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

Diversity is very important thing. I work in university we have many different nationalities we creat a good relationship and we know more things about there countries.

I think that diversity is not dangerous theme for workshops. It is important to include all our members to the process.

Diversity helps in getting to know others cultures and interests, also its helps in learning from others and exchange knowledge

Well .. for my concern the diversity is very important in the teamwork .. We can get a new ideas from different team members .

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 .