Training has been a long-standing feature of responsible business practitioners’ work to advance human rights within their businesses and value chains. But, beyond anecdotal evidence, we don’t know nearly enough about whether human rights training works and whether it leads to behaviour change. It’s common to hear this complaint from people commissioning training, delivering training, and even those participating in it. We have reasons to be suspicious. Research on the effects of training on diversity and inclusion has shown that while training can improve attitudes, it has limited effects on behaviour and subsequent behaviour change[1].
There are several reasons why common types of training fail to work[2]. Part of the challenge with training is the theory of change. The hope is that training will lead to awareness, and awareness will lead to behaviour change. Yet being aware of something does not mean that people will do anything about it. Think about the millions of smokers worldwide who know that smoking is bad for them yet continue to smoke. Or consider a behaviour you’re trying to change in your own life. You’re likely aware of why it’s important to get more sleep, exercise more, or look at your smartphone less. And you’re likely aware of what you need to do to realise your personal goals. But it doesn’t necessarily translate to behaviour change.
Instead, we need to be laser focused on what behaviours we are trying to change – what we want people to do in their day-to-day work as a result of the training. And we will likely find that training is not the most fit-for-purpose solution to the problem we’re trying to solve. Maybe there’s an easier, less time- and resource-intensive way of getting to that behaviour change.
Of course, there is an important role for training. Training might be conducted for reasons other than behaviour change – for example to send the right signals about organisational commitment, to identify champions to carry the work forward, or for legitimate regulatory reasons.
We can certainly find ways to enhance behaviour change through training. For example, only 10% of bias training contains strategies to address and counter bias[3]. There is a large body of evidence on how to use planning prompts[4] and implementation intentions[5] to help people follow through on behaviours – which human rights training could utilise. And at MoreThanNow, we’ve found “focused training” – short, sharp 5-minute videos, deliberately timed at critical behavioural decision-points – particularly effective at improving diversity in hiring processes[6]. There are surely similar critical moments where focused training would improve human rights outcomes – for example, as purchasing managers place an order or before security guards go on patrol.
I see three potentially powerful opportunities for practitioners implementing human rights training to:
Adapt existing human rights training to be more behaviourally-focused to ensure trainees will go away and do something differently as a result.
Scientifically measure the effects of human rights training on key outcomes of interest.
Identify alternative solutions, beyond training, that may well be more effective and less time and resource intensive.
Over the next few months, I’m going to convene conversations amongst interested parties on how human rights training can become more behaviour-focused, and how we can understand how best to make human rights training work.
The questions we will explore include:
What is human rights training trying to achieve?
What do you want people to do differently as a result of the training?
Is your human rights training clear about what strategies and actions people can deploy afterwards?
Are there alternative, behaviour-focused ways of getting to the same outcome?
If you’re interested in participating in these discussions, please register your interest.
[1] Chang, E., Milkman, K., Gromet, D., Rebele, R., Massey, C., Duckworth, A. & Grant, A. (2019). The mixed effects of online diversity training. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 116. 201816076. 10.1073/pnas.1816076116.
[2] Young, S. (2020). Applying a behavioral science lens to employee training. Medium
[3] Gino, F. and Coffman, K. (2021). Unconscious Bias Training That Works. Harvard Business Review 99, no. 5: 114–123.
[4] Rogers, T., Milkman, K. L., John, L. K., & Norton, M. I. (2015). Beyond good intentions: Prompting people to make plans improves follow- through on important tasks. Behavioral Science & Policy, 1(2).
[5] Gollwitzer, P. M. (1999). Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans. American Psychologist, 54(7), 493–503. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.54.7.493
[6] Results to be published. Highlights accessible at: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7059144371102736384/