WORKPLACE DIVERSITY : Heeding Concerns of White Backlash

For 17 years, Don Yeomans had been a loyal employee of a large international construction company. Rung by rung, he had toiled up the corporate ladder, and now, at 56, it appeared his reward was at hand.

The boss called him in. The news sounded good. Yeomans was to be in charge of finding new and better ways to train employees. But then came the kicker: He was to have a new boss, a much younger woman who had once been his protege.

“It was kind of a shock to me,” recalled Yeomans, who works for the California-based construction firm’s operation in Greenville, S.C. It wasn’t that he minded having a female boss as much as that “she did not, in my mind, have the level of experience or the knowledge that I had.”

But there was no room for argument--in his corporate culture, management’s word was law. Besides, he got the message: Step aside. The rules have changed. And these new rules, he thought angrily, were not doing much for his career.

Affirmative action backlash, white man’s blues--call it what you will, but for many employers, plummeting morale among white males has become the downside of broadening a corporate pool. Although white men continue to dominate the vast majority of professions, an increasing number of employers--whether for profit’s sake or legal necessity--are seeking other types of people for positions of authority, leaving many white men with the sinking feeling that someone has changed the rules on them in midstream.

“White males are feeling threatened,” said Lee Gardenswartz, a Culver City diversity consultant and co-author of “Managing Diversity,” a corporate desk reference on the topic. “They would be threatened in any case because the slots at the top are narrower and the economy is tougher. But companies are also saying, ‘Look, you’re real good, but we don’t have women or people of color, and while you have a lot of competence, we have to start broadening our management team.’

“They think people who are less qualified are getting the jobs, which isn’t always true,” Gardenswartz added, “but it has the effect of limiting their chances. And unless you can find something in it for them, they’re going to perceive it as reverse discrimination, and be real angry.”

Recent surveys bear out the fears and frustrations of white men. In a Newsweek poll taken two months ago, for example, 56% of white males said they believed that they were losing an advantage in terms of jobs and income--a perception that only 38% of the rest of the population shared.

Sixty percent of the white men interviewed for the survey believed that they had become a more frequent target of antagonism from women and nonwhites than they were five years ago.

Meanwhile, a 1991 Los Angeles Times poll found that nearly two-thirds of whites overall believe that affirmative action is adequate now or has gone too far. (Blacks, by about the same margin, believe that it hasn’t gone far enough.)

Some, especially women and minorities, might argue that turnabout is fair play--that the social consciousness that tacitly gave white men a leg up in the working world for so many generations unfairly limited the career horizons of other groups. But poor morale--in any segment of a work force--is costly to an organization, says Michael Mobley, a Portland-based diversity consultant. Employers, he notes, “need to value all types of people--including white males.”

So how can an employer head off the backlash, or deal with it when it erupts? It isn’t easy, experts say, but here are a few tips, culled from interviews with management consultants, corporate diversity officers and psychiatrists:

* Start with the brass. “First and foremost, the company has to ask, ‘Why are we doing this?’ ” says UC Irvine management professor Judy Rosener. “The people at the top have to decide how this effort is going to be framed and the strategy they employ will determine how much backlash they have.”

* Talk about it, formally and otherwise. “Prejudices exist--and how. But how do you get rid of them?” asks Dr. Milton Greenblatt, a UCLA professor emeritus of psychiatry and a specialist in organizational development. “I say get ‘em together and have ‘em talk and talk and talk. And soon they’ll be talking not only about their relationships in the formal sense, but also about other things--how they feel about blacks, how they feel about whites, how they feel about whites on the warpath because blacks are being promoted.”

Some companies hire outside consultants, whose average fees can run upwards of $1,000 a day for an evaluation and a series of discussions that help employees air their concerns. Other firms may let a human resources manager handle the situation in-house. But Greenblatt says even a staff luncheon or two--on company time, with management picking up the tab--not only gives employees the opportunity to talk, but sends a clear message that the employer is serious about diversity.

* Articulate your goals--and the reasons for them--to all your employees, including white males. Typically, Rosener said, the reasons behind a firm’s push for diversity are not made clear, especially if the company is being driven more by threats of affirmative action lawsuits than by market imperatives. “But the companies that are really profiting . . . are the ones that make it clear that this is something that is being done to help the company tap into an increasingly diverse market,” she said.

* Make it clear that all employees--including white males--have a stake in diversity. “White males need to be included from the get-go,” advises consultant Gardenswartz. “There needs to be a mindset that says, we are all in this together.” And she suggests one important ground rule: “No attacking people for past sins.”

* Whether you hire an outside “diversity trainer” or schedule rap sessions in-house, include everyone, from management to the janitorial staff. “To say diversity training is just for managers is like saying it’s just for women or blacks,” says consultant Mobley. Inclusiveness also eliminates any stigma that employees might attach to diversity sessions. Often, Mobley said, white male managers are the first to be sent to diversity training, leaving them with the sense that they are being punished or set apart.

* Make sure your discussions are being led by someone without an ax to grind. Do a thorough background check on any diversity consultant you bring in. Otherwise, consultants say, you may end up with someone who will alienate your staff by blaming all white men for every ill in modern society.

“To a great extent, diversity work involves selling an ideology,” says Fred Lynch, visiting associate professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, and the author of two books on affirmative action and managing diversity. And power sharing can be a tough sell--especially if the pitch is fraught with politically correct buzzwords and attitudes.

“White males will be told, ‘You’re going to a diversity seminar today,’ and they’ll think, ‘Oh, great, more affirmative action bull.’ They already come in loaded for bear. If the consultant comes in spouting a lot of PC stuff, things can blow up in your face.”

* Deal with backlash up front. Acknowledge that diversity can lead to dashed expectations by some employees, especially by older white men who have been socialized not to expect extra competition at this late date. “But also make it clear that if the company grows, there will be more opportunities for everyone,” Mobley said.

* If you are a female or non-white manager who has been promoted over a white man who expected the job, and you suspect that he may feel you beat him by virtue of race, age or color, try talking to him privately. “Let him know he’s not crazy,” advises Mobley. “Take him aside and say, ‘Look, if I were in your shoes and saw this woman or whatever moving up the ranks super-fast, I too would be questioning your credentials. I too would have that frustration and anger. But I’m going to prove to you that I can do this job, and I’m going to do everything in my power to help you succeed in this corporation too.”

“It takes a huge person to deal with this,” adds consultant Rowe. “No one who gets passed over is going to feel good. But things like this have a lot less power if they’re on the table.”

Yeomans, for instance, ended up staying at his job, largely because of a conversation he had with his new boss.

“We sat down, and she said, ‘Look, this is the situation, and neither of us may be comfortable, but we’ve got to live with it. So what can we do to make it a success?’ ” Yeomans recalled.

“So I unloaded. I said I had no animosity toward her, but I wasn’t comfortable with the situation. I felt that I should have been consulted, and that it had hurt my ego more than anything else.”

From that chat, he said, grew a more collegial working relationship, along with a commitment from them both to make their department the best it could be. Although Yeomans still believes that his company could--and should--have foreseen the pain the move created for him, he believes that management learned from the incident and “is more sensitive now to these issues and how to handle them.”

* Be patient. Gardenswartz says the problem of white male resentment should ease with time because younger white males now joining the work force have different expectations than their older counterparts.

“They understand that they are going to compete with women and people of color, and they may or may not be angry, but they don’t feel the rules have changed on them midstream,” Gardenswartz says.