XYZ+Jewelry+Analysis+Document

=﻿ Diversity Awareness Pilot Program - 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.

Primary Audience

 * ===== Employees =====
 * Frontline Supervisors

Secondary Audience

 * =====﻿Managers=====
 * Other company stakeholders

General Learner Characteristics

 * Age: 23-65
 * 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: 2 years - 10 years
 * Ethinicity: 55% identify as being White, 20% Hispanic, 20% African-American, and 5% other

Prerequisite Skills & Knowledge

 * =====﻿ All employees have basic computer skills. =====
 * Most employees are able to grasp basic concepts.
 * Most employees are familiar with term “diversity,” but do not have an in-depth understanding of diversity.
 * Employees have not had diversity training.
 * Employees are mature.
 * Most employees have an above-average ability.
 * All employees are adult learners.

Attitudinal & Motivational Characteristics:

 * All employees recognize the need to prepare for a more diverse work environment through the changing employee demographic in the workplace.
 * All employees have struggled responding to questions about diversity, when asked.
 * All employees feel an increasing amount of stress handling issues of diversity.
 * Employees are motivated to learn.

Prior Experience: 

 * Employees lack understanding of cultures outside of their own.
 * Majority of employees have not had diversity training in the past.
 * Most employees have been exposed to issues of diversity outside of work through mass media.

Common Errors:

 * ===== Employees may inadvertently create feelings of discomfort and frustration in others diffeent than themselves. =====
 * Employees think of diversity in terms of racial and gender differences.
 * Employees have difficulty building effective work relationships when working with someone different than themselves.

Performance Gap Analysis
(adapted from Morrison, Ross, Kalman, & Kemp, 2011; Muir, C., 1996).
 * **Performance Gap** || **Potential Solution** ||
 * Employees struggle to define diversity. || Employees will benefit and can contribute more to the company's diversity initiative if they have a deeper personal definition of diversity. ||
 * Employees do not understand why a diverse workplace is important for the company. || Employees need training to help them understand why diversity is beneficial for the business. ||
 * Employees are not clear how they can contribute to creating a more inclusive work environment. || Employees can learn basic strategies to help create inclusive work spaces which is a necessary part of building a company culture which values respect and acceptance of all. ||

=
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. =====

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.

The goals for the instruction are:

 * To convey the need for diversity as well as XYZ Jewelry's commitment to the value of it
 * To help staff create a supportive and diverse workforce
 * To help staff implement and promote diversity strategies in their unique work environments

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

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
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

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
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

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).

A. Assess current knowledge and acceptance of diversity

 * ===== The definition of diversity =====
 * Cultural-What is “Culture” or “A Culture”
 * Types of diversity
 * Cultural
 * Race/nationality
 * Gender
 * Religion
 * Generational
 * <span style="font: 12px/21px Arial; letter-spacing: 0px; margin: 0px;">Others?

B. Develop an understanding of why diversity is important to the future of this company

 * ===== The business market has become global =====
 * Technological advances enable global business and increases competition
 * Corporations often have presence in multiple countries
 * The makeup of the population is becoming more diverse
 * Immigration rates have increased
 * Cultural differences
 * Religious Differences
 * For the first time in history we have four generations working together
 * Individuals now celebrate their differences vs compromising their uniqueness

C. How does it affect our company

 * 1) ===== Ability to expand =====
 * 2) Desirable working environment
 * 3) Managerial Commitment
 * 4) Building a learning environment
 * 5) Workplace values, behavoiurs and communication are driven by culture

D. Evaluate current attitudes toward the different categories of diversity

 * Establish the level of understanding of personal "bias"
 * Reduce the effects of your cultural biases
 * Heighten your self awareness and control biases and or prejudice
 * Facilitate cross-cultural communication
 * Suggestions
 * <span style="color: black; font: 10pt/21px verdana; letter-spacing: 0px; lower-alpha: lower-alpha; loweralpha: lower-alpha; margin: 0px;">The plan of action

E. Application Assignments

 * Required
 * One (1) hour per week for three (3) weeks
 * ===== For Administration, Warehouse, and retail staff =====
 * Application assignments will be e-mailed on Friday afternoons to be completed by the following Friday.
 * Specific instructions will be included for turn in and documentation of application assignment

Procedural Analysis
===<span style="color: black; font-family: verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">﻿ This problem is not a task that has a set of predetermined steps to follow. ===

1. What does the learner do?

 * Learners will compare 2 different cultures & analyze them to see the differences.
 * In groups of 2, learners will present solution(s) to a case study.
 * In groups of 2, learners will role play situations in which they practice cultural sensitivity.

2. What does the learner need to know?

 * Information or facts about to their culture
 * Information or facts about other cultures
 * Information or facts about other cultures

3. What cues inform the learner that there is a problem, the step is done, or a different step is needed?

 * The pilot program training informs the learner that there is a problem.

1. What does the learner do?

 * Learners will tell an anecdotal story about he/she had a first impression about a group of people or person and how that impression proved to be incorrect.
 * Each learner will write 3 interesting facts about themselves on a sheet of paper. Two statements are true and one is false. The learners take turns guessing which one is false and saying why it is false.
 * In groups of 2, learners will list multiple examples of each gender bias type (gender, race, socio-economic, mental/physical abilities).

2. What does the learner need to know?

 * Awareness of their biases

3. What cues inform the learner that there is a problem, the step is done, or a different step is needed?

 * The pilot program training informs the learner that there is a problem.

Instructional Objectives:

 * 1) Employees with demonstrate a new, deeper understanding of the concept of diversity.
 * 2) Employees will understand XYZ Jewelry's need for diversity and why the company values it.
 * 3) Employees will learn 3 basic strategies they can use to promote inclusiveness in their unique work environment.

One time instruction will not solve this problem. Continued ongoing instruction will be need to solve issues of diversity.

References

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Maddrell, J., A Cognitive Task Analysis, October 15, 2008, Old Dominion University Retrieved from []

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Morrison, G. R., Ross, S. M., Kalman, H. K., & Kemp, J. E. (2011). Designing effective instruction (6th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Muir, C. (1996). Workplace Readiness for Communicating Diversity. Journal of Business Communication, 33(4), 475-484. AN: 9702175496

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Serrat, O. (2010). Critical Incident Technique. Retrieved from: []