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

In my workplace, there are people with different backgrounds (poor, rich,..), and personalities. And in my opinion, diversity can make us more mature, knowledgeable.

In my workplace there are diverse people from many countries. We are a digital agency that works around the world providing our clients with solutions around business and development.

I think that diversity can help in a workplace in the creative aspect, especially when a team is looking for new approaches or ideas.

My workplace isn't diverse because I work by myself. I think that diversity creates rich team works and makes them more strong because of that.

In my case, my workplace is in a good instance, we have reach a feeling of inclusion and harmony, and that's the most important, respect the others, get the good things of each one and make a good job.

To be an innovative organization team is looking for diverse and inclusive people into the organization. To avoid like minded people organization required diverse and inclusive people in all aspects. Team of three are planning to motivate the people on diverse and inclusive aspects.

Actually my team isn't diversity because I generally work alone. But I like to find diversity teams an I think that the best way to obtain great results is conforming a great team.

My work place consists of different diverse people. Diversity helps our team as the range of languages benefits our diverse customers.

My workplace have a lot of diversity, we have people from different countries and it is so useful to have different visions and it helps to build a big picture of the situations.