Diversity in Organizations
Diversity
We are, each of us, unique. This is obvious enough, but managers sometimes forget they need to recognize and capitalize on individual differences to get the most from their employees. In this chapter, we’ll learn how individual characteristics like age, gender, race, ethnicity, and abilities can influence employee performance. We’ll also see how managers can develop awareness about these characteristics and manage a diverse workforce effectively. But first, let’s take an overview perspective of the changing workforce.
Demographic Characteristics
Levels of Diversity
- Surface-level diversity
Differences in easily perceived characteristics, such as gender, race, ethnicity, age, or disability, that do not necessarily reflect the ways people think or feel but that may activate certain stereotypes.
Deep-level diversity
To understand the difference between surface- and deep-level diversity, consider an example. Luis and Carol are managers who seem to have little in common. Luis is a young, recently hired male from a Spanish-speaking neighborhood in Miami with a business degree. Carol is an older woman from rural Kansas who started as a customer service trainee after high school and worked her way up the hierarchy. At first, these coworkers may notice their surface-level differences in education, ethnicity, regional background, and gender. However, as they get to know one another, they may find they are both deeply committed to their families, share a common way of thinking about important work problems, like to work collaboratively, and are interested in international assignments. These deep-level similarities can overshadow the more superficial differences between them, and research suggests they will work well together.
Discrimination
Stereotyping
Judging someone on the basis of our perception of the group to which that person belongs. belongs. To use a machine metaphor, you might think of stereotypes as the fuel that powers the discrimination engine. Stereotypes can be insidious not only because they may affect the perpetrators of discrimination, but also because they can affect how potential targets of discrimination see themselves.
Stereotype threat
The degree to which we internally agree with the generally negative stereotyped perceptions of our groups. Along with that comes a fear of being judged when we are identified with the negative connotations of that group. This can happen when we are a minority in a situation. For instance, an older worker applying for a job in a predominately Millennial-age workforce may assume the interviewer thinks he is out of touch with current trends. What creates a stereotype threat is not whether the worker is or is not up to date with trends, but whether he internally agrees that older workers (the group he identifies with) are out of date (the stereotype).
Discrimination in the Workplace
To review, rather than looking at individual characteristics, unfair discrimination assumes everyone in a group is the same. This discrimination is often very harmful for employees, as we’ve just discussed, and for organizations.
Biographical Characteristics
Personal characteristics—such as age, gender, race, and length of tenure—that are objective and easily obtained from personnel records. These characteristics are representative of surface level diversity
Other Differentiating Characteristics
- Tenure
- Religion
- Sexual orientation and gender identity
- Cultural identity
Ability
Contrary to what we were taught in grade school, we weren’t all created equal in our abilities. For example, regardless of how motivated you are, you may not be able to act as well as Jennifer Lawrence, play basketball as well as LeBron James, or write as well as Stephen King. Of course, all of us have strengths and weaknesses that make us relatively superior or inferior to others in performing certain tasks or activities. From management’s standpoint, the challenge is to understand the differences to increase the likelihood that a given employee will perform the job well.An individual’s capacity to perform the various tasks in a job.
Intellectual Abilities
The capacity to do mental activities—thinking, reasoning, and problem solving. Most societies place a high value on intelligence, and for good reason. Smart people generally earn more money and attain higher levels of education. They are also more likely to emerge as leaders of groups. However, assessing and measuring intellectual ability are not always simple. People aren’t consistently capable of correctly assessing their own cognitive ability.
General Mental Ability (GMa)
An overall factor of intelligence, as suggested by the positive correlations among specific intellectual ability dimensions. Intelligence dimensions are positively correlated, so if you score high on verbal comprehension, for example, you’re more likely to also score high on spatial visualization. The correlations aren’t perfect, meaning people do have specific abilities that predict important work-related outcomes when considered individually. However, they are high enough that researchers also recognize a general factor of intelligence, general mental ability (GMA).
Physical Abilities
The capacity to do tasks that demand stamina, dexterity, strength, and similar characteristics. Research on hundreds of jobs has identified nine basic abilities needed in the performance of physical tasks.94 These are described in Exhibit 2-3. High employee performance is likely to be achieved when the extent to which a job requires each of the nine abilities matches the abilities of employees in that job.
Diversity Management
The process and programs by which managers make everyone more aware of and sensitive to the needs and differences of others. Having discussed a variety of ways in which people differ, we now look at how a manager can and should manage these differences. Diversity management makes everyone more aware of and sensitive to the needs and differences of others. This definition highlights the fact that diversity programs include and are meant for everyone. Diversity is much more likely to be successful when we see it as everyone’s business than when we believe it helps only certain groups of employees.
Source- Stephen P. Robbins, T. A. (2017). Organizational Behavior. Pearson Education Limited.
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