Organizational Diversity and Climate Assessment

1. Organizational Diversity and Climate Assessment Paul J. Hanges University of Maryland Library Assessment Conference September 27, 2006

2. Concerns About Workforce Diversity • Changing demographic composition of our society. • Workforce is becoming more diverse • Women are pursuing more active careers • Ethnic minorities comprise an increasing amount of the workforce • Latino community is fastest growing ethnic group • Aging of the population • Changing immigration pattern • Before 1965, 75 percent of immigrants came from Europe • Since 1965, more than 60 percent of immigrants come from Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Latin America.

3. Diverse Consequences • Potential Positive Consequences • Diversity might enhance the creativity and problem-solving abilities of the organization • Diversity might result in better service to a changing clientele. • Schneider (1987) • The level of diversity in one’s workforce might result in improved performance among minority-group employees • Potential Negative Consequences • Increased conflict among organizational members • Current HR practices/policies might have unintended negative outcomes against particular subgroups.

4. What Can an Organization do to maximize positive outcomes? • Focus on the powerful influence of organizational climate and culture on perceptions, behaviors, and outcomes. • Strategic Human Resources

5. What is Organizational Climate? • Organizational Climate • Describe “how things are done around here” • The themes or imperatives that employees believe describe their organization. • Safety Climate • Customer Service Climate • Climate for Innovation • Climate is the shared perceptions of employees regarding what behavior is rewarded, supported, and expected. • The organization’s policies, practices, and procedures influence these shared perceptions.

6. What is Organizational Culture? • The shared meaning that employees use to make sense of what happens in an organization. • Culture focuses on the assumptions, values, and philosophies that yield meaning • Describe “why things are done” • Artifacts • Physical layout, Clothing, Rate and Types of interaction • Values • Personal responsibility; Teamwork; Order • Assumptions • Individuals as source of ideas, groups as arbiters of those ideas

7. What causes climate? • Founding conditions: • Leader and Upper Management characteristics and values • McGregor, Schneider, Lewin, Schein • Organizational structure • Hierarchy • Organizational size Organizational Policies, Practices, & Procedures Leader’s & Upper Management’s Characteristics

8. Compensation System Performance Appraisal Relationship With Labor Leader Characteristics Org Structure Nature of work Selection System Participative Decision Making Career Counseling Training & Education Recruiting Activities

9. Consequence of particular policies, practices, and procedures • Schneider ASA model: 3 processes • Attraction: People are attracted to similar organizations • Selection: Organizations select people who are similar • Attrition: People who are different leave

10. Attraction-Selection-Attrition Cycle Population Applicant Pool Organizational Policies, Practices, Procedures Turnover Decision New Employees

11. Population Applicant Pool Organizational Policies, Practices, & Procedures Turnover Decision New Employees

12. Positive Consequences of ASA Cycle • Creation of a climate/culture • “Personality” of an organization • Results in a “tight” climate/culture

13. Negative consequences of ASA cycle • Diminished Diversity of: • ideas, • values, • thoughts, • interests, • abilities, • knowledge, • Skills • Homogenization of organizational workforce

14. Organization stops being responsive to environment • If the environment changes, the organization might not be able to change to meet new demands • Life (and death) cycle of organizations • Need to have a healthy level of diversity.

15. Socialization creates shared meaning (Culture) • Socialization • Chatman • Processes through which individuals come to understand organizational values and expectations • Formal and informal training, mentoring • Symbolic Interactionist Approach • Blumer (1969); Schneider & Reichers (1983) • Employees’ interactions with each other contribute to shared meaning of events.

16. Newman, Hanges, Duan, & Ramesh (In press)

17. Consequences of Particular Cultures/Climates • Climate for Service • Parkington & Schneider (1979) • Bank branch tellers who believe that they have a different emphasis on service than managers reported: • Lower satisfaction • Higher turnover intentions • Higher levels of frustration • That customers have low opinion of service quality • Schneider, Parkington, & Buxton (1980) • Bank branch customer service quality attitudes are strongly related to branch employee views of the service quality that they deliver. • Employee perception of particular aspects of service climate were related to service ratings provided by customers • Employees rating of manager’s emphasis on service was related to customer’s reports of how well the branch seemed to be run and overall service quality.

18. Consequences of climate/culture. • Schneider & Bowen (1985) • Customer service ratings were directly related to employee perceptions of organizational practices, policies, and procedures. • Customer service quality ratings consistently related to employees ratings of work facilitation.

19. Practices, Procedures, and Rewarded Behaviors for Customer Service • Emphasis on human resources • Supportive, considerate management and supervision • Importance attached to work group as family/community • Management is a service enthusiast (not service bureaucrat) • Rules and policies facilitate service delivery rather than facilitate internal efficiency standards

20. Practices, Procedures, and Rewarded Behaviors for Customer Service • Participative or consultative decision making • Employee knowledge and information is acknowledged and rewarded • Employees are consulted about the design and implementation of new services or changes in service delivery • Attention to details • Staff is well trained and sufficient in number • Resources required for excellence are available • Supplies, systems, information • Equipment and facilities are appropriate and well maintained.

21. Hypotheses • How employees are treated matters. • Climate for Justice will affect outcomes • Consistency of how employees are treated matters • Tightness/looseness of justice climate affects outcomes

22. Mayer, Keller, Hanges, & Leslie • University of Maryland Library System • Climate for Justice • Distributive • Procedural • Interpersonal • Informational • Outcomes • Job satisfaction • Organizational Citizenship Behaviors • Conflict

23. Mayer et al • Hyp 1: • Outcomes (job satisfaction, OCBs, lack of conflict) should diminish as justice climate becomes loose. • Hyp 2: • Individuals who have low justice perceptions will report lower levels of outcomes (job satisfaction, OCBs, lack of conflict). This relationship will be exacerbated in loose justice climates.

24. Sample • 209 UM Library employees completed survey • 53 teams • 5.67 employees (on average) per team • Average age was 46 (23 to 71) • 64 percent were female • 58 percent were full time employees • Diverse racial composition

25. Measures • Justice • Distributive Justice (4 questions) • Reliability = 0.93 • Procedural Justice (7 questions) • Reliability = 0.88 • Interpersonal Justice (4 questions) • Reliability = 0.92 • Informational Justice (5 questions) • Reliability = 0.94 • Conflict (8 questions) • Reliability = 0.90

26. Measures • Job Satisfaction (Single item) • Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (8 items) • Reliability = 0.91

27. Results • Hypothesis 1 • Outcomes (job satisfaction, OCBs, lack of conflict) should diminish as justice climate becomes loose. • Support • Job Satisfaction diminished in teams with loose procedural and interpersonal justice climates • OCBs diminish in teams with loose distributive and informational justice climates • Conflict increased in teams with loose interpersonal and informational justice climates.

28. Hypothesis 2 • Individuals who have low justice perceptions will report lower levels of outcomes (job satisfaction, OCBs, lack of conflict). This relationship will be exacerbated in loose justice climates.

29. Hypothesis 2 supported for job satisfaction • Looseness of procedural justice climate

30. Hypothesis 2 supported for OCBs • Looseness of distributive justice climate

31. Hypothesis 2 not supported for conflict

32. Leslie & Gelfand (Under Review) • Climate for diversity and reporting incidents of discriminatory behavior by others. • Organizations have formalized procedures by which complaints about inappropriate behavior can be reported. • Unfortunately, victims of discrimination are still hesitant to report unjust treatment to their organization.

33. Leslie & Gelfand (under review) • An ambiguous event is likely to be interpreted as discriminatory if gender is a salient aspect of the person’s self-identity. • Climate for diversity • Shared perception that upper management fosters an environment that supports diversity and includes diverse members in both formal and informal organizational networks.

34. Leslie & Gelfand (Under Review) Climate for Diversity Gender Identity Internal Discrimination Claims

35. Library sample • Climate for diversity (5 questions) • Reliability = 0.87 • This organization views diversity as an opportunity • This organization values the different perspectives that employees bring to the workplace. • Upper management is committed to promoting diversity • Gender identity (16 questions) • Reliability = 0.86 • Claiming discrimination (4 questions) • Reliability = 0.87

36. Results

37. Conclusions • Shared beliefs about the practices, policies, and procedures result in organizational climate • The shared meanings/interpretations of events are referred to as organizational culture. • Tightness-looseness of culture/climate affects outcomes

38. Conclusions • The way employees are treated affects customers service quality. • Fairness matters • Climate for justice affects various outcome variables. • Diversity climate has direct consequences for whether people will follow formalized reporting procedures.