I recently took a training called "The Respect Based Work Environment," instructed by Richard Birdsall, and I must say my co-workers and I walked out rather appalled at what we witnessed. Not only did the instructor demonstrate that he clearly didn't have a grasp on the material he was supposed to be teaching, he undermined many of the points he attempted to get across. The training began with the instructor pulling up four images of people - two white "business-type men," a white homeless man, and a black working mother. As he pulled up each photo, he requested the audience state their first impression of the person and how much respect they felt towards them just from their appearance. He then asked who we felt the most respect for. Everyone voted for the mother. However, it was painful, as no one really wanted to respond due to the fact that it felt like he was trying to get people to say "stereotypical" (politically incorrect) things. This was a presentation to a very professional company. As he moved on to discuss the thirteen protected categories from discrimination, he proceeded to refer to the "gender identity" category as a gender identity "issue." He was amazed that our city protects people based on their political ideology - which he said is very rare in other places. He completely skipped over sexual orientation, as it appeared to make him uncomfortable. He asked, "how can you tell someone's national origin" to which one person responded, "it shouldn't matter what their national origin is." He agreed with them, but then persisted back to his question of "but HOW do you know?" He proved to be very unintelligible about some of the major categories that are the most discriminated against. When he started talking about sexual harassment, he appeared to believe the "me too" movement is something that has become a recent issue and that's the reason people are making the changes in the work place. One of the first things he mentioned when he began talking about sexual harassment was how he "would've gotten in big trouble 40 years ago, but things were different then" and that personally, his wife "gets a little upset if she doesn't get harassed every now and then - 'have I gained weight or something?' she asks." I understand that this instructor comes from a small town in Alaska, so he probably doesn't have a great deal of knowledge about people who are "different" from him. Maybe he should take a course on HR before coming to a bigger city and coming off as a closed-minded small town guy, or just stick with the smaller towns because he left a bad taste in many people's mouths. read more