The Scenario
A multinational technology company in the space of business consulting and outsourcing, decided to roll out a training programme to enable employees to support, collaborate with and advocate for other employees.
Towards this goal, Avtar was approached to design and deliver a workshop for people managers on Allyship and Belongingness.
What we did
The Allyship and Belongingness training session was designed and developed as an experiential workshop to help people apply everyday behaviours to foster a healthy workplace and make it more inclusive. The workshop comprised of techniques to build empathy empower employees to advocate for themselves and others using one’s power and privilege. The session had key lessons that included the following elements:
How being an ally is a verb and not an identity,
The importance of speaking up when it is psychologically and physically safe to do so,
How to identify and address micro aggressions and micro inequities, and
The power of the collective responsibility of allyship when shared with others\
How allyship enhances belongingness at the workplace
The training session had an element of action planning built into to enable participants to commit to either start or sustain effective allyship behaviors.
Outcome
The training sessions garnered overwhelmingly positive feedback and comments from participants.
6% of participants mentioned that the training session enabled them with the confidence to stand up for others and act as an ally in a situation, when required
96.7% of participants rated the content of the training sessions as good or excellent.
