.

• Price: Free
• Best for: All employees
• Duration: 4 weeks (3 hours per week)

5. Finding Common Ground – How to Overcome Unconscious Bias

Finding Common Ground: How to Overcome Unconscious Bias is a course by the American Management Association that covers the different types of bias and strategies on overcoming bias for a more inclusive workplace. As you progress through the lessons, you’ll discover practical steps you can take to promote diversity and  foster inclusive communication. You’ll also gain some tips on how to identify verbal and non-verbal language that reflect unconscious bias. 

• Price: ,245 USD for 8 online sessions or 5 classroom sessions
• Best for: All employees
• Duration: 8 hours per session

6. Optimizing Diversity on Teams

Maximize your team’s performance through the University of Pennsylvania’s Optimizing Diversity on Teams course on Coursera. This fully comprehensive diversity training course for managers and employee resource groups can help you harness creativity and lay the groundwork for improved conflict management, risk assessment courses, and peer discussions.

• Price: Free with Coursera subscription (Coursera subscription is 9 USD per month)
• Best for: Leaders or managers
• Duration: 12 hours (Flexible)

7. Gender Equality and Sexual Diversity

Gender Equality and Sexual Diversity is an online video orientation course on Udemy that gives you an overview of some of gender equality and sexual-orientation’s key concepts. Throughout the 6-part course, you’ll also learn about the history of gender equality and sexual diversity, LGBT, transgender, the international norms and institutions related to it, and the policies that help sexual minorities fight against discrimination. Overall, the course is around 5 and a half hours long but you can choose to go through the lessons at your own pace.

• Price: Free
• Best for: Human-resources, all employees
• Duration: 5 hours and 36 minutes (Flexible)

8. Diversity training 101

Diversity Training 101 is an all-inclusive 11-part course by Universalclass that covers topics like barriers to diversity, identifying culturally different practices, diverse and inclusive workforce, gender issues that involve underrepresented employees in the workplace, and the positive impact of diversity. With this course, you’ll have access to both video lessons and printable lessons that you can come back to anytime. As reinforcement, each lesson in the course requires you to complete assignments and quizzes as well.

• Price: 0 USD no certificate, 5 USD with certificate
• Best for: All employees
• Duration: 6 months (Flexible)

9. Becoming a Successful Leader (Inclusive Leadership Training)

edX offers the course Becoming a Successful Leader (Inclusive Leadership Training) by CatalystX to help you develop inclusive leadership skills and how to apply these skills in real-life scenarios. In each section of the course, you’ll find case studies and quizzes that help you retain important leadership concepts. By the end, you’ll also be creating your very own personal leadership plan.

• Price: Free (9 USD to include verified certificate)
• Best for: Leaders or managers
• Duration: 4 weeks (1 to 2 hours per week)

10. Diversity and Inclusion in Retail

Through the Diversity and Inclusion in Retail course, EdApp has provided retail managers and employees with a guide on creating a safe and inclusive environment in retail. In this free elearning resource, you’ll learn about implicit bias and how this can affect our daily interactions with both peers and customers. 

As retail employees, you’ll also learn about the proper steps on taking customer feedback and complaints. These steps include apologizing for any inconvenience and recording the customer’s feedback or complaint, taking note of their contact information, thanking them for their time, and passing the feedback on to management. By listening, you can create a more inclusive shopping experience for your customers.

Because EdApp is a mobile-first microlearning solution, you don’t need to pay more to cover each employee’s shift while they’re training. Instead, you can deploy courses directly to their mobile devices. So, whether they’re on the way to work or on their lunch break, your store employees can complete a lesson in just 5 to 10 minutes.

• Price: Free
• Best for: Retail employees
• Duration: 5 to 10 minutes per lesson (Flexible)

In an increasingly globalized work environment, it’s important for all employees to be aware of behaviors that can become barriers to interactions with peers and customers. Through diversity training, organizations can foster diversity and manifest a more socially-aware and inclusive work environment. 

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