Diversity training fails to boost minorities into management

A new study shows that diversity training programs have roundly failed to eliminate bias and increase the number of minorities in management, despite the fact that many corporations have spent increasing amounts of money on them since the 1990s.

In a paper to be published in the American Sociological Review, Frank Dobbin, professor of sociology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Alexandra Kalev of the University of California, Berkeley, and Erin Kelly of the University of Minnesota concluded that such efforts to mitigate managerial bias ultimately fail in their aims. In contrast, programs that establish specific responsibility for diversity, such as equal opportunity staff positions or diversity task forces, have proven most effective.

“For the past 40 years companies have tried to increase diversity, spending millions of dollars a year on any number of programs without actually stopping to determine whether or not their efforts have been worth it,” Dobbin says. “Certainly in the case of diversity training, the answer is no. The only truly effective way to increase the presence of minorities and women in managerial positions is through programs that create organizational responsibility. If no one is specifically charged with the task of increasing diversity, then the buck inevitably gets passed ad infinitum. To increase diversity, executives must treat it like any other business goal.”