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Managing Workplace Diversity with I-O Psychology
- 1. Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP © 1998 Industrial-Organizational Psychology Learning Module Diversity in the Workplace
- 2. Lesson Objectives Understand why diversity in the workplace matters Know the different types of diversity Understand the challenges raised by workplace diversity Know how I-O psychologists help organizations manage diversity Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP © 1998 At the end of this lecture, you should:
- 3. Why does diversity in the workplace matter? The service economy interactions between people are key customer base is more diverse similarities between people ease process Globalization of business doing business with people from around world The changing labor market Company mergers and buy-outs Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP © 1998
- 4. Types of Diversity Gender diversity more women in workforce today than ever better educated than ever stereotypes still remain glass ceiling, etc. Age diversity as population ages, more older workers are available re-entry of middle-aged women to work retirees returning to supplement pension internships bring in more younger employees Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP © 1998
- 5. Types of Diversity Cultural diversity affects values, view of the world more than 40% of new entrants into U.S. workforce from non-“majority” groups about 22% new immigrants about 20% African-American or Hispanic growing international business employees maintain ties to national and cultural heritage Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP © 1998
- 6. Other Types of Diversity (You May Not Have Thought Of) Family situations single employees (mothers and others) Physical and psychological disabilities Americans with Disabilities Act Sexual orientation Political views Personal idiosyncrasies Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP © 1998
- 7. Challenges of Diversity Availability challenge in past employers could control diversity more people than jobs qualified employees have become scarce employers must become more flexible realize “Different does not mean deficient” Fairness challenge in past, typically viewed as equal treatment Equal Employment Opportunity now employers must embrace new diversity essentially focus on “differences” Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP © 1998
- 8. Challenges of Diversity Synergy challenge more and more group-based work diversity can create positive and negative conflict can facilitate creative problem-solving can close down communication can derail group processes group leaders must minimize destructive conflict and maximize diversity of input Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP © 1998
- 9. How do I-O psychologists help organizations manage diversity? Providing managers with training how to recruit/hire diverse employees how to orient/integrate new employees Providing all employees with training realizing the differences that exist learning how differences affect working environment how to maximize productivity without ignoring employee differences Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP © 1998
- 10. International Meeting Discussion Questions What words would you use to describe the others you met? What were your interactions like? What norms did you observe in the other groups? How well do you think you did? How would this apply to work settings? for different age groups, cultural groups, or genders? Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP © 1998
Editor's Notes
- The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that in 1996, 71% of the workforce was employed in the service industry and that by 2006 that was expected to rise to 74%. The interpersonal nature of service transactions makes similarities between employee and customer more important. As the population in general becomes more diverse, employees who can communicate most efficiently with those clients become a business advantage. Globalization has increased the contact with clients and co-workers from other countries. An understanding of cultural differences can not only facilitate communication, but can also avoid potentially embarrassing or even insulting situations. To deal with the changing labor market, employers are developing new recruiting strategies to target older employers, minorities, and immigrants. They are developing more flexible benefits packages (more flexible hours, working from home, leaves of absence) to accommodate the new diversity they must manage. When we think of cultural differences, we don’t often think of the differences in corporate cultures, too. As large companies buy out smaller companies, employees with potentially very different expectations (and sometimes from competing companies) are thrown together in the expectation of working together happily and productively.
- By the year 2000, the workforce is expected to be half male and half female. In 1990, women received approximately 31% of MBAs, 39% of law degrees, 13% of engineering degrees, and half of all undergraduate degrees. Although organizations are making strides to advance women, many organizations admit that stereotypes and preconceptions are still barriers. A focus on being “family-friendly” has developed to better utilize the talents of employees. Although both men and women benefit from such policies, women tend to benefit more. For instance, companies have instituted on-site daycare facilities, allowed more flexible hours, and have made it easier for all employees to work from home. Age diversity has created new problems for organizations that have typically moved employees through the organization with the expectation of retirement at a certain age. Not only are employees not retiring, but they are returning from retirement. This sometimes creates odd age inversions in which an older employer is managed by a much younger employee. This creates an uncomfortable role reversal akin to “telling your grandma to clean the table.”
- There is a wealth of information on the topic of cultural differences, so much so that it has become an integral part of many Introductory Psychology texts. The point on this chart perhaps requiring more information is the last bullet. A wise company will realize that employees who still maintain close ties to their national and cultural heritage can be valuable assets in many ways. Not only may they help to attract the business of their peers, but they can serve as an educational source for other employees. They can help to educate others on the differences that employees might encounter when doing business with someone from their country or ethnic group. As such, some of the difficult lessons of doing business abroad can be learned “in-house” without leaving the country.
- The effects of strict workplace policies on single mothers have been well-documented (e.g., needing to care for a sick child and missing work, being overlooked for travel opportunities because of family demands, etc.). However, single employees have become the subject of a certain “reverse discrimination.” Single employees (without children or spouses to “worry about”) often shoulder a disproportionate share of the travel, overtime, and other special requests. The Americans with Disabilities Act has also placed the spotlight on the extra accommodations employers must make to integrate the skills and contributions of persons with disabilities. The “special treatment” received by these employees can often create tension in the workplace that a manager must manage. Sexual orientation and political views can also create tensions in the workplace if not handled appropriately, particularly among employees who work on teams and disagree on these beliefs. Other personal idiosyncrasies such as personality (the “difficult” employee), behavior quirks (personal space issues come to the fore in cubicles), and others also create new situations that fall under the umbrella of diversity management. Although they may not be new phenomena, they can interact with other factors to create new problems.
- The last ten years has seen an increase in jobs, but a decrease in qualified applicants. As a result, employers must be more creative and flexible to get the people they want/need. Social psychology tells us that we will view people who are different in potentially negative ways. Employers assuming that “different” applicants are not capable because they don’t fit a preconceived picture of current employees will overlook qualified applicants from other groups. For the past thirty years, employers have been trained to treat employees and applicants from certain protected groups fairly. Along the way, this became an incentive to treat employees equally. Essentially, employers were to act as if they were blind to the differences among their employees. The fairness challenge posed by diversity is to recognize, accept, and perhaps reward the differences of employees while still maintaining fair treatment of them. Needless to say, this is not an easy challenge.
- The ultimate challenge posed by changes in diversity is to maximize the potential benefits to the company that the diversity of contributions offers. Again, social psychology provides much in the way of research on group processes and the behavior of ingroups and outgroups. For instance, group problem solving can be enhanced significantly during the brainstorming phase if a greater variety of approaches and ideas are generated. Group diversity can facilitate the generation of multiple ideas and approaches. However, greater diversity can generate conflict during the idea evaluation stage that inhibits communication and sharing of ideas. As a result, group cohesiveness can be destroyed by counterproductive conflict. The role of the leader of a diverse group is to improve problem solving by channeling conflict in such a way as to maximize group input but keep counterproductive conflict at a minimum.
- The most common intervention used by I-O psychologists to help organizations manage diversity is diversity training. The training can take several approaches, but will differ depending on the target audience. Training for managers will focus on how to recruit and hire a more diverse workforce. This training often entails raising awareness of new sources or outlets that allow employers to find a greater pool of applicants. Manager training will also focus on how to manage the diversity of the newly hired workers. Specifically, training will focus on how to integrate the new employees into the existing workforce and how to raise the awareness of the current employees as to the benefits of greater diversity. This often requires a shift in the style of management. The focus of management shifts from treating everyone equally to treating everyone equitably, given the differences that each employee brings to the job. Training for all employees goes through several steps. The first step entails raising awareness that differences do exist. The second step focuses on how these differences influence working together to get the job done. The third step focuses on how these differences can be used to enhance productivity without treating people unfairly. The exercise provided with this presentation is an example of some of the activities that might be used to raise awareness of diversity in organizations.
- This exercise gives students an illustration of the sorts of problems that someone from a different culture encounters when they are unaware of or don’t understand the assumptions of a different group.