Last week, there was a lot of buzz on my Facebook feed about how two African-American men who were arrested in a Philadelphia Starbucks. The men who were arrested were waiting for a business associate to arrive. They had not ordered anything yet, and had asked the Starbucks staff if they could use the facilities. The staff reportedly told the individuals that they could not use the restroom because Starbucks policy is to "not allow nonpaying people from the public to come in and use the restroom." Police officers were on the scene, and the two men were detained after they refused to leave. Needless to say, the video went viral and gained social media outcry because those who were outraged by it saw it as another example of racism at work. Not only has Starbucks issued numerous apologies, but it has even gone as far as closing all of its Starbucks locations on May 29 and requiring anti-bias training for all its employees. Will Starbucks' anti-bias training be feel-good policy or will it actually do some good?
The purpose of diversity training or anti-bias training is to reduce bias or prejudice that is unwanted. Having diversity and reducing prejudice in the workplace also makes for a better workforce. Individuals that are not prejudiced are in a better state of mind to be more productive than those who do, not to mention that they are less likely to want to look for a new job. Having a diverse workplace means having individuals who view the same project from multiple angles. This maximizes creativity within the workforce and subsequently maximizes profitability (Hunt et al., 2018; Ellison and Mullins, 2014; Saxena, 2014). I believe in the importance of having a diverse workforce that has as few prejudices as humanly possible. At the same time, I am not a fan of diversity training.
If the ample evidence out there is an indication of anything, I don't feel optimistic about Starbucks' endeavor. The idea of putting people through a one- or two-hour training and expecting systemic issues to disappear seemed fanciful. Harvard Business Review wrote a scathing article in 2016 on why diversity programs fail. The article points out a meta-analysis of 1,000 studies about prejudice-reduction programs (Paluck and Green, 2009). The meta-study found that the positive effects of diversity training rarely last beyond a day or two, as did another meta-analysis (Bezrukova et al., 2016). And in case two meta-analyses were not enough, here is another: A meta-analysis of 400 studies shows that getting people to acknowledge implicit bias does not change individuals' behavior (Forscher et al., 2017). A number of the studies in both meta-analyses show a backlash towards diversity training.
How could diversity training backfire? After all, you are getting people to reexamine their views and illustrate the importance of working with those who are different. The problem with such examination is that it gets people to think about stereotypes more. The irony here is that it brings bias to the forefront and makes it more likely to activate stereotypes (Duguid and Thomas-Hunt, 2015). The other irony is that eliminating the individuals' ability to assess diversity and prejudice on their own terms can create even more prejudice (Legault et al., 2011; Anand and Winters, 2008). The more compulsory the training, the more animosity from workers and the less diversity there is (Paluck and Green, 2009; Anand and Winters, 2008; Kulik et al., 2007).
What we have here is a mountain of evidence that diversity and anti-bias training is loaded with good intentions but has poor results. Although diversity training is not coming from Congress or another legislative body, diversity training nevertheless comes off as a way to "legislate" a certain way of thinking. Here is the difficult truth: you cannot legislate or compel tolerance, let alone acceptance.
It is not just diversity training that fails to produce a more tolerant workforce. Performance ratings, grievance procedures, or hiring tests don't help with prejudices, either. So what does work? Don't focus on control or compulsion. The programs that work best, according to Harvard, address the following: engaging managers, exposing employees to different types of people, and creating a culture that allows for social accountability. We should find ways to reduce racism and other forms of prejudice, but we should also throw out the methods that have proven to be failures. If Starbucks is truly committed to fighting bias or prejudice, it should change its strategy.
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