7:36 p.m. ET, May 9, 2019
Harvard professor: Diversity training is 'money down the drain'
From CNN Business' Nathaniel Meyersohn
Iris Bohnet, behavioral economist at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, said that diversity training is a waste of money.
"I have not found one single study suggesting that diversity training works," she said during a SALT session Thursday.
Bohnet advises businesses and governments on how to promote inclusivity and gender equality.
"Diversity training seems like an easy fix. Estimates say we spend $80 billion a year in this country on diversity training," she said. "This is just money down the drain."
Instead, Bohnet said companies should redesign job applications, interview processes, evaluations and promotions to bringing lasting changes to workplaces and education systems.
She also argued that self-evaluations for promotions don't foster gender equality because men typically evaluate themselves higher than women.
"Performance appraisals don’t translate into promotions and we see simple gender gaps," she said. "The data found it to simply be 'unconscious bias.'"