The Human Library® is a thought leader when it comes to Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) training. We work with companies, institutions and organisations who are committed to incorporating social understanding and cultural awareness as a part of their business model in relation to their workforce, partnerships, clients and customers.
The Human Library is a global, innovative, and hands-on learning platform. Our concept has been thoroughly tested and developed since 2000, hosting events on a weekly basis in local communities and very successfully in small to large corporate settings.
Our corporate and workplace services have a strong D&I focus and include single-day, conference, and festival events, management and staff training, and longer-term leadership development and corporate cultural change programs.
The Human Library is a new experiential approach to Diversity and Inclusion training, tailored to your company’s needs. Our learning platform offers a new way of approaching diversity and inclusion through immersion in a direct conversation with people experiencing stigma, discrimination or prejudice because of their differences.
Depending on the size and needs of your company, we can bring our human books to you and host a reading-hall event and/or the training of an internal human bookshelf within your company. Building an internal company book depot enables our diversity partners to run a program over longer periods of time allowing for a wider spread and a more in-depth implementation. A book depot can be operated only in partnership with and under license from the Human Library Organization. This process helps to remove the barriers to an in-depth understanding of personal realities amongst peers.
With our curated corporate events and programs, the Human Library creates a safe space for open conversations with the goal of challenging stereotypes. Your coworker, next job applicant, customer or client might belong to one of those groups.
Thousands of events are hosted annually and since 2016, we have begun to work more closely with corporate partners and developed a model that is efficient, adaptable and with excellent scalability. This allows us to render our services to companies like Daimler, eBay, Eli Lilly, Heineken, IKEA, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Microsoft, Novo Nordisk, Smurfit Kappa, and Taylor Wimpey.
It was a very enlightening experience for me. This was a great platform to be vulnerable and ask questions without fear. – Reader review, eBay
- Ensure that your D&I approach has the intersectionality that is required to help build an inclusive and understanding workplace for all members of staff
- Gain a competitive advantage
- New, and especially young workers of today choose to work for companies that have a strong CSR and/or social profile
- Creativity and development thrive in a diverse environment
- When you bring the Human Library’s principles into your hiring practices, you will be able to look beyond the diagnosis, appearance and stigma and see the person and competences behind that
- Strengthen your corporate culture – a better understanding of each other and your customers
- Play an active role in the UN Sustainable Development Goals
We understand the demand in the professional sector for learning methods that enable individuals and organisations to competently engage with and benefit from the diversity in your workplace.
We know that working with Diversity and Inclusion is a high priority for many corporations, associations, and authorities and we know we can help.
Our corporate services are tailored to fit companies and organisations that are looking to work long term with the Human Library learning platform as part of their Diversity and Inclusion work.
At the end of the day, regardless of one’s abilities/disabilities, beliefs, philosophy and so on, we’re all human – just people with feelings and hearing new perspectives today is both compelling and evidence of this. – Reader review, eBay
We offer two different options for corporate partnerships.
- The Human Library Diversity Partners focusing on D&I and HR clients with an internal or external scope.
- The Friends of the Human Library program is directed at companies looking for CSR projects with a big reach and high impact.
Often our partners are companies who are looking for new approaches to understanding diversity in their market or in their workplace.
Internal and external scope
To accommodate requests we have developed a model for an internal focus and a model focusing on external scope and content.
This means we can either bring our book collection to the workplace or conference and publish. Or we can train your staff and prepare them for internal publication. If you have a diverse group of employees, then this can help them find common ground.
When you become a diversity partner of the Human Library you are able to work with and implement the Human Library concept and methodology into your D&I work. This includes building on-board book collections based on staff and hosting diversity events with either own-content or content rendered by a local Human Library Book Depot.
