Managing the Diverse Workforce

2. McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2009 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

3. 8-3
Learning Objectives
 L01: Describe how changes in the U.S.
workforce make diversity a critical
organizational and managerial issue.
 L02: Distinguish between affirmative action
and managing diversity.
 L03: Explain how diversity, if well managed,
can give organizations a competitive edge.
 L04: Identify challenges associated with
managing a diverse workforce.

4. 8-4
Learning Objectives
 L05: Define monolithic, pluralistic, and
multicultural organizations.
 L06: List steps managers and their
organizations can take to cultivate diversity.
 L07: Summarize the skills and knowledge
managers need to manage globally.
 L08: Identify ways in which cultural
differences across countries influence
management.

5. 8-5
Managing Diversity
 Involves recruiting, training, promoting,
and utilizing to full advantage individuals
with different backgrounds, beliefs,
capabilities, and cultures.
 Understanding and deeply valuing
employee differences to build a more
effective and profitable organization.
 Valuing the connections that arise and
develop between diverse employees.

6. 8-6
Components of a Diversified Workforce

7. 8-7
What is diversity?
 Gender
 Age
 Religious affiliation
 Disability status
 Military experience
 Sexual orientation
 Educational level

8. 8-8
Who needs diversity training?

9. 8-9
Gender Demographics
 Women make up about 465 of the workforce
 Women in the workforce climbed from 1970s
and 1990s and is now holding steady as rate
of men declines
 About 60% of all marriages are dual-earner
marriages
 One of every four married women in two-income
households earns more than her
husband does

10. 8-10
Gender Issues
 Women still carry the bulk of family
responsibility
 Some companies expect employees to put in
long hours and sacrifice personal lives
 Organizations are becoming more flexible in
balancing organizational and employee needs
 Pay disparities still exist between men and
women
 “Glass ceiling” barrier is a reality for many
women
 Sexual harassment in the workplace has
increased

11. 8-11
Glass Ceiling
 Invisible barrier that makes it difficult for
women and minorities to rise above a certain
level in the organization
 Currently 12 women are chief executives of
Fortune 500 companies
 Some companies are offering activities to
help female employees break through the
glass ceiling

12. 8-12
Sexual Harassment
 Conduct of a sexual nature that has negative
consequences for employment
 Two categories
Quid pro quo: submission to or rejection of sexual
conduct is used as a basis for employment
decision.
Hostile environment: when unwelcome sexual
conduct “has the purpose or effect of
unreasonably interfering with job performance or
creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive
working environment.”

13. 8-13
Components of a Sexual Harassment
Policy
1. Develop a comprehensive organization-wide
policy on sexual harassment and
present it to all current and new employees.
2. Hold training sessions with supervisors to
explain Title VII requirements, their role in
providing an environment free of sexual
harassment, and proper investigative
procedures when charges occur.

14. 8-14
Components of a Sexual Harassment
Policy
3. Establish a formal complaint procedure in
which employees can discuss problems
without fear of retaliation.
4. Act immediately when employees complain
of sexual harassment.
5. When an investigation supports employee
charges, discipline the offender at once.
6. Follow up on all cases to ensure a
satisfactory resolution of the problem.

15. 8-15
Minorities and Immigrants
 Black, Asian, and Hispanic workers hold more than one
of every four U.S. jobs
 Asian and Hispanic workforces are growing the fastest
in the U.S., followed by African American workforce
 Three in ten college enrollees are people of color.
 Foreign-born workers make up more than 15% of the
U.S. civilian labor force. About half of these workers are
Hispanic, and 22% are Asian.
 The younger Americans are, the more likely they are to
be persons of color.
 One in 66 people in the U.S. identifies himself or herself
as multiracial, and the number could soar to 1 in 5 by
2050.

16. 8-16
What’s going on with minorities?
 White males are no longer dominating the
workforce in urban areas
 Managing diversity is becoming more than
eliminating discrimination
 Capitalizing on the wide variety of skills
available in the labor market
 There are still disparities in employment and
earnings
 Unemployment rates are higher for Hispanics
and African Americans
 Median earnings for white workers is higher
than those for Hispanics and African Americans

17. 8-17
Overcoming disparities
 Organizations have policies and programs to
increase minority representation, including
compensation systems that reward managers
for increasing the diversity of their operations.
 Companies are focusing on developing, hiring
and retaining minority executives based on their
ability to manage an ever-more-diverse
workforce and to serve an increasing number of
clients and customers with varied backgrounds

18. 8-18
Mentally and Physically Disabled
People
 Largest unemployed minority population
in the U.S. is people with disabilities.
 New assistive technologies are making it
easier for companies to comply with
ADA and for people with disabilities to
be productive on the job.
 People with disabilities are an
unexplored but fruitful labor force.

19. 8-19
Tomorrow’s workers
 The number of women, Asian Americans,
African Americans, and Hispanic workers are
growing faster than the number of white male
workers
 Lower birth rates in the U.S. will result in a
smaller labor force leading to outsourcing to
firms in developing nations
 Median age of America’s workforce is
increasing
 70% of workers between the ages of 45 and 74
intend to work in retirement

20. 8-20
Utilizing Older Employees

21. 8-21
Walgreens Employs the
“Unemployable”
 Read the story on page 180
 What competitive advantage might
Walgreens gain with its proactive stance
toward hiring workers with disabilities?
 What challenges might Walgreens face
in managing this workforce?

22. 8-22
Managing Diversity vs. Affirmative
Action
 Managing Diversity: moving beyond
legislated mandates to embrace a
proactive business philosophy that sees
differences as positive
 Affirmative Action: Special efforts to
recruit and hire qualified members of
groups that have been discriminated
against in the past

23. 8-23
Diversity as a competitive advantage
 Ability to attract and retain motivated
employees
 Better perspective on a differentiated
market
 Ability to leverage creativity and
innovation in problem solving
 Enhancement of organizational flexibility

24. 8-24
How companies use diversity?

25. 8-25
The challenges of managing a diverse
workforce
 Seeing the world from another’s perspective can
be difficult
 Diversity can create a lack of cohesiveness
 Communication problems such as
misunderstandings, inaccuracies, inefficiencies,
and slowness
 People prefer to associate with others who are
like themselves
 We learn to interpret the world in a certain way
based on our backgrounds and experiences

26. 8-26
Diversity Assumptions that influence
Organizations

27. 8-27
Multicultural Organizations
 Monolithic Organization – one that has a low
degree of structural integration-employing few
women, minorities, or other groups that differ
from the majority-and thus has a highly
homogeneous employee population
 Pluralistic Organization – An organization that
has a relatively diverse employee population
and makes an effort to involve employees from
different gender, racial or cultural backgrounds

28. 8-28
Multicultural Organizations (cont’d)
 Multicultural Organization – one that
values cultural diversity and seeks to
utilize and encourage it.

29. 8-29
Five Components of Cultivating a
Diverse Workforce
1. Securing top management’s leadership
and commitment
2. Assessing the organization’s progress
toward goals
3. Attracting employees
4. Training employees in diversity
5. Retaining employees

30. 8-30
Attract Qualified Diverse Employees
 Recruitment
 Accommodating work and family needs
 Alternative work arrangements

31. 8-31
Train employees to understand and
work with diversity
 Awareness building: designed to
increase recognition of the meaning and
importance of valuing diversity
 Skill building: aims to develop the skills
that employees and managers need to
deal effectively with one another and
with customers in a diverse environment

32. 8-32
Retain talented employees
 Support groups – provide emotional and
career support for those excluded from
the majority’s informal groups
 Mentoring – when higher-level
employees help ensure that high-potential
people are introduced to top
management and socialized into the
norms and values of the organization.

33. 8-33
Retain Talented Employees
 Career development and promotions
 Systems accommodation
 Accountability

34. 8-34
Managing Across Borders
 Expatriates
 Host-country nationals
 Third-country nationals

35. 8-35
Successful Global Managers
have…
 Sensitivity to cultural
differences
 Business knowledge
 Courage to take a
stand
 Ability to bring out
the best in people
 Integrity
 Insightfulness
 Commitment to
success
 Risk taking
 Use of feedback
 Cultural
adventurousness
 Desire for
opportunities to learn
 Openness to criticism
 Desire for feedback
 Flexibility

36. 8-36
Successful global assignments
 Structure assignments clearly
 Create clear job objectives
 Develop performance measurements
based on objectives
 Use effective, validated selection and
screening criteria
 Prepare expatriates and families for
assignments

37. 8-37
Successful Global Assignments
(cont’d)
 Create a vehicle for ongoing
communication with expatriates
 Anticipate repatriation to facilitate
reentry when they come back home
 Consider developing a mentor program
that will help monitor and intervene in
case of trouble

38. 8-38
Cultural Differences
 Power distance – the extent to which a society
accepts the fact that power in organizations is
distributed unequally
 Individualism/collectivism – the extent to which
people act on their own or as a part of a group
 Uncertainty avoidance – the extent to which people
in a society feel threatened by uncertain and
ambiguous situations
 Masculinity/Femininity – the extent to which a
society values quantity of life over quality of life

39. 8-39
Five core values
1. Compassion
2. Fairness
3. Honesty
4. Responsibility
5. Respect for other