A team meeting about diversity

Listen to a team meeting about diversity to practise and improve your listening skills.

Do the preparation task first. Then listen to the audio and do the exercises.

Preparation

Transcript

Nina: As you know, our team has grown a lot in the past year and we feel we need to address the diversity in the team.

Brenda: How do you mean, 'address the diversity'?

Nina: Well, we all know that diversity in teams is a good thing, but it can also be a challenge for some people to respect and value people's differences. We've got a really diverse team here – people of different nationalities, backgrounds, religions, ages … and sometimes I don't feel we make the most of this.

Stefano: Yes, and even if it isn't specifically challenging, many people are simply unaware of the isolation that some team members may feel because they are different.

Brenda: So, what does this mean? What are we going to do?

Nina: Well, we need to create a workplace charter. You know, one that promotes equality, diversity and inclusion.

Brenda: That sounds like a good idea. But will people just see it as something the management team has created? Maybe they won't even pay attention to it.

Nina: I know. That's why we're going to involve everyone in creating it.

Stefano: That's a good idea. We could run some workshops and get ideas from the employees about how we can create a more inclusive workplace.

Nina: Exactly. I was thinking that before that we could run some team-building sessions so they can experience the value of diversity for themselves.

Brenda: Yes, I like that. Many people see diversity as something negative, often because there are different opinions or ways of doing things.

Nina: Yes, I know, but if there's no diversity, then the risk is that we all work in the same way, think the same and see the world the same. This makes it hard to be creative and to innovate.

Stefano: I completely agree, Nina. OK. So, what do you want us to do?

Nina: Stefano, can you look for a successful trainer who specialises in running workshops and team-building sessions on diversity and inclusion?

Stefano: Sure. I'll be happy to.

Nina: And Brenda, can you find a fun venue? Somewhere that is quite diverse itself. Something that's not the usual seminar-style environment?

Brenda: Sure. That'll be fun.

Nina: And I'm going to do some further research into how other organisations are benefiting from their diversity. I can share this with the whole team.

Task 1

Exercise

Task 2

Exercise

Discussion

How diverse is your workplace? How can diversity benefit your team?

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Language level

B1 Intermediate

Topics

equality and diversity

Seems like diversity itself is a really big problem which needs to be solved. In my workspace there is no diversity, but If there was, I think the best way to solve it is to encourage best sides of our differences and tolerate the worse ones.

Studying this lesson shows us how having diversity team is effective and profitable on our workplace.Individual ideas from diversity can create more innovations and the things that we share from our different experiences and backgrounds improve our skills properly.It also teaches the importance of listening others' visions.But,to avoid conflicts between staff,we all need to do diversity with the right way!!!!

if truth be told, diversity can contribute in the well being of a team. because this create different viewpoints and different ways to resolve an issue. as far as I'm concerned my workplace has been blessed with peoples coming from different areas, having differents bakgrounds(specialities). and to make use of this our manager is having some workshops with us to ask about our needs, if everyone feel include and this participate in the more productivity of our team.

Yes. The diversity is important in a team work. I think that all the opinion are important and I like different point of view.

First thing: diversity is a good thing. Where I am working I don't feel any diverse ,for information, I 'm working away from my country ,we are working as team and respect all the values everyone for us ,if were about religions ,nationality,ages and backround .from my experience I guess that the diversity is very important for any workplace ,but we need to manage it in the right way .

Now is in the age which we cannot estimate what will happen in the future. That's why, we need to get the skill to cooperate with other people. Then, to respect the way of thinking, and life each other is required. Even in my workplace, there are a lot of ways of thinking, but Japanese people often hide their ideas to avoid competition. We should be talkative and positive!

How diverse is your workplace? How can diversity benefit your team? When people ask me about complexity of my working place I always try to share with them my experience. Generally speaking, my work has dynamic process because it is trade. I have a lot of colleagues with different characters and positions and only because we treat our work and each other with respect it brings for us beneficial and effective results. I totally sure that diversity is an amazing advantage for a working process and for a team as well because atmosphere of diversity can help to develop and create new ideas for work.

In my Opinion the diversity is really important so that you can get a lot of ideas that improve whatever place of work, for instance in my work I keep in touch with diferent countries people, so you can learn a lot things only their cultures but also their point of view.