Recently, our company, Starbucks found itself at the core of a major controversy that sparked a huge debate across North America. A video that was posted on Twitter that later went viral, showed two African-American men being arrested at a Starbucks in Philadelphia. According to CNN, the two men had asked to use the washroom, while they waited to meet with a friend but were refused because our policy states that the facilities were only for paying customers. They then proceeded to wait for their friend, during which time the police had been called by employees complaining that these men were trespassing. The police arrived on site and asked them to leave and when the men refused, they were arrested. Although the men were later released with no charges, Americans and Canadians across the continent were outraged at the Police and Starbucks. The treatment of the two customers was improper and disgraceful, Starbucks needs to train our employees so situations like this don’t re-occur. By providing our employees with the proper Diversity training, we, as an organization can be more inclusive, accepting and engaging. More importantly, from a business standpoint, studies have proven that diverse workplaces are more profitable and diversity training could also serve to protect businesses from liability.
AI-Written & Human-Edited Essay for only $7 per page!
AI-Powered Writing
Expert Editing Included
Any subject
Seeing that our front line employees are not trained to deal with a variety of situations that may occur in their stores, a diversity training program would expose them to different possibilities and also help them brainstorm appropriate ways to react in certain situations and ways they shouldn’t. A large percentage of the population in North America and even across the world begin their mornings with us, they choose our locations for their business meetings and romantic dates, so it’s our duty to put our best foot forward and create a welcoming space for everyone to enjoy. As one of the leading coffeehouse chains in the world, Starbucks has a social responsibility to sort out this controversial matter immediately. Not only must they publicly apologize to the victims and the public but we must also provide appropriate training to our employees for direction in the future. By bringing forth a plan for diversity training, we show our customers and the public that we are truly sorry for our actions and we are taking steps to prevent it from happening in the future. It’s not only a lesson for our organization but for the entire world. Analysis: Diversity training is an initiative that we must take, as a leading organization, in order to educate the frontline and the faces of our organization about diversity issues and cohesiveness, both within the team and with the customers. The term Diversity is inclusive of gender, race, religion, caste, disabilities, personality types, attitudes, values, family background, willingness to take risks and much more. It touches on every aspect that makes each individual unique.
By providing employees with this training, the program seeks to enhance their awareness of different situations and provide them with a guide of how to react in certain situations. Often times the lack of awareness or understanding can create fear in individuals, which results in rash decisions. This training program aims to eliminate that gap through education. Research has shown that the most effective results of diversity training occurred when the content focused on cultural differences but also age differences and differences in skills.
Although, in this particular situation the focus was on race, it isn’t the only issue we need to touch base with because who is to say what sort of situation our employees may be faced with in the future. Also, this training is not just a one-time thing, it’s something that we will have to keep coming back to time and time again because volume is one of the factors that ensures its effectiveness. Most importantly, the setting and the way the training is carried out plays a huge role. Training programs that are done online are rarely effective, so we must arrange for a classroom setting to provide an educational and engaging environment for our staff.
Lastly, although everyone in the organization would go through the same training program, our managers will have to receive specialized training on dealing with different management styles when it comes to differences in culture, skills and other diverse aspects of their employees. Similarly, our retail employees will also have to receive specialized training in dealing with and understanding cultural and individual differences in customers. Two training techniques this program will be based on are perspective-taking and goal setting.
Studies have shown that these methods combined have been the most effective when it came to understanding differences. By encouraging participants to place themselves in the shoes of others and to imagine the very unique challenges someone that is different from them might face and by setting challenging and measurable goals for themselves based on what they’ve learned, participants have a more guided and structured learning experience. The goal setting is an important aspect of the training because it ensures that what was learned will be carried out by participants.