Skip to main content

Home » Sensitivity Training – Who Needs It?

Sensitivity Training – Who Needs It?

Who Needs It?

  • Everyone.  Who needs more empathy?
  • Everyone.  Who needs better interpersonal skills?
  • Everyone.  Everyone can learn to better emotional awareness, better empathy, and better social skills that are involved in sensitivity training.

Imagine a workplace where everyone was in control of their emotions, thought of others first, and when there was a conflict, everyone knew how to turn it into a growth event.  This “imagined” workplace would be positive, successful and profitable.

In this day of globalization, there are many different religions, cultures, ages, and types of people that all work together.

Our companies are not limited to our borders like years ago.  This requires a higher level of sensitivity in the workplace.  Because of these new cultures, awareness of the legal requirements for sensitivity may not be known to all, and education is required.

Purpose & Effects of Stereotypes

People may not remember what you said, but they remember the way you made them feel.
Maya Angelou

Purpose

What is the purpose of creating stereotypes? Well, first, let’s point out that when individuals or groups develop stereotypes, they typically don’t realize that’s what they are doing. They believe they are taking the information they’ve learned about different groups and attributing it to them. The reality is they are using sweeping generalizations for a group of people even though they likely saw those characteristics or actions in a fraction of the population. Having these stereotypes gives them a false sense of understanding the group, which can be seen as prejudices or misconceptions.

 Effects

The effects of stereotypes can be vast.

  • Individuals from a particular group can limit their work, as they are not expected to be able to achieve more than a certain point.
  • Individuals from a particular group can look down upon their own achievements because they have not met the goal of what they are expected to be able to do.
  • Negatively impact one’s long-term mental health.

This can result in the opposite of the desired outcome with regards to workplace productivity.

  • Lower employee morale
  • Less employee engagement
  • Greater employee turnover
  • Less innovation

 

Copyright Notice 

Copyright © 2015 by Global Courseware, Inc.

Used under licensing permission

 

Downloading Resources

PDF files:

Click on the pop-out icon ( ) in the top-right corner of the resource to open it in Google Drive. Click the download icon ( ) in the upper right-hand corner of the Google Drive page to save the resource to your computer.

Images and graphics:

Right click on the image or graphic then choose "Save image as ..." from the drop-down menu to save the resource to your computer.

Videos:

Click on in the video's menu bar to download and share the video from the Vimeo website.