Accessible and inclusive L&D

Offering accessible and inclusive L&D may sound familiar to you. Maybe it’s one of your organisation’s learning and development (L&D) targets? Maybe you think it should be one of your L&D targets. It certainly is critical that organisations provide accessible learning to all of their employees. Not only should learning content and opportunities be accessible, they should feel inclusive (to those taking part). Organisations should also be tracking who takes up the learning on offer. This is important, because offering learning that tends to be taken up by those who are in positions of privilege, merely reinforces the status quo. We worked with an organization who had a wealth of good quality learning available, but certain minoritised groups did not fully engage with it. Why? Well the answer can be difficult to fully ascertain due to the lack of engagement. Despite this, it seemed apparent that minoritised groups did not feel a sense of belonging in those learning environments. There was also a sense that engaging in L&D was futile, as the intended progression and career development routes were closed to minoritised groups.

More than targets for inclusive learning

Setting targets for your organisation’s learning and development, or equity inclusion and diversity, helps focus the work. Once your targets are set, don’t run the risk of these being numerical targets without any true meaningful sense of what’s behind them and why they’re important. For example, increasing the number of people of colour who attend your training programmes won’t be effective if they still don’t feel truly included, or a sense of belonging in your learning environment. There are a range of ways we do this at Zest. In our Authentic Confidence Hub, an online self-development and learning platform, we gave great consideration to both accessibility and inclusion. A diverse range of learners feedback indicates they really feel and value this. When our client organisations offer the Authentic Confidence Hub to their staff, the accessibility and inclusion is extended to their staff as well. This plays out in our coaching and facilitation too. The L&D suppliers you choose to partner with, need to reflect your strategic L&D targets.

Find out what colleagues want

It makes perfect sense to ask learners what they want to learn about, and how they want to learn. Yet this needs to be delivered in the context of organisational strategies. When it comes to L&D and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (DEI), there are many narratives that sit alongside the learning environment. In one client organisation, when we spoke to those on the coalface, learning that supported the growth of confidence was a key requirement. However, when we spoke to those operating at a more strategic level, there was caution about providing learning that pointed the finger at minoritised groups. The risk was being seen to say “you should be more confident” and “here’s the how you can fix yourself”.  Both of these perspectives are very real, so where do you go with them?

L&D aligning with wider organisational strategies

We frequently coach members of minoritised groups. We see that lack confidence and support in developing it, is a persistent and recurring theme. This is a symptom of the system they are in. We should not forget such individuals in our quest – simply to avoid blaming them. A lack confidence due to marginalisation, discrimination, exclusion and so on, should not be the individual’s responsibility to solve. But that doesn’t mean we should not give them development opportunities. What it does mean, is that alongside targeted support, should be wider systemic work. Support teams. Support the organisation. Provide real opportunities for minoritised groups. Tools such as team coaching and organisational diagnostics help with knowing what is happening in the system and point towards where the work needs to be done.

Get in touch with Zest! Use your skill to choose aligned learning partners for your organisation. We’d love to share how we can offer our inclusive and accessible learning platform, along with wider organisational tools. Find out how to support the growth of your organisation.

Author

Dr Anna Kane

Founder and Director of Zest Psychology