Changes Are in the Works as Ethnic Labor Force Grows : Employment: If companies are to maintain a competitive advantage in the future, they must learn to manage the diversity of their workers, authors say.
Diversity: It’s a ‘90s buzzword that UC Irvine professor of management Judy B. Rosener says will take on even greater significance as America’s labor force enters the new millennium.
By the year 2010, it is estimated, white men will account for less than 40% of the total American work force; women and people of color will fill 75% of the 24 million new jobs created in the United States.
And therein lies a significant challenge for not only American businesses but government organizations and educational institutions: If they are to maintain a competitive advantage, Rosener says, they must value and learn to manage the diversity of their employees.
In “Workforce America! Managing Employee Diversity as a Vital Resource” (Business One Irwin; $24.95), Rosener and co-author Marilyn Loden, a nationally recognized organization-change consultant, show how organizations can foster teamwork and cooperation among diverse employees.
The book, which Rosener believes is the first to provide a framework for looking at the diversity issue from the standpoint of changing organizations, provides examples of organizations that are learning to manage diversity more effectively.
The result of such management, the authors say, is increased creativity, innovation and enhanced productivity.
But learning to manage employee diversity won’t come easily to organizations that have traditionally valued “sameness.”
Historically, Rosener said in an interview, American organizations have operated on an assimilation model, “which means if you want to succeed you’ve got to be like the people at the top. Well, blacks can’t be white and women can’t be men,” she declared.
The problem, Rosener said, is that “by valuing ‘sameness,’ we disadvantage people who aren’t the same as those who happen to be in the dominant group.”
“I think people subconsciously avoid hiring people who are different,” she said. “They know from past experience that when they’re with people they don’t understand and whose behavior they can’t predict, they get this sense of irritation. What they do is subconsciously avoid it by finding another reason why the person shouldn’t be promoted or be on a work team with them.”
Rosener said “Workforce America!” provides employees and employers “with a way of understanding why we are all so uncomfortable with people who aren’t like us and how we can go about becoming more comfortable through understanding that difference.”
Change within an organization must start at the top, she said, “but it also has to be a comprehensive change. We’re talking about major change throughout the organization. Frequently, what’s needed is an outside consultant who doesn’t have any vested interest in the status quo.”
Rosener said that ongoing awareness training will teach members of an organization how their stereotypical thinking colors the way they interact with people: “It shows us how we make assumptions that frequently lead us to the wrong kinds of conclusions.”
A manager, for example, may think an Asian employee understands what he has been instructed to do when in fact he does not. In Asian culture, Rosener said, it is considered insulting to your boss to ask a question. “Once I (as a manager) know the reason they’re not asking a question is because of that, I now can say, ‘Repeat back to me what I said.’ ”
Citing another example, Rosener said a female employee who takes off work at 3 in the afternoon to pick up her children from school may be viewed as being less committed to her job than a man who is at his desk from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
“The truth is,” Rosener said, “The man may be working 20 times less efficiently than the woman. We are conditioned to think number of hours equals commitment. We say: Maybe we shouldn’t look at number of hours, maybe we should look at the number of widgets they make” to determine an employee’s effectiveness.
Rosener advises organizations to develop a common set of goals. But in so doing, she said, they must allow those who are different from those at the top to express how they feel about those goals. If everyone is involved in their development, “they will be goals everybody can support.”
Rosener said organizations that have the most problem with the diversity issue “are companies that are tradition-bound, that have an old-boys’ network and are used to doing things in a certain way: They were the economic king of the hill; they always thought that their way was the best way, so they don’t see any reason to change.”
Organizations that tend to have the fewest traditions, customs and long-held rituals are the most hospitable to people who are different, she said. These companies are more inclined to adopt policies that reinforce diversity, such as initiating flexible hours, non-traditional holidays and benefit packages that recognize the varied needs of employees at different stages of their lives.
Rosener said the book “shows you how to look at diversity, not as a problem but as a resource . . . that by understanding diversity you maximize the ability of everybody who works for you to contribute in the best way that they know how as opposed to assuming there is only one way.”
