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Explore the positive impact of diversity in the workplace, from stimulating creativity to fostering cultural competence. Learn how to increase diversity, address inequality, and leverage organizational benefits effectively.
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IMPACT OF DIVERSITY Psychologist Charlan Nemeth showed that the mere presence of a minority viewpoint on a work team stimulated creativity among all the members by forcing reexamination of basic assumptions and by encouraging more open and frank dialogue.
ChangingDemographicsGrowthRate GROUP 1980-1990 1990-2000 Whites 4.09% 5.08% Blacks 11.98% 15.26% Natives 35.44% 14.42% Latino(a)s 53.02% 39.42% Asians 96.13% 63.24%
Awareness vs. Competence • Cultural Awareness: being sensitive to issues related to culture, race, gender, sexual orientation, social class, and socioeconomic factors. • Cultural Competence: requires more than acquiring knowledge… It is leveraging a complex combination on knowledge, attitudes, and skills to engage and intervene appropriately and effectively across cultures.
INTER-CULTURAL AWARENESS • Intercultural Skillfulness • Cultural Adaptation • Understanding Cultural Differences • Acceptance/Acknowledgement Of Difference • Awareness Of Differences • Non-Aware Of Difference
Non-awareness: of difference refers to individuals that have no or limited experience with diversity. It is not that they do not recognize difference but they place no value on difference and approach each person as an individual regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, class, sexual orientation, and so forth. • Awareness of difference: indicates that you not only recognize difference but realize that it actually holds some value to the individual and your relationship with them. However, you may lack the training, expertise, and ability to apply the knowledge you have. • Acceptance/acknowledgement: of difference indicates that during this stage you have accepted that different does not mean deviant and you have a responsibility as an to become more culturally competent.
Understanding cultural difference: indicates you have taken the necessary steps to increase your cultural knowledge through diversity training, workshops, discussions with others, and self education to better understand and relate to a wide range of diverse individuals. • Cultural adaptation: indicates you now have the ability to apply what you have learned and adapt your approach to the needs and communication styles of those around you. • Intercultural skillfulness: indicates you have expanded your comfort zone and have become culturally competent. You now have the tools, knowledge, and skills to relate to a wide range of individuals and feel comfortable in doing so. Keep in mind that this is an on-going process in which we continue to learn and expand our knowledge.
INCREASING Diversity Diversity Utilize recruitment to diversify employees Explain importance of diversity to the business • Foster • understanding • Improve effectiveness • Increase • satisfaction
business rationale • Increases productivity and reach new markets. • Increases creative problem-solving skills and develop greater intellectual capital. • Increases positive relationships. • Decreases stereotyping and prejudice.
ORGANIZATION Benefits • Clarifies initiatives • Communicates benefits • Addresses expectations • Contributes to shaping institutional policies • Provides context for the initiative • Promotes accountability
Organization Benefits • The integration or socialization of individuals into the operating norms and informal power structure. • Increased organizational communication as mentors and protegesform alliances across levels and departments. • Management development and succession planning information. • Increased productivity and decreased turnover.
Inequality in Organizations • Systematic disparities between participants in power and control over goals, resources, and outcomes. • Workplace decisions such as how to organize work; opportunities for promotion and interesting work; respect; and pleasures in work and work relations. • Class hierarchies in organizations are constantly created and renewed through organizing practices.
Hierarchies • Hierarchies are usually gendered, racialized, and class based, especially at the top. • Power differences are fundamental to class and are linked to hierarchy. • Gender and race are important in determining power differences within organizational class levels. • Processes and structures that when taken together – and often involving people of genuinely good intent – result in unwanted and discriminatory outcomes.
Intersectionality: Inequality Regimes • Inequality regimes are loosely interrelated practices, processes, actions, and meanings that result in and maintain class, gender, and racial inequalities within particular organizations. • Even organizations that have explicit egalitarian goals develop inequality regimes over time.
Intersectionality: Inequality Regimes • Theory on inequality, dominance, and oppression must pay attention to the intersections of race and class. • How do we identify barriers to creating equality in work organizations? The steepness of hierarchy is one dimension of variation in the shape and degree of inequality. • Change efforts and the oppositions they engender are often opportunities to observe frequently invisible aspects of the reproduction of inequalities.
MINORITY RECRUITMENT • Understand demographic changes in the workforce. • Ensure that majority groups aren't marginalized in the process. • Educate staff that "diversity" is not synonymous with "minority," while at the same time try to increase access and opportunities for people of color and other minorities. • Build long-term relationships with minority organizations, not look for quick fixes. • Learn how to effectively interview diverse groups.
MINORITY RECRUITMENT • Make sure that they're not just "grafting" minorities onto the organization without making appropriate internal culture changes that will enable them to thrive. • Become the employer of choice for a diverse workforce. • Ensure retention by developing a diversity-friendly culture. • Foster a culturally sensitive work environment. • Network for strategic alliances to enable long-term diversity recruitment. • Measure the effectiveness of their recruitment efforts.
How Well Do You Manage Diversity? • Do you test your assumptions before acting on them? • Do you believe there is only one right way of doing things, or that there are a number of valid ways that accomplish the same goal? Do you convey that to staff? • Do you have honest relationships with each staff member you supervise? Are you comfortable with each of them? Do you know what motivates them, what their goals are, how they like to be recognized? • Are you able to give negative feedback to someone who is culturally different from you? • When you have open positions, do you insist on a diverse screening committee and make additional outreach efforts to ensure that a diverse pool of candidates has applied? • When you hire a new employee, do you not only explain job responsibilities and expectations clearly, but orient the person to organizational culture and unwritten rules?
How Well Do You Manage Diversity? • Do you rigorously examine your unit's existing policies, practices, and procedures to ensure that they do not differentially impact different groups? When they do, do you change them? • Are you willing to listen to constructive feedback from your staff about ways to improve the work environment? Do you implement staff suggestions and acknowledge their contribution? • Do you take immediate action with people you supervise when they behave in ways that show disrespect for others in the workplace, such as inappropriate jokes and offensive terms? • Do you make good faith efforts to meet your affirmative action goals? • Do you have a good understanding of institutional “isms” such as racism and sexism and how they manifest themselves in the workplace? • Do you ensure that assignments and opportunities for advancement are accessible to everyone?
Managing Diversity • What policies, practices, and ways of thinking and within our organizational culture have differential impact on different groups? • What organizational changes should be made to meet the needs of a diverse workforce as well as to maximize the potential of all workers, so that National Church Residences can be well positioned for the demands of the 21st century?
Managing Diversity • How do we know what different groups or individuals need? Perhaps instead of using the golden rule, we could use the platinum rule which states: "treat others as they want to be treated." Moving our frame of reference from what may be our default view ("our way is the best way") to a diversity-sensitive perspective ("let's take the best of a variety of ways") will help us to manage more effectively in a diverse work environment. • Treating others equally means treating them differently and not the same.
Your Role • Have an understanding and acceptance of managing diversity concepts. • Recognize that diversity is threaded through every aspect of management. • Develop self-awareness, in terms of understanding your own culture, identity, biases, prejudices, and stereotypes. • Be willing to challenge and change institutional practices that present barriers to different groups.
Issues • How do you make the job sound appealing to different types of workers? • How can recruitment be effectively targeted to diverse groups? • How do you overcome bias in the interviewing process, questions, and your response?
Strategies • Specify the need for skills to work effectively in a diverse environment in the job, for example: "demonstrated ability to work effectively in a diverse work environment." • Make sure that good faith efforts are made to recruit a diverse applicant pool. • Focus on the job requirements in the interview, and assess experience but also consider transferable skills and demonstrated competencies, such as analytical, organizational, communication, coordination. Prior experience does not necessarily mean effectiveness or success on the job.
Strategies • Use a panel interview format. Ensure that the committee is diverse, unit affiliation, job classification, length of service, variety of life experiences, etc. to represent different perspectives and to eliminate bias from the selection process. Run questions and process by them to ensure there is no unintentional bias. • Ensure that appropriate accommodations are made for disabled applicants. • Know your own biases. What stereotypes do you have of people from different groups and how well they may perform on the job? What communication styles do you prefer? Sometimes what we consider to be appropriate or desirable qualities in a candidate may reflect more about our personal preferences than about the skills needed to perform the job.
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Blane Harding blane@blaneharding.com bharding@ku.edu www.blaneharding.com
