Cheryl Boulden Diversity

By the time Cheryl Boulden penned her letter to President William Clinton it was much too late to save her job or her career. The fifty-two year African American woman’s recruitment provided diversity to a department in much need of it. Boulden says that “emphasis was made on the fact that not only were my employment credentials impeccable, but the USFS would benefit in their diversity program because I am a black female with a permanent handicap” (Reeves, 2006, p. 70). Her race, age, gender and disability brought several elements of diversity to the United States Forest Service and her performance had been well enough to warrant an upgrade from a GS-9 to GS-11which required a transfer to Indiana. Although she found her new town of Bedford to be profoundly racist she also “found the forest supervisor, a white male, easy to work with and very supportive of diversity” (Reeves, 2006, p.

70), she was even made manager of the agency’s diversity program. Her work under the original supervisor was reflected in the outstanding ratings and step increase she received. That all changed less than two years later when her supervisor retired and was replaced by an acting supervisor that subscribed to a “white only” shop. A man whom she felt “had no respect for women in general and African American women in particular” (Reeves, 2006, p. 70). She immediately became the target of this supervisor’s as well as co-workers disparaging remarks. When you have problems with your co-workers you complain to your supervisors, but when your supervisors are the instigators of your biases there’s no remediation. She “followed department guidelines and filed a complaint with the EEO. However that action only exacerbated an already unbearable situation” (Reeves, 2006, p. 71). It’s unfortunate that when an employee has an issue with a supervisor there’s usually little hope of receiving an outcome in their favor, as upper-management typically support the supervisor in most situations.
Susan Finn faced a similar dilemma in that her staff as well as patients suffered verbal, racial and gender discrimination from a contract physician. For months the “six staff members of the Radiation Oncology unit had come to [her] separately with complaints regarding abusive behavior exhibited by a contract physician, Indrit Khalsa” (Reeves, 2006, p. 79). They feared that a written complaint would be met with retaliation from management. As with the Boulden case the complaints fell on deaf ears as they were all ignored. Susan was actually directed to not investigate any complaints that weren’t in writing, therefore no investigations were ever initiated. The staff’s fears were justified by Susan’s boss comment “you know we really can’t do anything about [contract physicians], and staff is expendable; so just don’t rock the boat” (Reeves, 2006, p. 80). Susan’s elevation of the employee’s complaints to higher management was met with anger aby her VP for doing so.
Dilemma faced by the organizations
The dilemma in both cases is that although both agencies have diversity program neither agency feels incentivized to manage or enforce the programs. In the “Affirmative Action” case complaints leads to retaliation from the supervisors as there was no protection mechanism for those filing complaints. The department sends out instructions for handling complaints, but the persons receiving the instructions and subsequent complaints are the ones that the complaints are directed at. When the agency decides to investigate credibility is lacking as undue weight is applied to the supervisor’s position. The primary goal of their diversity program is to document that a diversity program exist, giving little importance to the protections that the program was designed to provide. Their program actually harmed employees more than it helped because it gave managers additional motives for abusing subordinates. The dilemma in the “Ethnic Discrimination” case comes down to financial gain over employee satisfaction. The physicians represented significant revenues for the medical center that they were unwilling to sacrifice for the protection of their workers. The human resource Vice President sums it up when he says “these physicians are not regular employees at ENMMC and serve on a contractual basis: You know we really can’t do anything about them and staff is expendable” (Reeves, 2006, p. 80). Although contractual, the physicians had supervisorial authority over the employees and directed their work. Therefore human resources would have been required to respond to issues between them and employees. Yet the VP instructed Susan not to investigate complaints that weren’t in writing and failed to escalate any complaints to upper management because he didn’t want to rock the boat.
Challenging factors of diversity management
There are many challenging factors to diversity management including the devaluation of employees.

It sometimes give “the perception of ‘token appointments’ [of individuals] who could not be hired or promoted on performance ability alone” (Von Bergen, Soper, & Foster, 2002, p. 242). It can also create more discrimination in the form of reverse discrimination where those formerly believed to be discriminators are now unfairly victimized because of the color of their skin. Diversity training can sometimes be demoralizing and reinforces stereotypes when trainers resort to emphasizing differences that elicits anger and divisiveness (Von Bergen, Soper, & Foster, 2002, p. 245). Businesses can find their legal liabilities have increased when “unorthodox training techniques invade employee privacy and humiliate individuals in front of their co-workers” (Von Bergen, Soper, & Foster, 2002). According to Choi’s research “individuals in diverse groups tend to fell less safe and to trust each other less. Lower trust is more likely to lead to higher conflicts within groups” (Choi, 2008, p.

606).
Identifying and assessing effectiveness. Identify and assessing the effectiveness of diversity management can be difficult. Choi says that the “research of demographic diversity has found inconsistent and even contradictory results” (Choi, 2008, p. 606). “Effective diversity management is positively related to increased job satisfaction of employees (Kwon, 2015). An effective diversity program could be reflected in a decrease in turnovers and increase in job satisfaction. For both of the organizations presented in the cases it is easily demonstrated that its diversity program is completely lacking.
Assessing the affirmative action case we can determine that is a complete failure as evidenced by Cheryl Boulden’s lack of job satisfaction as well and the lack of social inclusion within the majority group, along with management’s hostilities that eventually forces her to resign. In assessing the ethnic discrimination case we would find a lack of concern for diversity if it interferes with the positive relation between the organization and its consulting physicians. Having a diversity program is meaningless if it is ignored or unenforced.
Suggestions on overcoming the dilemmas. Overcoming the dilemmas presented above requires a top down diversity training and management program. Cheryl Boulden’s dilemma required a solution from upper management, but they failed her by referring action back to the supervisor that was the cause of the problem. Human Resources should assign an individual as a diversity tsar, responsible for reviewing all complaints and following the case until its conclusion and having authority to issue disciplinary actions. I would make diversity training a criteria of for assessing an employee’s annual performance review. In this case either Cheryl or her supervisor should have been transferred to another location. Overcoming the dilemma of Susan Finn and her employees also requires that the organization approach diversity management from a different view. Their diversity problem stems from contract employees therefore their contract should include a zero tolerance clause toward employee/patient relations. Diversity training should be mandated for all contract employees as a requirement of their contract and all violator’s contract should be terminated.
Conclusion
I have discussed the issues of an ethnic discrimination case as well as an affirmative case. The diversity management program failed the employees in both cases because management devalued their employees. I have identified the underlying issues of both Cheryl’s and Susan’s cases as well as the dilemma faced by both organizations in improving their employee relations. I have discussed the challenging factors of the two cases presented and found that identifying and assessing the effectiveness of a diversity management program can be difficult because the factors of diversity are as diverse as the groups involved. And finally I suggested procedures that each organizations should implement in order to overcome their diversity dilemmas and provide a positive place of employment.