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Although workplace diversity training has been a staple in US companies for the past 15 years, little systematic assessment has been conducted. Many organizational leaders and HR professionals seem to assume that the training activities had a positive effect. In the current study, a large manufacturing organization was interested in implementing a diversity program company-wide. Before doing so, it conducted a pilot study with a critical layer of senior management to determine whether the training would be effective. The Workplace Diversity Survey was administered: (1) one week prior to the training, (2) the week immediately after the training was completed, and (3) three months later. The instrument measured the overall efficacy of the diversity training as well as five specific dimensions of participant perceptions. The results showed that the program participants significantly increased both their overall and dimensional scores. This improvement was maintained throughout the period of study. Implications for the evaluation of diversity training and the use of senior management as a pilot group were discussed.
Diversity in the workplace is one of the most critical challenges facing US organizations today. Nearly every issue of Fortune, Business Week, or The Wall Street Journal addresses some problem related to workplace diversity. Numerous articles, books, workshops, training programs, and college courses provide an abundance of information on understanding and managing diversity (cf. Bendick, Egan, & Lofhjelm, 2001; Cox, 2001; Miller & Katz, 2002; Kossek, et al., 2003; Thiederman, 2003; Stockdale & Crosby, 2004). A survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) in the late 1990s found that over 80 percent of the Fortune 500 companies either had a diversity program or were planning to implement one within the next year ("SHRM releases new survey," 1998). It is generally believed that attaining workforce diversity has many positive social, legal, strategic, and competitive benefits for an organization (Sacco 6c Schmitt, 2005).
The scholarly literature on diversity contains two main bodies of work. One area focuses on the development of conceptual frameworks for understanding diversity and its impact on organizational behavior and performance (e.g., Mandell & Kohler-Gray, 1990; Thomas, 1990; De Meuse & Hostager, 2001). The other area presents generalized prescriptions for effectively managing diversity (e.g., Piturro & Mahoney, 1992; Cox, 1993; Rynes & Rosen,...