Project+Analysis+Refinement

Diversity Awareness Pilot Program - Project Analysis

Project D﻿escription
Our instructional design project will address diversity awareness in the workplace. Today's businesses are more and more often competing in a broader marketplace. Organizations that used to serve a small geographic area can now compete across their state, across their country, and indeed around the globe. In order to effectively serve a broader market and expand in new territories, company staff must be aware of differences that result from cultural differences, generational differences, and value differences. A first step towards addressing diversity of employees, partners, and customers is to develop a basic understanding of the meaning of diversity. Our project will focus on the design of a "Diversity Awareness Pilot Program" for a rapidly growing business. This pilot program provides training to a selected group of employees to help them understand what is meant by diversity, identify personal biases, and introduce strategies to help create an environment for change, one in which employees of diverse backgrounds can work together more harmoniously and be more productive. Successful completion of this pilot may lead to training of an expanded audience as well as on-going diversity training to support the company in their growth and development of an effective, multi-cultural organization.

Our customer, XYZ Jewelry, is engaged in the sales of unique jewelry. The business, located in the southwestern United States, was started by two friends. They started out making and selling their own jewelry. Early successes by word-of-mouth advertising from satisfied customers led them to open a store. Their business has expanded to include the purchase and resale of jewelry from a variety of partners located throughout the U.S. They have opened several more stores, and they are considering opening additional locations in other tourist areas under franchise agreements with partners. They also have a strong internet presence, and they want to expand that market as well. However, they are facing problems related to communication with their partners and customers in other areas. To successfully expand their company, the business owners know that they need to have a better understanding regarding the diversity of their employees, partners, and customers. They have asked our organization to help provide training for their employees to help them understand the concept of diversity.

Needs analysis
The identified problem is how to help the existing employees effectively interact with other employees, partners, and customers who are not like them. To date, most employees have not had to deal with diversity in their workplace, and they don't know how to effectively communicate with individuals outside of their local region or cultural background. This is resulting in misunderstandings and low-level tensions among existing staff. Company management anticipates increasing tensions resulting from cultural differences as the organization grows. In order to successfully expand, employees will need skills to help them understand and deal with those differences.

Instruction alone will not resolve the identified problem. Building effective teams requires the willingness of employees to change, demonstrated support of management for that change, and an understanding of the steps to achieve that change. Instruction cannot address employee and management support for these changes, but it can provide an understanding of diversity and of strategies to prepare for and create an atmosphere of acceptance for individual uniqueness.

In interviews with employees, it was clear that employees were willing and, in fact, excited about the expansion of their company. Clearly, the management team understood and supported the need to change. Given this willingness for change, instruction can address the identified problem. Obviously, the changing an organizational culture will not be achieved by a single instructional session. However, a single instructional session can provide a base of knowledge to help employees understand the concepts of diversity, allow them to examine their own biases, and provide strategies that will allow them to begin the process of creating a climate to support the supports diversity. The purpose of the planned instruction is to provide this base of knowledge to an initial group of employees as a proof of concept.

Learner Analysis
Primary Audience

Employees Frontline Supervisors

Secondary Audience

Managers Other company stakeholders

** General Learner Characteristics **
Age: 18-65

Gender: 60% women and 40% men

Education: Majority of employees have graduated from high school, some have attended or graduated from college, a few have graduate education. (All have at least an 8th grade reading level.) Work experience: 6 months - 10 years

Ethinicity: 65% identify as being White, 20% Hispanic, 10% African-American, and 5% other

Prerequisite Skills & Knowledge
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">Most employees are familiar with term “diversity,” but do not have an in-depth understanding of the subject or issues.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">Most employees have been exposed to a diversity issue in the last 3 months.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">Most employees have not had Diversity training.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">Employees have an understanding of their own cultural vocabulary.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">All employees are adult learners.

Attitudinal & Motivational Characteristics
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">All employees recognize the need to prepare for a more diverse work environment through the changing employee demographic in the workplace.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">All employees have struggled responding to questions about diversity, when asked.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">All employees feel an increasing amount of stress handling issues of diversity.

Prior Experience:
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">Most attendees recognize they are non-minorities and lack understanding of cultural experiences outside of their own.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">Majority of employees have not had diversity training in the past.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">Most employees have been exposed to issues of diversity outside of work through mass media.

Common Errors:
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">Employees may inadvertently create feelings of discomfort and frustration in others.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">Employees often do not recoginize personal biases in dealings with a person of a different ethnicity.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">Employees have difficulty building effective work relationships when working with someone different than themselves.

Performance Gap Analysis
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">Most employees in the organization struggle to answer questions about diversity, when asked. Employees need more knowledge of diversity before the company can begin a full-scale diversity initiative.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">Employees inadvertently perpetuate diversity issues in the workplace if they are unaware of their personal biases. Training to help employees recognize personal bias and cultural differences will help create a more inclusive work environment.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">Employees require a deeper understanding of diversity to help them resolve diversity issues than most general diversity training sessions provide.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">Diversity initiatives are more likely to become successful when employees attend diversity readiness training before the implementation of a full-scale company diversity initiative.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">(adapted from Morrison, Ross, Kalman, & Kemp, 2011; Muir, C., 1996).

Company Background
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">XYZ Jewelry has done business in the Phoenix, AZ market for more than 10 years now. The company started out by designing, making, and selling its own jewelry from a single store-front operation. Thanks to a robust e-commerce business, XYZ Jewelry is in demand across the United States. In addition to its three retail establishments in Phoenix, it has a full-fledged operations center which houses administrative, human resources, purchasing, customer service, and manufacturing departments all under one roof. Due to increased customer demand and a need to improve customer responsiveness, the company has decided to open 2 new distribution centers in Chicago, IL and Atlanta, GA. The company also plans to open 4 new retail stores in Chicago, Atlanta, New York, and Las Vegas within the next 3 months. Store managers have been hired from these markets and trained at the corporate office. They are in the process of staffing their new stores for the grand openings next month. In addition, some existing managers have been transferred from Phoenix to the new distribution centers in Chicago and Atlanta. They will coordinate warehousing and distribution as opposed to manufacturing which will remain in Phoenix. The company expects to hire 200 people in the next 6 months and has a goal of creating a work force that reflects each local community’s population.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Learning by Design has been contracted to work with the XYZ Jewelry to develop a learning module to meet the anticipated need for diversity awareness. Our firm conducted surveys, interviews and observations with employees at XYZ headquarters, Phoenix retail centers, and the Chicago distribution center. The program will kick-off at the company’s 1st quarter meeting at the end of April. Learning by Design will introduce the diversity initiative to a cross-section of 48 initiative leaders who were hand-picked for the task through peer nominations, supervisory, and management approval. We have decided to work with the initiative leaders in small groups, so we will do 3 one-hour segments with the same content for each class.

Unit Goals
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">The goals for the instruction are:


 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">To convey the need for diversity as well as XYZ Jewelry's commitment to the value of it
 * To help staff develop a definition of diversity
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">To help staff create a vision of what a supportive, diverse workforce looks like
 * <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">To teach basic strategies to help staff implement and promote diversity strategies in their unique work environments

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">To ensure the development of quality and targeted instruction, Learning by Design takes great care in the consideration the learning contexts. Following are our findings and preliminary plans relative to the context for the introduction to the diversity awareness initiative.

Orienting Context
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">The orienting context for instruction allows designer to glean some understanding of the targeted learning audience’s value on instruction. If the learner perceives utility in the instruction, he/she is likely to attend to content better. Learning by Designed polled all 48 designates regarding the diversity introduction (pilot), XYZ learners indicate that they have a basic understanding of the need for diversity, but 96% of the group have never had diversity training. Overwhelmingly, managers disagree that they have a personal need for expanding their own level of diversity awareness. On the other hand, non-management staff identifies a need for expanding personal awareness of diversity at 82%. The majority of learners, both management and non-management believe that the company needs to do a better job of promoting diversity and are interested in participating in the initiative for the sake of improving the company. All learners (99%) perceive high value of completing the program beyond receiving a certificate. 70% hope that the training will enable them to demonstrate greater leadership in the company.

Instructional Context
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">The instructional context for instruction is a reference to the physical environment, resources, and personnel need to execute instruction. The diversity pilot sessions will be held in the Training Center at the Treasure Island Hotel in Las Vegas. The room has been booked from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 20th. We have confirmed that the room has:


 * A projector
 * Connection for laptop hook-up
 * Free wireless internet access
 * Seating and desk space for up to 20 people

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">Sessions are scheduled to begin at 8:00 a.m., 10:30 a.m., and 1:00 p.m. Lunch is planned by XYZ Jewelry in another area of the Hotel. Our facilitator is Danielle Vermette who will be supported by one of our consultants in each session. The session closes with follow-up assignments that will require internet access for every trainee. These assignments will require at least 1 hour of study per week for 3 weeks following the introductory session.

Transfer Context
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">When newly acquired information is applied to different situations, it has been successfully transferred. Our goal is for XYZ employees to use diversity awareness strategies in the unique work environments. Follow-up assignments and instructional material will require immediate application of learning in the retail, administrative, and warehousing work environments. Completion of the course and certificates will be dispersed when follow-up assignments have been completed.

Topic Analysis
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">A Critical Incident Analysis was applied to assess interpersonal interactions and attitudes related to the diversity issue and content development. Used was a combination of a cognitive task analysis and a critical incidents analysis, utilizing SME and Graham Gibbs’ Learning by Doing Model (1988). <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in;">A. Develop an understanding of why diversity is important to the future of this company <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1.5in;">1. The business market has become global <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1.5in;">2. The makeup of the population is becoming more diverse <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1.5in;">3. Individuals now celebrate their differences vs compromising their uniqueness <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;"> 4. Managerial Commitment <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in;">B. How does it affect our company <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1.5in;">1. Ability to expand <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1.5in;">2. Desirable working environment <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"> C. Assess current knowledge and acceptance of diversity

e. Generational
D. Evaluate current attitudes toward the different categories of diversity 1.Establsh the level of understaning of personal "bias"

Procedural Analysis
<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">This problem is not a task that has a set of predetermined steps to follow.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">1. What does the learner do? <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 1in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Learners will compare 2 different cultures & analyze them to see the differences.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 1in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"> In groups of 2, learners will present solution(s) to a case study.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 1in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"> In groups of 2, learners will role play situations in which they practice cultural sensitivity. <span style="color: red; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 1in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"> I don't think we give strategies yet so generalize these specific instructional strategies to : <span style="color: red; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 1in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"> Compare cultures <span style="color: #ff0000; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 1in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"> Analyze differences <span style="color: #ff0000; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 1in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"> Identify bias in case study <span style="color: red; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 1in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"> (we can use these strategies as we get in to design)

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">2. What does the learner need to know? <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 1in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Information or facts about to their culture

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 1in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"> Information or facts about other cultures

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">3. What cues inform the learner that there is a problem, the step is done, or a different step is needed?

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 12pt 1in;">The pilot program training informs the learner that there is a problem.

Instructional Objectives:
1. The employee will be able to compare his/her own cultural views with someone from another culture when working in a multicultural environment.

2. The employee will be able to identify what particular bias that he/she may have including gender, socio-economic, racial or ethnic, physical or mental disability when meeting with, talking to, or working with a person outside of his/her own gender, socio-economic group, race or ethnicity, or physical or mental characteristics.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">One time instruction will not solve this problem. Continued ongoing instruction will be need to solve the problem.