Understanding diversity legislation at Scope
New diversity legislation for employers particularly in the area of age aims to make the working environment a fairer place for everyone. The new legislation means that everyone at work has a responsibility to treat others fairly according to their needs. However, understanding exactly how we need to behave in order to meet our responsibility to others is not always easy. When Drhim Khan began a new role as IT Outreach Tutor for Scope Wales, undertaking the Engaging Diversity learning programme helped him to gain a practical grasp of the new diversity legislation. As an outreach worker, Drhim’s role required him to set up IT training programmes for people with physical and learning disabilities in their own communities. “Teaching adults with disabilities was a completely new challenge for me. The Disability module gave me a really thorough understanding, not only of the background to Disability in Wales but also helped me think in terms of the needs and challenges that disabled people face,” explains Drhim. Drhim also completed other modules including Age, Race and Gender and reports that the programme helped him to understand his obligations in terms of diversity law. “The learning was delivered in a really easy to understand way that clarified the legislation for me. It will be really useful to refer back to this resource in future,” says Drhim.
Developing eLearning at Gwynedd County Council
Having a clearly defined eLearning strategy is an important step towards gaining senior management support – backing at this level can directly influence the success of any eLearning programme. Participating with the Engaging Diversity project gave partner Gwynedd County Council the understanding they needed to refine their thinking and begin to formulate an eLearning strategy that was compatible with the needs, resources and objectives of their organisation.
Prior to their participation with Engaging Diversity, Gwynedd County Council had made limited use of eLearning and had not yet implemented any organisation-wide eLearning. However, with over 6500 staff to reach, the council had decided to incorporate eLearning but needed to explore how best to implement it and to determine where it could be used within the organisation. Participating with the Engaging Diversity project gave the council the ideal opportunity to trial and evaluate different implementation approaches and get a sense of what could be achieved using eLearning.
As part of their overall learning strategy Gwynedd council categorises staff into training groups according to their responsibilities. This enables the council to use a range of approaches within each learning programme to suit the needs of different cohorts. The council wanted all their staff to complete the diversity eLearning programme but as this was a completely new medium decided to phase it in gradually and implement it to select groups. A piecemeal approach would enable the council to rollout the programme in a manageable way and overcome obstacles such as IT issues as part of the process.
The council chose senior managers as the first cohort for trialling the programme because these individuals would ultimately have responsibility for supporting their own staff with the same learning. To encourage them to start learning as soon as possible the managers were given a deadline by which the programme had to be completed. Depending on their preference, the Managers could choose between completing the programme at their desktop or using computers in the IT suite.
After everyone had completed the programme they attended a ½ day workshop session where they discussed how the learning could be applied in real situations. “Despite not having extensive experience of eLearning, we knew we wanted to try a blended approach. The workshop was a crucial element for us to successfully raise awareness – it would reinforce the learning and put it in the context of everyday situations,” explains Carey Cartwright, Training Manager at the council.
Carey reports that the first session had mixed results – the blended approach had been effective and feedback was positive. However, it would have been more helpful had the workshop been delivered immediately after the modules so that the learning was fresh in participant’s minds. The council continued to rollout the programme to the next cohort of Managers. This time the discussion workshop was scheduled immediately after participants had completed the first modules. “The training co-ordinator really enjoyed delivering the session, says Carey, “the discussion after learners had completed the modules was much more lively, with people more willing to talk about their understanding of diversity and how they might review their perceptions.”
Carey continues, “We were really pleased to have identified an effective approach for tackling the complex subject of diversity. The modules had the power to convey the facts and issues much better than a co-ordinator could when delivering them in a face to face session. Many learners said that the imagery, particularly in the disability module had a real impact on them.”
In conclusion, trialling the diversity eLearning programme has provided Gwynedd County Council with both an understanding of the particular approach for making eLearning effective in their organisation and the practical knowledge needed to implement eLearning successfully. “The Engaging Diversity project has strengthened our commitment to introducing eLearning at Gwynedd County Council. As part of our learning strategy we have identified most of the training we’ll be carrying out for the next 5 years and we’ll be considering using eLearning for each of those programmes,” Carey added.
Developing working practices at Wrexham County Council
In our modern society, understanding of diversity can have an impact on many aspects of our work. Keith Lane, Credit Union Development Officer at Wrexham County Borough Council found that undertaking a diversity eLearning programme helped broaden his awareness and influenced his approach to key tasks at work. Wrexham County Borough Council chose to try a blended approach for implementing their diversity learning programme, featuring a mix of workshops and online learning modules. A workshop was scheduled both before and after completing the programme to help participants put their learning in to context. Working within the council’s Economic Development Department, Keith was responsible for establishing a new credit union. Keith’s main tasks were to engage a board of directors, set-up a study group and recruit volunteers to meet the registration requirements of the Financial Services Authority. Keith had not undertaken any diversity programmes prior to Engaging Diversity and had expected the programme to focus mainly on legislative aspects.
Keith says: “The modules covered all the necessary legislation but were really helpful because they went a step further and considered what implications the legislation has in the work place”. Keith found the opportunities to reflect on how you were going to alter your thinking and behaviour after each module really valuable. This aspect enabled Keith to clarify his own and his department’s responsibilities in terms of diversity. “We needed to formulate an Equality and Diversity policy for the credit union. We were able to use much of the information learnt from the modules to prepare this document,” Keith explains.
At the workshop after the programme different departments discussed how the learning had impacted the delivery of their service. This became a valuable opportunity for departments to share best practice ideas that had been implemented since completing the programme.
In conclusion, the programme enabled Keith and his team to understand how important diversity was to their organisation. They were able to put measures into place to ensure that they recruited individuals of diverse ages, cultural backgrounds and genders for their board of directors. They also realised that their marketing activity had to be planned carefully to help them attract membership from all different groups in society. “I greatly appreciated this programme – it fulfilled the needs we expected it to and delivered the learning in a way people could take seriously, “ Keith added
Powys County Council successfully implement eLearning
eLearning has many distinct advantages over other types of training. Its convenience and the ease with which it can be implemented make it a very attractive option for many organisations. However, for eLearning to be truly effective certain conditions are required. Participating with the Engaging Diversity project helped Powys County Council gain an understanding of the steps needed to make eLearning work for their organisation.
Before they became partners in the Engaging Diversity Project, Powys County Council had experienced limited success with eLearning. An attempt to rollout an IT skills eLearning programme had not engaged high volumes of staff. However, with an audience of over 7,000 people to reach the Council wanted to explore how they might use eLearning more effectively. Because of their apprehension about eLearning, the project provided an ideal testing ground for the council to try different measures to engage their workforce with the medium. At the same time, Powys County Council wanted to investigate how they might fulfil the pressing need to build understanding of diversity issues amongst their large and varied workforce.
The council had already implemented a 3-day diversity learning programme for Senior Managers. The expectation had been that Senior Managers would pass on their understanding of diversity issues to staff within their departments. However, the Council soon realised that a more direct approach would be required if they were going to achieve their aim of raising diversity awareness en masse across the organisation. The diversity eLearning programme would put the Council much more in control of the process – it would be possible to track each learner’s progress, providing an ongoing picture of what proportion of the organisation had engaged with the learning. The modules could also be deployed in a variety of ways that would suit the ranging needs of learners from different departments.
Powys County Council were committed to making the eLearning programme work and put several key measures in place to ensure that people within the organisation engaged with the programme. The council made the learning mandatory for everyone and each staff member was informed about the programme via email. A ‘drip-feed’ awareness-raising approach was used to keep staff interested in the programme - including briefings during departmental meetings and promotion through the staff newsletter and the staff intranet.
The Council also put a range of resources in place to make it easy for staff to access and complete the learning. The IT suite was booked for an extended period so that there were always workstations available for users to logon and trial the modules. Dedicated learning sessions were also held in the IT suite. In these instances, a co-ordinator would introduce the programme, allow learners to complete the modules on their own and then return to close the session. A stock of headphones was also made available for departments to hire so that learners could complete the programme in their own time at their workstations if they preferred. “Being able to monitor who had completed the learning and gauge the kind of results being achieved in the tests was really useful, explains Rob Beardall, Organisational Development Officer for Equalities at the council, “we worked with Senior Managers to help them roll-out the modules across their service ”.
The Council expected greater levels of resistance towards completing the learning than they actually experienced – the general attitude was very positive. “In this initial stage we focused on delivering the programme to our office-based staff and a real mix of people took the programme from senior officers down to frontline staff. Changing people’s attitudes towards diversity is a long process but this programme has given us the first step. After the programme people are more inclined to take the equality agenda seriously. We now ask new starters to sit the programme so that they have a clear message about equality from the outset,” says Rob.
In conclusion, allowing different groups within the organisation the flexibility to undertake the learning as they preferred helped to ensure that everyone completed the training. For Powys County Council, eLearning had provided an evocative medium that could begin to develop people’s understanding of diversity. “The programme is emotive in a way that cuts through stigma. Implementing the programme has also changed our opinion of eLearning and proven that we can make it work for our organisation. eLearning will definitely feature in future programmes at Powys County Council, “ Rob concluded.
