Empathy training is not enough for people like Andrew Laming

As Federal Parliament keep breaking out With allegations of harassment and abuse, one of the responses from our most senior leaders has been empathy training.

These are programs that help people see the world from other people’s perspective.

Over the weekend, Prime Minister Scott Morrison ordered the disgraced Coalition MP André Laming take a private lesson on empathy.

As Morrison told reporters:

“I hope this will bring about a very significant change in his behavior.”

This follows Laming’s apology for harassing two women online, then confessing that he didn’t know what the apology was for.

Shortly after the announcement of Morrison, the leader of the Nationals Michael McCormack said he would also ask his party to take empathy training:

“If we can… actually learn some tips on how to not only be better ourselves, but also call on others to do it, then I think that’s a good thing. “

Lots of people – including opposition members, women’s advocates and psychologists – were immediately and instinctively skeptical. After all, if someone needs to take a course in empathizing, surely there’s something basic missing that no training can fix?

The problem of empathy training

People are right to doubt empathy training – it has all the hallmarks of a human resource fad.

A parallel can be drawn with the introduction of unconscious bias training a few years ago. Neither is likely to be a silver bullet – or even a meaningful help – to discrimination and harassment.

Researchers to have found requiring employees to take mandatory training, such as diversity training or sexual harassment training, can backfire. When people are “force-fed” they rebel and pre-existing beliefs are reinforced.

In addition, training programs aimed at raising awareness of gender equality and discrimination are often seen by employers as best fix. At worst, these are punishments, which can also lead to backlash from participants. The empathy training given to Laming is firmly entrenched in this camp – it was discovered that he has harassed women, so now he must be punished by attending a course.

Likewise, ad hoc training on sexual harassment has not only proven to be ineffective, but can make matters worse. American researchers find men forced to take sexual harassment training become defensive and resistant to learning. But worse than that, male resistance can lead men to blame the victim and think women are making false claims of sexual harassment.

So the search results are clear. One-off, mandatory diversity training and sexual harassment training are not working. While there is little data so far on the success of empathy programs, previous research gives no indication that they would work either.

What does it work?

However, it’s not all bad news for empathy course organizers. Volunteer training is more effective because volunteers are already ready to learn and mindful of gender equality and the elimination of sexual harassment. Research also shows empathy can be taught, but the subject must be ready to change.

But if mandatory training has limited effectiveness, what will work to eliminate sexual harassment? We certainly no longer need further guidance. Our federal Parliament and our society in general must change.

As Dr Meraiah Foley and I have argued previously, for training to be effective, it must do several things.

First, it must be complemented by affirmative action measures, such as setting goals to increase the number of women in leadership. This is why the renewed debate on quotas in the Liberal Party is so important.

Second, training must lead to new structures and new accountability for behavior. This can be achieved by course participants identifying desirable behaviors that can advance equality in the workplace. For example, small actions such as ensuring that women participate equally in meetings send a signal that their views are valued.

Parliament has become a sump and Morrison is blocking the drain

Participants then record when they have adopted these behaviors and discuss the progress with trained facilitators. Participants continue to think and act, then to share their experiences and identify effective strategies.

Third, for gender equality in the workplace to advance, the ongoing process of behavior change must be complemented by systemic organizational change. Like I have written elsewhere, the researchers recommend that organizations adopt short- and long-term programs, for small immediate gains, as deeper transformations occur.

Structural change begins with a review of human resource policies and processes to uncover gender biases and discrimination. Without a doubt Kate jenkins will undertake such a task in his review corporate culture in Parliament.

The biggest change we need

However, it is not enough to look at processes and policies. Changing language and other symbolic expressions in organizations is also an important part of culture change to mainstream gender equality. For example, ensuring that boardrooms are named after women and that portraits of women – as well as men – adorn the walls sends a subtle but powerful message that the space also belongs to women.

By changing the way we work, the rituals and artefacts of Parliament will help change culture.

Structural and systemic changes to achieve gender equality are slow. While sending recalcitrant politicians to training courses may seem like an inevitable first step, this is not where we need to focus.

Misha ketchell is an experienced journalist and editor in print, television and online. This article was originally published by The Conversation under the title “Andrew Laming: Why Empathy Training Is Unlikely to Work”.

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