The Unintended Consequences of Diversity Statements by Sonia Knag, Katherine DeCelles, Andras Tilcsik and Sora Jun
While organizations are trying to address discrimination, they are emphasizing their organization's dedication to "equal opportunity" and that they are "diversity friendly" in hopes that it will increase the diversity of applicants. However, the effectiveness of those statements is not very high, in fact they can even cause backfire by making the organizations less likely to notice discrimination. With the worry that employers are racially biased, many racial minorities may be trying to avoid discrimination by concealing or downplaying racial cues on a job application such as “resume whitening”. This is when the candidate tries to maintain a relatively
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A critical finding here is that when Employers promote them selves with pro-diversity statements, applicants may let their guard down when submitting a resume and disclose more racial information, and this may in turn limit their opportunities. Employers need to recognize that discrimination still exists in the workplace, and often "bias is hardwired into the system". Employers and policy makers need to implement initiatives that will fight biased hiring practices. We need innovations in recruitment to disrupt the bias, such as policies related to forms of “blind recruitment” or other uses of technology in the recruitment process. Having diversity initiatives in place at an organization demonstrates the recognition that discrimination is a problem but also that the organization recognizes that embracing diversity has substantial social and economic value. But, simply advertising oneself as an equal opportunity or diversity friendly employer does not solve the underlying problem of discrimination. Organizations whom have pro-diversity statements may give a more diverse pool of
Greg Lewis in “An Open Letter to Diversity’s Victims” advocates against the need for many languages in school programs, in American. Greg describes that those who are after what they refer to as “diversity” have been insisting that the American schools should be taught both in English and Spanish. The so called liberals base their arguments on the fact that, teaching a single language would obsolete the cultural identity of the Hispanic people. Greg’s arguments, use of quotations, tone, and mood show the need as to why single language system should be continued.
Obeying the law and the greater good are excellent reasons for eliminating discrimination. Both affirmative action and diversity management are needed because affirmative action laid the foundation upon which diversity management can build. When comparing affirmative action and diversity management, affirmative action focuses on social differences as obstacles, while diversity management uses them as assets (Ewoh). Also, affirmative action only changes the demographics; while diversity management changes the behavior (Hur, Strickland 384). Diversity management alters employee attitudes and behaviors through training and awareness which affirmative action does not allow (Ewoh). Moreover, the emphasis, assumptions, change required, and most importantly, the results of affirmative action are a catalyst for diversity management and both together are more effective at abolishing discrimination.
Minority is a broad term that classifies my family and me. This term can mean something bad and something good, depending on who’s perceiving the term. For me, personally it is a little bit of both. Being part of the minority group, it can and has been a barrier in my educational pursuit. However, it does not stop me from trying to reach my goals, it is like a motivation.
Like most developed countries, America has witnessed the benefits of racial and ethnic diversity for several years. This is because the workforce today is more diverse than say, fifty years ago. Particularly, whites occupied higher offices than other races in the past. Today, the workforce embraces the fact that diversification not only results in better talents, but is also a necessity for the global economy (Byrd and Scott, 2014). The global environment has facilitated diversification because businesses are extending their operations beyond local and regional boundaries. This requires an understanding of varied cultures and markets hence, the need to diversify the workforce. Consequently, businesses hired experts with cultural experience of different geographical locations thus increase job diversification based on racial and ethnic lines. Therefore, race and ethnicity affects the current workforce by increasing job performance, fostering globalization, and improving
Gender, racial, and ethnic diversity means different things to different people. Some believe that diversity is about quotas, and affirmative action. Others believe that diversity is something that will happen on its own with out intervention. Some experts who study diversity, however, believe that diversity is not something that should be left up to chance. It is important, therefore, for organizations to take action to encourage and foster diversity in the workplace (Clarke, 1995, p. 13).
In this assignment I will be talking about the seven benefits of diversity. I will also be giving the definitions of equality, diversity and rights and the concept to them in relation to health and social care.
The article “Of disparities and diversity: Where are we?” helped me better understand the health experiences of women and how disparities remain a persistent problem today. There were certain disparities of some people not having insurance, having limited access to care, not get proper care and of course having negative health outcomes. Race and ethnicity are the common factors of disparities in healthcare but social and environmental factors play a major part in it too. It is said that this world is becoming more diverse. The population is becoming more heterogeneous. It is estimated that Hispanics and blacks will populate over half of the U.S. That said, since the people of color make up the majority of those that are uninsured and have low income it will be even more important to address healthcare disparities. So now there is more efforts to focus on the disparities to prevent them from continuing.
“Like many other Blacks, when I find myself in a new public situation, I will count the number of blacks and brown faces present” (Emerson & Murphy, 2014, p. 509). Managers hire based on their similarities with the employee or applicant due to a better relationship and understanding among them. Management use homosocial reproduction to promote or hire individuals who they associate to themselves and will have a successful future in the company with their guidance (Elliot & Smith, 2004). Mangers tend to overlook minorities hard work and effort, thus causing them to lack motivation and hope for a promotion or raise. Not being recognized for their hard work causes feelings of indifference toward job duties.
The term racism means inequity or injustice based on race. It can also be the principle that talks about the differences in human personality or capacity and that a specific race is absolute to others. This can be as a result of language, traditions and customs, or any feature that the person possesses. The idea of racism has been in existence in the history of humans for a very long time. For the past years, racism of westerners towards those who are not from that region has had more impact than any other type of racism. The most well-known instance of racism that occurred in the West was enslaving Africans. One vital feature of racism, particularly concerning the
Moyer (2016) found that “Diversity programs and Diversity teams do not exist to solve an actual or perceived problem but rather exist to cover the companies … to make it look like the company is doing ‘something’ to solve a ‘problem”. This proves that diversity groups are inefficient, which allows discrimination to continue in the workplace and the company does nothing more to prevent. Companies are not taking another step towards improving the situation, rather they conform to the reality and allow it to continue because, in the end, they only care about the profit they make from their employers. According to Dover, Major, & Kaiser (2016) “Even when there is clear evidence of discrimination at a company, the presence of a diversity policy leads people to discount claims of unfair treatment. In previous research, we’ve found that this is especially true for members of dominant groups and those who tend to believe that the system is generally fair.” This shows that the dominant race, or whites, believe that the system( diversity teams) are fair and prove the assistance minorities need;however, that is proven to be unrealistic according to research. The evidence shows that companies only have those programs available to make people
Workplace diversity refers to the variety of differences between people in an organisation, Diversity comes down to acceptance, respect and understanding of one another in the workplace, even when you may disagree, you need to be understanding and try your best to relate to everyone and embrace their unique differences.
It is no secret that in the world that we live in there are many different cultures and religions. But the question is can we take these many different walks of faith and bring them together to become a more diverse society. But we need to know what diversity truly means. Diversity is “the state of having people who are different races or who have different cultures in a group or organization.” The society that is currently around has started to believe a huge lie that is doing more harm than good. The lie is that if someone has a different belief than you that you must live life in fear of them or in a hostile manner towards them. But that is not true, in order to become a more diverse society the people of this world need to follow four
Stretching all the way back to the 1600s, African-Americans first began experiencing oppression by being forced into slavery in the new American colonies and now being still discriminated against almost 400 years later in the form of both conscious and unconscious biases. Studies, including the MIT and University of Chicago study where approximately 5,000 resumes with both “white sounding last names” and “black sounding last names” were sent to over one thousand different ads for jobs in Chicago and Boston, have found that unconscious bias is a very real threat to the workforce by revealing that the resumes with “typically white last names” received 50% more callbacks than “typically black last names”. This advertisement acknowledges that there is bias in the workforce and shows their initiation to preventing it. Although it is just a glimpse of the discrimination that minority groups face, it is a good attempt to bring awareness to these unrecognized issues. This advert brings to life many more issues that are not just occurring in the hiring process but also in leadership roles.
As a racialized minority, there is always the chance that seeking employment in a primarily white dominated society may result in discrimination with employers refusing to hire racialized individuals, perhaps, on the belief that doing so may disrupt work place dynamics. Fortunately, I did not have to go through this with GetAssist. My first position involved a team of ten individuals, who were responsible for entering various neighborhoods across the southwest as ambassadors of the company dispensing our message to residents with the aim of connecting them on our network. Out of this team of ten individuals, six of my team members including myself were racialized minorities which is reflective of human capital theory. With this theory asserting that employers are rational decision makers looking to find the best individuals for the job, the diversity of my team in a white dominated company demonstrated that there was no discrimination on the basis of race and the individuals chosen were the right people for job. Further, each member of the team was paid an hourly wage, and received commission based on the amount of residents signed up in the community which is consistent with Human Capital Theory since it asserts that the harder you work, the more rewards and benefits you
In the future, the world will only become more diverse. People should learn to appreciate it by acknowledging the differences around them. Sometimes people are scared that “recognizing differences will divide people from each other. However, learning about cultural differences can actually bring people closer together” ( “Section 1”). It would be better if people became closer together instead of growing apart because of discrimination and other mistreatment. Building relationships with different cultures should be a goal of everyone and even nations as a whole. Each group has different strengths that can benefit the the community altogether. Since the world will definitely become more diverse, it is important to be informed about cultural groups so you can become more marketable and succeed in a diverse world.