Home / Diversity Training in the Workplace
Diversity Training in the Workplace
Every workplace brings together people with different identities, backgrounds, experiences, perspectives, and ways of seeing the world. Those differences are a natural part of working with other people, and they can also create moments of misunderstanding, tension, or disconnection when people don’t yet have the language or space to talk about them openly.
Diversity training in the workplace helps employees, managers, and executives navigate those differences with greater awareness, curiosity, and respect. At Pollack Peacebuilding Systems (PPS), we deliver this work through Moving From Identity to Humanity: An Immersive DEI Training Experience, an interactive program that helps people explore identity and bias while developing practical skills in active listening, open dialogue, constructive conversations, and working across differences.
Our nationwide team of Peacebuilders brings a transformative, interest-based approach to this work, grounded in the psychology of conflict. Rather than reducing people to positions or categories, we help participants look more deeply at the needs, interests, emotions, experiences, and perspectives that shape how people relate to one another at work.
As the largest workplace conflict resolution firm in the U.S., PPS brings this work to organizations seeking more thoughtful ways to navigate difference, strengthen communication, and create greater opportunity for connection across their teams.
Trusted by Leading Organizations
Organizations across industries trust PPS to help their people navigate some of the most human, and often most difficult, parts of working together. We’ve supported organizations across more than 60 industries, from Fortune 500 companies to small businesses, including Amazon, Deloitte, Instacart, Robinhood, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. That experience has given us a close view of how communication, relationships, and differences can shape the way people work together.
That breadth of experience matters in diversity work. Every organization has its own people, culture, history, and challenges, and conversations about identity and difference don’t happen in a vacuum. Our Peacebuilders bring experience working with complex interpersonal and organizational dynamics, along with a deep understanding of the psychology of conflict and human relationships.
PPS was founded by social psychologist Dr. Jeremy Pollack, whose work in the psychology of conflict informs our approach. Our nationwide team of Peacebuilders brings diverse academic disciplines and professional experience to this work, and our experts are regularly featured in Forbes, NBC, CBS, Fox, and Business Insider for their perspectives on conflict, communication, and workplace relationships.
Moving From Identity to Humanity: An Immersive DEI Training Experience
Moving From Identity to Humanity is an immersive experience designed to help organizations create more collaborative workplace cultures. Through interactive, experiential learning, participants explore identity, bias, and the interconnectedness we share with one another and the world around us.
This five-workshop series guides participants on a journey from awareness-building to actionable steps shaped around their own organizational environment. Along the way, participants have opportunities to examine their own perspectives, listen more deeply to the experiences of others, and practice engaging across differences with greater curiosity, understanding, and respect. The program gives participants opportunities to strengthen how they listen, communicate, and engage across differences while contributing to more equitable, inclusive, diverse, and purpose-driven work communities.
Watch an overview of how identity shapes workplace dynamics, the research-informed foundation of this program.
Training Objectives Include
- Engage in courageous conversations about identity and difference.
- Practice active listening and build awareness of different perspectives and experiences.
- Explore identity and humanity and how they shape workplace interactions.
- Encourage continuous dialogue around diversity and inclusion.
- Develop actionable steps that support a more conscious, inclusive, and equitable workplace.
Deliverables Include
- A collaborative mind map reflecting key themes and insights from the experience.
- The Possibilities of Exploration digital booklet to support continued reflection and learning.
- SMART action steps developed around the organization’s environment and goals.
Skills Participants Build
- Active listening across different perspectives and experiences.
- Circle process facilitation, drawing from the Way of Council.
- Courageous conversation skills for engaging openly across differences.
- Emotional intelligence, including self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.
- Team-building practices that support collaboration and connection.
- Relational skills for engaging with people whose backgrounds and experiences may differ from their own.
- SMART goal development to help translate learning into practical next steps.
How Our Diversity Training in the Workplace Works
Every organization brings its own people, culture, and goals to this work. We start by understanding what’s happening within yours, then shape the experience around your organizational environment while maintaining the core structure and learning objectives of Moving From Identity to Humanity.
Start With Your Free Discovery Consultation
We begin by listening to understand your organization, your goals, and what brought you to diversity training. We explore the dynamics your team may be navigating and what you want participants to take from the experience, giving us a clear foundation for understanding how the experience can best support your organization.
Review Your Customized Proposal
Based on what we learn, we recommend an approach that fits your organization. Your proposal outlines the program structure, delivery format, focus areas, and other details so you know what to expect before moving forward.
Launch Your Program With a Dedicated Peacebuilder
Once the program begins, your dedicated Peacebuilder facilitates the experience using interactive exercises, guided dialogue, reflection, and practical skill-building. The focus is not simply on discussing diversity, but on giving participants meaningful opportunities to listen, engage, and practice working across differences.
We offer diversity training on-site at your workplace or live virtually through Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Sessions are available in half-day or full-day formats and typically include 8 to 25 participants at a time. For larger organizations, training can be delivered across multiple sessions or cohorts. Programs are available for employees, managers and supervisors, and executive leaders.
Why Invest in Diversity Training in the Workplace?
Diversity training in the workplace helps people understand and respect the differences they bring to work. Difference is a natural part of working alongside other people, and when approached thoughtfully, it can become a source of greater understanding and stronger working relationships.
Even strong, well-led teams can run into miscommunication when perspectives, backgrounds, and expectations go unspoken. Training gives people a shared language for talking about those differences and practical ways to navigate misunderstandings before they become recurring sources of tension.
There’s a broader business case for paying attention to diversity and workplace relationships, too. McKinsey’s 2023 Diversity Matters Even More report found that companies with top-quartile executive gender diversity were 39% more likely to financially outperform bottom-quartile companies. It reported the same 39% likelihood for top-quartile ethnic diversity.
Everyday tension and incivility can carry a cost as well. SHRM’s Q4 2024 Civility Index estimated that U.S. organizations lose $2.7 billion each day in reduced productivity and absenteeism associated with incivility. SHRM’s 2024 research also found that two-thirds of U.S. workers (66%) had experienced or witnessed incivility at work in the previous month.
SHRM also found that workers who rated their workplace as uncivil were more than twice as likely to consider leaving within the year. Diversity training can help people better understand and navigate differences while developing the awareness and communication skills that support more respectful everyday interactions. For a fuller picture, explore the workplace diversity statistics compiled by PPS.
A Stronger, More Collaborative Team
Diversity training helps employees develop a deeper understanding of one another. That understanding can support day-to-day collaboration, reduce misunderstandings, and create more room for people to contribute openly and work through disagreement with curiosity and respect.
Better Service Across a Diverse Customer Base
Your customers may come from different cultures, religions, traditions, and backgrounds. Diversity training helps employees approach those differences with greater awareness and curiosity rather than assumption, supporting more thoughtful communication across a diverse customer base.
Readiness for a Global Market
For organizations working across borders, diversity training can help employees navigate different cultural expectations, traditions, and communication styles. Participants develop awareness and communication practices they can draw on in interactions ranging from an initial conversation to an international business meeting.
Supporting a More Respectful Workplace
Diversity training can also support a more respectful workplace by helping employees recognize concerns around discrimination or harassment and understand how to respond appropriately. Our Peacebuilders keep your organization’s values, policies, and interests in mind while helping participants develop greater awareness of how their words, assumptions, and actions can affect the people around them.
Types of Diversity Training in the Workplace
Diversity training may address several areas depending on an organization’s people, goals, and workplace environment. Within a broader diversity training experience, areas of focus can include:
Unconscious Bias Training
Unconscious bias training helps participants become more aware of assumptions and patterns of thinking that can influence how they perceive and interact with others. The goal isn’t to assign blame, but to build awareness and encourage more thoughtful, intentional interactions.
Microaggressions and Respectful Communication
Everyday comments or interactions can affect people differently, even when harm isn’t intended. This training helps participants recognize how language and behavior may be experienced by others and practice communicating with greater awareness and respect.
Cultural Competence Training
Cultural competence training helps people better understand how cultural backgrounds, expectations, and communication styles can shape workplace interactions. Participants practice approaching differences with curiosity and greater awareness rather than relying on assumptions.
Diversity Training for Managers and Leaders
Managers and leaders play an important role in how workplace differences and tensions are addressed. Training can help them recognize interpersonal dynamics, listen across perspectives, facilitate open conversations, and respond more thoughtfully when concerns arise.
Integrated, Organization-Wide Diversity Training
Some organizations benefit from bringing several of these areas together. An integrated approach can bring employees, managers, and leaders into a more shared learning experience, creating a more consistent foundation for navigating cultural differences, communicating across perspectives, and continuing the conversation beyond the training itself.
Diversity training can also be part of a broader approach to employee development. Explore our guide to types of employee training to learn more.
Skills Diversity Training Can Strengthen
Diversity training gives people a shared language for talking about differences that can otherwise be difficult to navigate. Participants practice listening with greater awareness, recognizing assumptions, staying curious about perspectives different from their own, and engaging in conversations that may feel uncomfortable or unfamiliar.
Over time, these skills can support more thoughtful communication across roles, backgrounds, and experiences. Employees may be better prepared to recognize when misunderstandings are developing, ask questions rather than make assumptions, and approach differences with greater openness and respect.
For managers and leaders, the work also creates opportunities to practice responding to sensitive conversations with greater awareness and intention. Rather than feeling responsible for having every answer, they can learn ways to listen, make room for different perspectives, and help keep dialogue open when tensions arise.
This work also connects to the wider culture of your organization. Diversity training can be paired with de-escalation training or broader organizational systems design to support how people navigate differences not only in training, but in the systems and everyday interactions around them.
Diversity Training in the Workplace FAQs
Diversity training in the workplace helps employees and leaders better understand differences in identity, background, experience, and perspective and how those differences can shape workplace interactions. Training may address areas such as unconscious bias, communication, cultural awareness, and how people engage across differences. At PPS, the emphasis is not simply on awareness. Participants have opportunities to reflect, listen, engage in dialogue, and practice skills they can use in everyday workplace interactions.
Diversity training focuses on understanding the range of identities, cultures, experiences, and perspectives people bring to the workplace. Inclusion training focuses more specifically on the everyday behaviors and interactions that help people feel respected, included, and able to contribute.
The two work together: diversity builds awareness, while inclusion helps put that awareness into practice. PPS addresses both within the Moving From Identity to Humanity experience.
Common types of workplace diversity training include unconscious bias training, microaggressions and respectful communication, cultural competence training, manager and leadership training, and integrated organization-wide programs. Some organizations focus on one area, while others bring several together as part of a broader approach. The right focus depends on the organization’s people, goals, and workplace environment.
A diversity training program for managers should address the situations leaders are likely to navigate in their day-to-day work. That includes recognizing bias, listening across different perspectives, responding thoughtfully when concerns arise, facilitating difficult conversations, and understanding how their own communication and behavior can affect the people they lead.
At PPS, managers also have opportunities to practice these skills through guided dialogue, reflection, and experiential exercises, helping them approach differences and sensitive conversations with greater awareness, curiosity, and respect.
Diversity training can make a meaningful difference, particularly when it moves beyond awareness and gives people opportunities to reflect, engage in honest dialogue, and practice new skills. The strongest programs don’t treat diversity as information to absorb; they give people practical ways to listen, communicate, and engage across differences in their everyday work.
Moving From Identity to Humanity takes place across five workshops, giving participants time to explore, reflect, practice active listening and courageous conversations, and develop actionable steps shaped around their organizational environment.
Effective measurement starts with clear goals. Organizations can look at what participants have learned, how they demonstrate the skills they’ve practiced, and the progress they make toward specific organizational objectives. The goal is to move beyond simply asking whether people completed the training and look at how the learning is being put into practice.
That’s why Moving From Identity to Humanity includes SMART action steps and organizationally generated goals. These give participants and organizations concrete points of focus after the workshops and a practical way to evaluate progress over time.
Diversity training is most useful when it’s part of an ongoing commitment rather than a one-time event. How often training should take place depends on your organization’s goals, workplace dynamics, and evolving needs. Periodic opportunities to revisit the work can help reinforce shared language, refresh skills, and address new challenges as they arise.
Employers may require employees to participate in workplace training, including diversity training, but specific requirements can depend on applicable laws, workplace policies, collective bargaining agreements, and the content of the training itself. Organizations should confirm any legal or compliance requirements with their HR or legal counsel.
When participation is required, how the training is facilitated matters. Creating opportunities for open dialogue, reflection, and respectful participation can help the experience feel less like an obligation and more like a meaningful workplace conversation.
Organizations looking for an alternative to traditional DEI training may consider more experiential approaches that combine facilitated dialogue, self-reflection, active listening, and practical skill-building. Rather than focusing primarily on concepts or information, these experiences give people opportunities to explore identity and bias, examine their own perspectives, engage with the experiences of others, and practice working across differences.
PPS’s Moving From Identity to Humanity takes this experiential approach, creating space for participants to explore both the identities that shape their experiences and the shared humanity that connects them. The emphasis is on meaningful dialogue, greater self-awareness, and practical ways to engage across differences.
PPS’s Moving From Identity to Humanity program includes five interactive workshops that take participants from awareness-building to practical action. Through experiential exercises, guided dialogue, and reflection, participants explore identity and bias while practicing active listening, courageous conversations, emotional intelligence, and ways of engaging across differences.
The experience also includes a collaborative mind map, the Possibilities of Exploration digital booklet, and SMART action steps shaped around the organization’s environment. Training can be delivered on-site or live virtually in half-day or full-day formats, with live sessions typically including 8 to 25 participants at a time. For larger organizations, training can be delivered across multiple sessions or cohorts.
Talk With Us About Diversity Training for Your Team
Building a workplace where people can navigate differences with greater awareness, openness, and respect takes more than good intentions. It takes meaningful conversation, practical skills, and opportunities to put those skills into practice.
PPS can help you bring that work to your organization through Moving From Identity to Humanity. We’ll start by understanding your people, your goals, and what you want the experience to support, then shape the program around your organizational environment.
