Workshops & Trainings

Creating spaces that are non-judgmental yet honest,

Paula helps people understand how bias and discrimination based on race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ability, class, religion, and other identity factors affect workplace and educational settings. At the same time, she offers practical skills and best practices for building more equitable, inclusive, diverse, and affirming climates. Using the most updated data to inform her trainings, Paula makes her workshops accessible, interactive, and practical.

Explore current workshops below, or request a custom workshop.

Challenging Unconscious Bias in the Workplace

This workshop introduces participants to the concept of unconscious bias and how it functions in the workplace. Negative forms of unconscious bias often manifest as non-inclusive behaviors--verbal and non-verbal slights and insults that are often conveyed out of ignorance or even with good intentions. Though everyone has various biases, marginalized groups are more likely to experience non-inclusive behaviors in the workplace. Participants review common non-inclusive behaviors based on gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, ability, religion, and sexual orientation and their negative effects on productivity, teamwork, employee well-being, and retention. Using interactive scenarios, participants gain greater self-awareness of the harms caused by non-inclusive behaviors and learn how to adopt best practices that create affirming and inclusive workplace cultures.

Recruiting Diverse Talent

This workshop introduces participants to effective measures for increasing the diversity of job applicant pools. We explore various aspects of talent recruitment–-the way job ads are written, the places job ads are advertised, the job application form, recruitment methods (especially those geared toward underrepresented groups)–-to outline practices that commonly deter diverse applicants from applying. The workshop also examines experiential, educational, or technical barriers that commonly reduce the diversity of applicants and what organizations can do to diminish their impact. After summarizing these common deterrents, the workshop presents data-informed best practices that tend to increase the diversity of applicant pools.

Challenging Unconscious Bias in Hiring

This workshop educates participants about the effects of unconscious bias in resume review, candidate selection, and interviewing processes. Examines how bias often produces adverse effects on hiring diverse candidates. Unconscious biases can also influence the criteria used for reviewing and selecting candidates as well as typical interview questions. Using interactive scenarios and concrete examples to help participants understand the ways unconscious bias manifests, the workshop presents best practices for minimizing the adverse effects of unconscious bias in hiring.

Retaining Diverse Talent

Participants in this workshop will examine how and why workplaces often fall short of retaining diverse employees. We review how negative workplace climates, biased supervisory processes, and minimal opportunities for advancement work together to create a revolving door for historically underrepresented employees. Participants learn how to make data-informed adjustments to workplaces to increase the retention of diverse employees and to develop inclusive practices that give underrepresented employees a greater sense of belonging.

Beyond Banning the Box

Over 100 million Americans carry the stigma of past criminal records when applying for jobs. Although they are some of the most committed and reliable employees, people with criminal records face significant barriers to securing employment and therefore to successful integration into communities. This workshop introduces participants to fair and inclusive practices that employers can adopt to tap into new labor pools and reduce discrimination in hiring. It weighs concerns employers have about hiring people with criminal records against the benefits of “banning the box” and going beyond banning the box.

Competitive Business Leadership through Diversity & Inclusion

Research has made the business case for diversity and inclusion conclusively. Businesses that hire, retain, and use diverse people’s unique perspectives gain competitive advantages in new markets and produce higher revenue. Despite this, many businesses continue to fall short of unlocking the innovation created by diverse leadership and teams. Other businesses have diverse representation but fail to adopt inclusive practices that empower people to put their diverse perspectives to use. This workshop introduces participants to best practices businesses can adopt to recruit and retain diverse talent and to unlock their innovation through inclusive practices. 

Understanding Systemic Racism & Poverty

The concept of systemic racism and poverty is made tangible to participants through an interactive workshop focused on the ways housing discrimination and residential segregation shape opportunities and disadvantages. Using interactive maps and tools, participants examine the neighborhoods they grew up in to understand the connection between race, segregation, and access to inter-generational wealth-building (or the lack thereof). After examining the long-term effects of housing segregation and discrimination on wealth-building, participants make connections between residential segregation and education, transportation, policing, environmental hazards, health, and employment. Participants walk away with a personalized understanding of the links between systemic racism and poverty that can be used to launch discussions about integrating equity into organizational practices, social responsibilities and remedies.