MCD2040 Managing People and Organisations
Week 7: Workforce Diversity and Managing for Inclusion
Reading: 54-55, 194-195, 487-494
Theme: Managing
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where you can read more
about the specific
learning objective.
Complete the question.
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Complete the quiz.
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Remember:
• The weekly quizzes are worth 1% (10% in total for the course)
• You cannot do the quizzes if you have NOT watched the videos
• Week 8 lecture will be discussed in Week 9 tutorials
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This week we will learn:
• About Workforce Diversity
o What is it
o Explore why it is important
o Key terms related to it
• Why humans place themselves in ‘groups’
• How do managers and organisations practice effective diversity and
inclusion
• The challenges associated with workforce diversity and inclusion
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Learning Objective 1
Exploring Workforce Diversity
• What is it
• Explore why it is important
• Key terms related to it
54-55
Defining Workforce Diversity
 The term diversity describes differences in race, gender, age, ethnicity, physical ability,
culture and sexual orientation, among other individual differences.
 Inclusivity: the degree to which the organisation is open to anyone who can do the job,
regardless of their diversity attributes.
 Workforce diversity: is the ways in which people in an organisation are different from
and similar to one another. This includes: gender, age, disability, language, race, ethnicity,
religion and cultural background, as well as different experiences and perspectives,
working styles, relationship status, family and personal responsibilities
‘For us it (diversity) goes way, way beyond that. Diversity is about ensuring
every single person comes to work every day and feels free to bring themselves
to work… diversity of thought, diversity of background, diversity of experiences,
diversity of education, not just the traditional aspects of diversity’
Debbie Storey, Chief Diversity Officer, AT&T
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Equity is the same as Equality isn’t it?
 Traditionally, Workforce Diversity was more associated with Equal Opportunity –
this was driven by abiding by laws related to anti-discrimination.
 Today, it is NOT about being equal, but including everyone and removing barriers
so everyone has the ability to reach for the same opportunities.
Inclusion –
by removing
barriers
Equal
Equity
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Why do it? Makes ‘good business sense’
Fostering a positive workplace environment makes good business sense.
A positive workplace is characterised by respect that supports employee
engagement. It also creates a high performance culture that encourages
innovation and creativity (ACT, 2010:9).
Promoting equity and inclusion makes good business sense because:
• It reflects the potential market an organisation operates within
• Provides a competitive advantage
• Helps attract best talent
• Reduces discrimination costs related to breaking laws
• Flow of people around the globe greater than ever
• Multicultural teams are now the norm
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Why do it? The Legal & Ethical Reasons
• It is the right thing to do (aligns with Social Responsibility) and organisations
have a moral obligation to develop and maintain a safe and welcoming work
environment
• In Australia, there are many laws which ensure discrimination does not
occur. These include:
o
o
o
o
o
Age Discrimination Act 2004
Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986
Disability Discrimination Act 1992
Racial Discrimination Act 1975
Sex Discrimination Act 1984
However, each country has different laws and companies, both local and foreign must
obey the domestic laws first. This is difficult for MNCs when the local laws go against their
values or their home country’s values/laws.
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Learning Objective 1
Test your knowledge
Video 1 on Moodle
Complete the quiz
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Learning Objective 2
Why humans place themselves in ‘groups’
What is discrimination
194-195
Why do humans always have to be in groups?
According to Social Identity Theory:
• A person has multiple “selves” that correspond
Rationality to widening circles of group
membership
• Social identity – a person’s sense of who they are based on their group membership
• Personal identity – unique traits that make you,Bounded
you; i.e. Personality & appearance
Rationality
 Groups give us a sense of social identity: a sense
of belonging to the social world.
 We divide the world into us vs. them (in groups vs out groups)
For example:
Intuition
 Australians vs New Zealanders (Aussies vs. Kiwis) in sport like cricket and rugby
 Melbourne vs. Sydney (ongoing competition of which city is better)
Tajfel, H.; Billig, M. G.; Bundy, R. P. & Flament, C. (1971). Social categorization and intergroup behaviour.
European Journal of Social Psychology. 1 (2): 149–178. doi:10.1002/ejsp.2420010202.
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WHAT IS DISCRIMINATION?
When someone is being discriminated against, it means they’re being
treated badly or unfairly based on a personal characteristic. These
characteristics may include:
For example: George applies for a
• their gender
position with a construction
• if they have any kind of disability
company but doesn’t get the job.
When he calls the company’s
• their ethnicity
human resources manager to ask
• their age
why he wasn’t chosen, she tells
George: “We’ve employed people
• their religion
from your country before. You lot
• physical features
don’t share our work ethic.”
• their sexual preferences.
Sources: https://www.humanrightscommission.vic.gov.au/discrimination and https://au.reachout.com/articles/what-is-discrimination
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WHY DOES DISCRIMINATION HAPPEN?
 In the process of forming our social
identities, we compare in-group vs outgroup
 Members of the in-group will tend to:
• Favour in-group (prefer people from their group and
want to work with them)
• Maximise the differences between the two eg
comparing and distinguishing themselves as different
such as Liverpool FC Fans vs. Manchester United
• Minimise perception of differences between
in-group members – In-group believe that
everyone in their group is the same with
similar values.
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• This causes biasness and stereotyping to
occur
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Activity 1 - groups
How many social groups do you
belong to? Make a list.
Its quite surprising….
If Jane was going to do it: Australian, Generation Y, Brunette, Queenslander,
Christian, Traveler, Baker, Researcher, Dog Lov, the list goes on!
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Examples of social identity leading to discrimination in the workplace
• A male senior manager promotes the male supervisor who is less qualified
than the female supervisor as “she’s a woman”.
• A Jewish client requests for a new project manager as they are not Jewish
even though they are the most experienced and qualified person for the role
• A HR Manager hires someone because they come from the same Village and
parents are friends even though the person doesn’t have the right skills
• A manager never disciplines a particular worker for regularly being very late
to work as they are both Liverpool FC fans & he knows the lateness is due to
being up late watching the game on TV
• A 30 yr old manager never gives the worker who is 50 yr old the lead on any
projects even though they are the most experienced. The manager thinks
they are slow and do not understand technology due to “being old”
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Learning Objective 3
How do managers and organisations practise effective diversity and
inclusion?
487-490
Where to begin? From the start and keep being ongoing.
• Have effective workforce diversity practices and inclusion among staff
starts at the beginning when hiring staff.
• Recruitment: To improve workforce diversity, managers need to widen
their recruiting net. To increase diversity, managers should consider nontraditional recruitment sources, including women’s networks, training
centres for people with disabilities, and ethnic newspapers.
• Selection: Once a diverse set of applicants exists, managers must ensure
that the selection process does not discriminate.
• Orientation and training: Having a workforce made up of people with
different cultural backgrounds and unique experiences can enrich an
organisation, making it more innovative and competitive.
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MANAGING DIVERSITY: VOLUNTARY CORPORATE PRACTICES
There are many things organisations can do voluntarily. These mainly relate to
modifying policies and structures as most assume a male as the breadwinner.
• Recruitment (hiring people)
o ensure a panel representing both genders is used with non judgmental questions e.g.
don’t ask if the candidate has children or is married, don’t ask their religion or where
they grew up. If possible, have people of different ethnic backgrounds on the panel.
o Having special positions and initiatives to help increase representation of minorities in
the workforce e.g. Coles has their Indigenous Program where they recruit only
Indigenous Australians for certain roles providing extra training to help ensure their lack
of education doesn’t stop them being promoted to be a manager.
o Have targets of the number workers they want representing minority groups such as
disabilities, women or ethnic groups then advertise in appropriate ways eg flexicareers
website in Australia for skilled mothers wanting part time work.
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MANAGING DIVERSITY: VOLUNTARY CORPORATE PRACTICES cont…
Other initiatives:
• To identify what the organisations true Diversity is (or lack of) conduct
demographic, horizontal and vertical people audits
o Examples of this include auditing top managers to determine the ratio of men vs.
women in such positions; auditing the entire organisation by reviewing documents of
people’s stated gender and ethnicity to determine if targets are being reached; looking
at one level across the entire organisation e.g. all frontline workers to see if
representations of gender and ethnic groups matches society.
• Providing flexible working practices for all
o E.g. Allowing parents to start earlier and finish earlier so they can pick up children from
school; offering a working week in 4 days rather than 5 (working 10 hr days for 4 days
rather than 8hrs) so staff can have 3 day weekends; offering paid study leave for staff
who are studying while working.
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MANAGING DIVERSITY: VOLUNTARY CORPORATE PRACTICES cont…
Other initiatives:
• Enforcing parental leave for all (both men and women). This means when a
person has or adopts a baby they can have up to 12 months leave paid to look
after their child. Traditionally this would only be offered to women.
• Support mechanisms in place: extra training courses to help those from
disadvantaged backgrounds (e.g. couldn’t afford to go to university) to have
the same skills as their colleagues. This also applies to older workers who’s
qualifications become out of date as a result of new technology; counselling
services; religion support services such as prayer rooms or celebrations in the
workplace of different cultural celebrations e.g. Eid or Diwali.
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EXAMPLE: MONASH UNIVERSITY
Monash University offers parental leave for all (see the options above) but also several support mechanisms such
as job sharing (2 people doing the one job) when a parent returns to work and a room and time during the day to
breastfeed. The University also has onsite daycare facilities at some campuses.
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Diversity Training
Diversity training is one of the most common ways to manage inclusion, it normally
starts in orientation when a person is first hired. They will need to complete a compulsory
course. It should also be provided on an ongoing basis.
Training may include:
• Awareness of diversity issues in the workplace
• Tools to manage situations with recognition and respect e.g. teaching workers about different cultures
in the workplace and how to be respectful or understand the differences in behaviour
• Space to think and reflect on diversity at work
• Target particular group (e.g. upper management or future leaders)
For training to be effective it must:
• Challenge underlying biases/problems, rather than ‘sugar coat’. This can be hard to do as some
people may find it confronting or disrespectful or against their own personal values.
• Be relevant to ‘everyone’ meaning it doesn’t single out a particular group and can be understood by all.
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Making Decisions: Intuition
Test your knowledge
Video 2 on Moodle
Complete the quiz
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Learning Objective 3
The challenges associated with workforce diversity and inclusion
• Glass ceiling & bamboo ceiling
• Sexual harassment
• Work-life balance
• Gender pay gap
490-494
Limits on workers: Glass & Bamboo Ceiling
Glass ceiling:
• Refers to an imaginary ceiling
that represents that women
and other minority groups are
restricted in advancement.
• For this reason, senior
management of most
organisations significantly
underrepresents women and
other ethnic groups which are
not the dominant culture.
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Limits on workers: Glass & Bamboo Ceiling
Today:
- Glass ceiling term is used
more so to refer to women
- Bamboo ceiling is a term used
to represent the career
barriers faced by many Asians
in predominantly ‘white’
cultures. This has led to under
representation of Asians in
senior leaderships positions in
Western countries such as
Australia, USA and the UK.
Bamboo
Ceiling
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Limits on workers: Glass & Bamboo Ceiling
What can managers do to address these?
• As discussed earlier, have training specifically about these issues for senior
managers so they are aware but know how to address these
• Targets for women and minority ethnic groups for leadership positions
• Provide training courses for the targeted groups to ensure their skills are at
the same level as the main dominant group (e.g. in Australia this is generally
white males) so they are not disdvantaged with applying for the promotion
• Have special leadership development programs for the target groups
including mentoring, training & attending develoment courses
• Conduct audits to determine if the pay across all genders and ethnicities are
fair, equal and are alligned with performance. This requires transparent
policies to exist.
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Managing sexual harassment
• Sexual harassment is a serious issue in both public and private sector organisations.
Although most complaints are filed by women, men also can be victims of sexual
harassment.
• Sexual harassment is covered by both federal and state legislation, but it is difficult to
define it precisely.
• Sexual harassment generally encompasses sexually suggestive remarks, unwanted
touching and sexual advances, requests for sexual favours, and other verbal or physical
conduct of a sexual nature that affects an individual’s employment.
• For many organisations, it is the offensive or hostile environment issue that is
problematic. To avoid liability, organisations must establish a clear and strong policy
against sexual harassment. Organisations must also have in place a procedure for
employees to follow if they feel they have been sexually harassed. Finally,
organisations must investigate complaints or allegations of sexual harassment.
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Managing work-life balance
• Smart managers recognise that employees do not leave their families and personal lives
behind when they go to work. Organisations are becoming more attuned to the fact that
employees have sick children, elderly parents who need special care, and other family
issues that may require special arrangements. This is particularly occurring as a result of the
more diverse workforce.
• To accommodate their employees’ needs for work–life balance, many companies are
offering them family-friendly benefits that include a wide range of work and family
programs.
• These might include such benefits as flexitime, onsite child care, part-time employment,
job sharing, relocation programs, time off for school functions and parental leave.
• Work–family life conflicts are as relevant to male workers with children and women
without children as they are for female employees with children. Heavy workloads and
increased travel demands have made it hard for many employees to satisfactorily juggle
both work and personal responsibilities.
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CHALLENGES IN DIVERSITY
Global, local, organisational
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– Legislation may differ across different
national settings
– Managers faced with difficult decisions
when organisational beliefs clash with
cultural norms or even national legislation
– Also an issue for domestic
organisations is being sensitive whilst
maintaining fairness and equality for
all. For example, a male worker may
be disappointed that a position they
are interested in is only open for
female applicants.
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UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT
Fear of reverse discrimination
– Employees afraid that attempts to achieve greater diversity in their organisation will result in
reverse discrimination
– e.g. female being promoted over more qualified and experienced male
Resistance to diversity program priorities
– Employees see diversity programs as distracting from the organisation’s ‘real work’.
– Might be resentful of diversity-promoting policies that are reinforced through special
criteria in the organisation’s performance appraisals and reward systems.
– Workers don’t voluntarily go to International Women’s day event as they have a major
project due which is ‘more important’.
Unsupportive social atmosphere
– Diverse employees may be excluded from office camaraderie and social events.
– e.g. female employees aren’t always invited to ‘boy clubs’ events. An example of this in
Australia is a group of men from the office going out for beers then a football game.
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Learning Objective 4
Test your knowledge
Video 3 on Moodle:
Forbes Video
Complete the quiz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYOAPz4yJf8
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This week we have…..
• Learnt about what is workforce diversity including the associated
terms and what managing for inclusion means.
• Examined why discrimination happens in terms of social identify
theory e.g. in vs out groups
• Reviewed the legal requirements organisations have but also what
they can do voluntarily with changing policies and practices
• Discussed the challenges associated with workforce diversity and
managing for inclusion and how these can be addressed.
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