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

Benefits of diversity in the workplace are numerous. First of all, it promotes the share of skills and cultures. Moreover, if all team members have similar background and same way of analyzing and solving problems, then there will be little creativity and working out issues and challenges the team might face won't be as fast as in a diverse group.

I've been thinking diversity is an important key for creativity or innovation though, unfortunately, I didn't have any chance to work in diversity. Now then, I'm feeling diversity with this course!

I work in a small company, formed for little group people. But, the company is very friendly to diversity, equality, and respect for everyone. Some peoples word there is older or other nationalities.

I used to work in a Chinese company once and that was a very interesting experience. Turned up we are completely different. We look at the same things at a different angle and it's not easy to accept at first if truth to be told. I remember I needed some time to adjust myself to work in a foreign company. And I'm not talking about necessity speaking in English all day but about cultural differences. Actually, I think the diversity is the way to the perfectness. To create something valuable you have to look at your job from all possible points of view, using all available experience and knowledge.

Dear team. From the lesson above. Stefano: That's a good idea. We could run some workshops and get ideas from the employees. The question is: The word 'could run' in that sentence refer to the past or future??? (Because the workshop not done yet). As we know that: 'could' past form from can. We do confuse. Thank you very much for your answer.

Hello fahri,

In this sentence 'could' describes a possible future.

'Could' has several uses, including ability and possibility.

When talking about ability, 'could' is the past form of 'can'. For example:

When I was younger I could run a marathon. Now that I'm older I can't.

When we talk about possibility, 'could' refers to the present and the future:

Where's John?

I don't know. He could be stuck in traffic. [present possibility]

If we finished the project early, we could take the weekend off. [future possibility]

You can read more about modal verbs on these pages:

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/english-grammar-reference/modal-verbs

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Dear team. From the lesson above. 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. The question is : What does it mean 'I don't feel we make the most of this' ?? The word 'this' is refer to 'diversity' or something else?? Thank you very much for your explanation.

Hello fahri,

In this sentence, the word 'this' refers to the whole clause before: the fact that we have a really diverse team here...

When you say 'you don't make the most of something' it means that you don't fully take advantage of it or exploit its possibilities as much as you might.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

The diversity in all place should´t be a discussion topic, but simply of the inclusion, there shouldn't be any kind of discrimination, all we are equality.

Diversity in my country, especially ethnic and religious diversity is one of the biggest problem in different levels: political, social and geographically. Here is a lot of conflict on diversity. It is a very long time that international society is trying to solve the problem, but they haven't appreciable success. I learned a lot from this lesson and I will participate in this course very actively, in case of access to internet of course. Thank you

A team meeting about diversity

Preparation

Transcript

Task 1

Task 2

Discussion

Language level

Topics

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