Diversity Training Paper

Audrey Corn, Melissa McWatters, & Luke Stanczyk

Local Pharmacy Diversity Training Throughout the years, healthcare leaders have been searching for ways to boost their organization’s success. One tool that has had a very positive impact on the workplace is diversity training. Diversity training promotes awareness of cultural sensitivities which allows diverse healthcare groups to cooperate and function more cohesively. The use of diversity training can dramatically increase an employee’s level of comfort at his or her place of work. This will lead healthcare professionals to increased job performance, which will give their patients a higher sense of satisfaction with the care they have received. In hopes of increasing job satisfaction, we

The readiness assessment determined specific goals for each employee, so we will use this feedback to guide the training that will be provided. We would then give the employees a list of fifteen questions that ask the employee to rank his or her knowledge or feelings about diversity. The first part of this diversity training will last for half a day, for two days in a row. This diversity training should not feel like a burden to the employees, so this will help them be able to be productive in both their job and in this new educational experience as they learn more about diversity. A technique we will use to begin this diversity training is introducing different case studies to the group, and evaluating how they respond. This technique would be used in order to address different situations that may arise in the workplace, either while interacting with a co-worker or patient, and to help the employees further understand why they react certain ways in situations regarding diversity and see how their actions could be improved. Lectures are another technique that we will be using. We would invite a speaker who is experienced in the topic of teaching diversity, so he or she could inform the employees of the pharmacy problems that stereotyping and making assumptions about people cause in the

These desired outcomes can include benefits for the organization, like more credibility and a more supportive workplace. Other desired outcomes can be specifically for the staff such as sensitivity to their co-workers and job satisfaction. Finally, the outcomes can affect the clients by giving them satisfaction with the pharmacy’s services. Most diversity training programs have an overall goal of improving the relationships between their employees and expanding their attitude and acceptance towards one another. “Trainees will recognize that the ways in which people live and think about their lives are very much affected by different beliefs, which are in turn influenced by their gender, culture, religion, sexuality, and abilities.” (Fearon, 2007). Given that we are a local pharmacy with employees of different education levels and also different backgrounds, it is vital that our diversity training reaches this goal in order for our work environment to be