Diversity: the online game

This year we have prepared an online action recommendation for you: more than 11,000 employees and interested parties have played our game “Diversity: the online game” so far, testing in this way their own knowledge of diversity topics. Would you like to play the game with your staff? We would be happy to send you your personal link. Just contact us.

1. Click on this link. The English-language version of the online game will open automatically in a new browser window. You do not need any app and do not need to leave any contact details for the game.

Click here for the German version.

2. Choose your player name and enter it into the “Nickname” field.

3. The game will begin.

4. If you don’t want to hear game music, adjust the volume using your device’s settings.

5. Analyse the game with your team. We have prepared a number of questions for you for analysis, please find the questions bellow our suggestion.

Our suggestion

Play “Diversity: the online game” together with your staff. Define a time period within which all employees play the game. After that, you can, for instance, exchange ideas about what new things they have learned and what aspects would be interesting to expand on. As an additional incentive, you can also offer a small prize for the winner.

Analysis

The game helps players become aware of the various dimensions of diversity. For this reason, joint reflection afterwards is recommended. We invite you to discuss the following questions with the other players:

Which diversity dimensions did you recognise in the game?

Diversity comprises both visible and invisible characteristics that shape individual views, perspectives, attitudes and thus people’s actions. When looking for differences and commonalities among people, six core dimensions can be recognised:

- Age

- Physical and mental ability

- Ethnic origin and nationality

- Religion & worldview

- Gender and gender identity

- Sexual orientation & identity

These core dimensions are closely linked with an individual’s personality and can hardly be influenced by one’s personality – or not at all. There are questions on all six diversity dimensions in the online game.

Source: “4 Layers of Diversity” based on Gardenswartz and Rowe, Diverse Teams at Work (2nd Edition, SHRM, 2003)

Which questions were easy to answer and which were more difficult? And why?

Depending how much you’ve already looked into the topic of diversity in the past, you may have found the questions easier or more difficult. Consider: Which questions could you answer because you are affected yourself by the relevant diversity dimension? With which question could someone from the company’s staff have perhaps helped you? And which answers surprised you?

Which personal topics are you happy to talk about, and which are you not?

Which diversity dimensions are visible for others, which are invisible? Are there reasons why people in groups would prefer not to sharetheir personal information with others? You can find an approach to discussions using the “Iceberg of Diversity” (Kimmel 2014) with visible and invisible diversity characteristics.
This makes it apparent: dimensions like age, gender, culture and language are factors that are usually easily identifiable when encountering other people. In contrast, dimensions like disability and religion can also remain invisible.
Sexual orientation, nationality or political orientation are also among the dimensions that are not immediately apparent. Professional experience, life situation, length of company service or current activity, style of dealing with others and personal hobbies are invisible dimensions that contribute to individual diversity.

Source: Kimmel, M: “Weshalb Unconscious Bias auch Männern schaden – und den Unternehmen, für die sie arbeiten”, in: Vielfalt erkennen – Strategien für einen sensiblen Umgang mit unbewussten Vorurteilen, 2014.

Have you ever heard of unconscious biases?

Unconscious biases result in us approaching certain groups of people or individuals differently, even though we are sure that we treat everyone equally, free of bias. The challenge consists in recognising these unconscious biases, approaching people openly and in this way enabling diversity. While unconscious biases in everyday life seem inevitable and harmful, they cause problems in the professional context, e.g., in recruiting or in dealing with people with disabilities. Valuable skills can be overlooked because, next to supposedly striking characteristics of a person, they recede into the background and simply escape perception.