HANDBOOK OF PUBLIC
~4
ADMINISTRATION
Second Edition
James L. Perry, Editor
Jossey-Bass Publishers
San Francisco
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
REALIZING THE PROMISE OF DIVERSITY
Sonia M. Ospina
This chapter discusses the benefits of work force diversity for public sector organizations. It proposes an approach to diversity that takes into account the difficulties managers may face as organizations develop their work force. It also discusses some practical strategies for achieving diversity dilemmas related to meeting the diversity challenge, and lessons drawn from previous experiences in public sector organizations.
The promise of diversity in the workplace is to create an environment in which employees’ different identities and abilities are not only respected but also appreciated. Such an environment is conducive to motivating and rewarding high performance in all employees, regardless of social background. The approach proposed in this chapter invites managers to engage in four developmental tasks—considering, pursuing, managing, and maximizing diversity—to promote a shift from homogeneous to diverse organizations. This approach resembles an engineering project, where activities at each stage are meant to establish the foundation upon which future building blocks will rest. The particular conditions that exist in each organization define the types of strategies that will best fit each developmental task.
The chapter has four main sections. The first one defines work force diversity and discusses the mixed results of previous diversity efforts in the public sector (which point to the need to work harder on achieving this goal). The second section introduces and explains a proposed framework for moving toward diversity. The third section suggests strategies for developing each of the tasks in the framework, drawing illustrations from public sector experiences. The fourth section provides practical suggestions for change efforts centered on achieving diversity
Work Force Diversity: The Reality
The work force of any organization can be characterized by the degree of its individual, professional, and social diversity (Jackson and Hardiman, 1990). Individual diversity refers to variations in the internal predispositions of an organization’s employees. Professional diversity concerns various work-related attributes within an organization, such as occupations, organizational rank, and job functions. Both influence work relationships.
Nevertheless, work force diversity efforts in organizations focus primarily on social diversity This refers to variations in the characteristics that identify a person with a given “cultural” community Such a social identity typically stems from attributes such as age, race, ethnicity, gender, physical ability sexual orientation nationality and class. Secondary attributes that may also affect this identity include income, education, religious beliefs, lifestyle, marital status, military experience, geographical location, functional background, union status, and others (Loden and Rosener, 1991). Social identity involves both self-definition and attributes perceived by others (Cox, 1993).
The infinite combinations of these primary and secondary social attributes produce the particular “social types” that make up a given work force. In theory each employee is a unique individual worker that managers must attempt to optimize. In practice, however, some categories have become more relevant than others in defining who gets hired and who gets ahead. For historical reasons beyond the scope of this discussion, attributes like ethnicity race, and gender, among others, have become social “marks” that play a critical role in determining the place experience of entire groups in our society (Williams, 1990). For example many organizations entire job clusters are occupied by individuals with similar social traits that are unrelated to the job. This is what experts call occupation and job segregation. Job segregation often results in the assignment of posit, negative social value to particular jobs, which in turn affects their associated wards and working conditions (Tomaskovic-Devey, 1993; Ospina, forthcoming). For example, jobs occupied by a large proportion of white males tend to have
better salaries and promotion prospects than jobs occupied by women of color The resulting inequality creates obstacles to realizing the promise of diversity.
These practices are not the result of conspiracies against certain groups; they are the product of the fact that American workplaces were constructed around traditional values and the expectations of a homogeneous work force. Attitudinal, organizational and institutional changes are thus required to incorporate the needs and values of the wide variety of types of employees that makes up the contemporary work force (Gottfredson, 1992). This may also require developing strategies to eliminate situations that contribute to maintaining format or informal conditions of exclusion in identifiable organizational areas.
The most common social groups discussed in the diversity literature include women, people of color, individuals from ethnic or national groups (Gottfredson, 1992), gay men and lesbians (Gentile, 1994), older workers (Mayrand, 1992), physically challenged individuals (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 1992), employees with HIM or AIDS (Stone, 1994), and individuals with particular needs in areas as varied as family obligations (Merit Systems Protection Board, 1991) and religious mandates that affect their appearance or require dietary restrictions (Schachtei 1993).
The barriers encountered by these groups can be illustrated with metaphors that have become part of the everyday vocabulary of the workplace in both the public and private sectors: women may encounter the “glass ceiling” and people of color may face “career plateauing” as they approach the upper echelons of an organizational hierarchy; employees may experience “sticky floors” as they try to leave entry-level jobs. “Glass walls” may impede their movement between functional areas. Other images convey practices that affect individuals who face particular demands outside the workplace. An example is the so-called maternal wall and the much debated “mommy track,” which may also affect “modern” fathers who want to share family responsibilities at home. Individuals with disabilities and older workers may be confronted with “lazy physical environments” and “antigay” practices that reduce their chances for effective performance. For immigrant employees, there may very well be “accent ceilings,” and for gays and lesbians, implicit and explicit “homophobic climates.” These examples may not represent the only dimensions to consider in formulating a diversity agenda, but they do highlight groups who have traditionally experienced the effect of direct and indirect patterns of exclusion in the workplace and who presently question the traditional values embedded in organizational practices.
Managerial commitment to diversity is, however, less rooted in a desire to redress previous and present injustices than in a pragmatic acknowledgement that diversity makes good business sense -- in both the private and public sectors (Coleman, 1994; Morrison and Herihy, 1992). Managerial concerns for attracting and retaining a diverse work force stem from the confluence of three systemwide factors: the dramatic change in the demographic composition of the American work force; the societal trend to preserve and celebrate cultural differences and the value of multiculturalism; and changes in the nature of work (Johnson and Packei 1987; Thomas, 1993). Indeed, the globalization of the economy the shift from an industrial to an information-based society, and the shift from a manufacturing to a service economy have produced profound changes in today’s workplace Jackson and Alvarez, 1992). These circumstances highlight the relevance of the diversity challenge in the 1990s. The following list (drawn from Jackson and Holvino, 1988; Saltzstein, l989;Jackson, 1992; Cox, 1993; Thomas, 1993; Merit Systems Protection Board, 1993a, 1993b; Ferran, 1994; Gentile, 1994; and Gowing and Payne, 1992) provides an inventory of the benefits of diversity applied to public organizations. I have classified the benefits according to the nature of the gain. The list includes ethical benefits, legal and public policy benefits, human resource (HR) management benefits, and organizational benefits, supporting the assertion that work force diversity makes good management sense all around.
Ethical Benefits
Promotes fairness and justice in the workplace
Creates economic opportunity and reduces social inequality
Legal and Public Po1i~y Benefits
Ensures compliance with personnel-related legal requirements
Balances the government’s need for productive employees against the rights of employees as free citizens of a constitutional democracy
Increases representation and responsiveness in the bureaucracy
Increases the potential for grassroots support for agency prograam and policies
Human Resource Management Benefits
Increases competitiveness in HR acquisition: enhances organizations’ repi tion and ability to attract and keep the best employees
Reduces labor costs: reduces absenteeism, turnover, and employee dissat tion, resulting in improved delivery of services
Increases productivity and innovation: reduces “group think”; mmin liance on traditional problem-solving strategies; promotes creative and ative approaches
Increases internal capabilities: enhances organizations’ flexibility and ability to address change; promotes fluidity in organizational design, as broader pools of candidates are available to take varied assignments
Increases “marketing” advantages and responsiveness, as work force mirrors client population: extends organizational reach into more market niches (that is, new clients and services); enhances organizational insight and cultural sensitivity in addressing client needs and values
Decreases discrimination litigation
Increases organizational legitimacy due to enhanced reputation and higher effectiveness
Public sector organizations have fared better than private sector ones in their efforts to include diverse groups in their ranks. Studies indicate, for example, that proportional representation of particular groups has been achieved in many government bureaucracies. However, there is still a long way to go, as attention moves from mere representation to inclusion. Efforts to increase representation have occurred via formal Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and Affirmative Action (AA) policies. These have been helpful in opening the door, but they have not produced equality at all levels of the bureaucracy (Newman, 1994). For example, African Americans and women working in government are still over-represented in clerical and menial jobs and underrepresented in supervisor, managerial, and executive positions. They also tend to be clustered in certain occupations and agencies while being virtually excluded from others (Page, 1994; Lewis, 1994; Kim and Lewis, 1994). Moreover, fiscal difficulties in federal, state, and local governments have threatened AA gains in government employment because layoffs hit those with the least seniority hardest (Mathews, 1994).
Even the most aggressively enforced EEO and AA policies cannot affect institutionalized practices nor change organizational cultures that perpetuate traditional assumptions bred in the workplace of the past. Hence, these efforts alone will not produce work environments tat welcome, appreciate, and support employees from diverse backgrounds (Merit Systems Protection Board, 1993a). In addition to EEO and AA policies, public sector managers need other strategies to realize the benefits of work force diversity.
A Framework for Promoting Diversity
Work force diversity varies considerably from one organization to the next. Hence, a specific organizational diversity profile becomes the logical point of reference to
decide the characteristics and priorities of a diversity agenda. Cox (1993) has developed a classification of organizational “types” that can be very helpful in achieving this diagnosis.
Three Organizational Types
Organizations can be placed on a continuum ranging from totally homogeneous (monolithic) to mixed (plural) to diverse (multicultural). These points represent stages of development in the diversity agenda, according to an organization’s demographic composition and the consequent cultural dynamics. In organizations that are in, the first, most primitive stage of development, employees who do not fit a dominant social type are totally excluded or relegated to marginal or subordinate roles. Jackson and Hardiman (1990) further distinguish two additional phases within this first stage of development: in the “exclusionary” phase, differences are openly viewed as defects; in the “club” phase, by contrast, organization members reject open discrimination (although the formal and informal organizational structures are still dominated by a majority culture, and minorities are accepted only if they conform).
Plural organizations exhibit proportional representation of minority groups, but their culture and systems remain typified by the dominant group’s values. Jackson and Hardiman (1990) further distinguish “compliance” and “affirmative action” phases in this stage. in the first, decision makers take formal steps to reduce discrimination, usually through enforcement of AA and EEO regulations. While this allows individuals to enter the organization, inequality at each level of the hierarchy, as well as the culture that sustains it, remains untouched. In the latter phase, managers take a more active role in affirming a commitment to valuing and supporting minority members. These employees, however, continue to be evaluated according to the standards of the majority group.
In a multicultural organization, people of diverse backgrounds share privileges ~ and responsibilities equally at every organizational level and in every type of job. this (ideal) stage, the culture fosters and values differences; the process by which employees learn about organizational values and preferences espouses pluralism; organizational structures and systems facilitate integration, even at the level of in networks; HR managers actively target biases embedded in the HR system; are management makes a proactive effort to effectively address inter group conflict 1993).Jackson and Hardiman (1990) also break this organizational stage down further, into “redefining” and “multicultural” phases. In the former, the dominant cultural perspective gradually incorporates new values and practices. The latter represents the fully developed promise of diversity (still to be achieved). In the view of Jackson and Hardiman, a truly multicultural organization
Reflects the contributions and interests of diverse cultural and social groups in its mission, operations, and products or services
Creates mechanisms for inclusion of diverse groups as full participants at all levels, especially in decisions that shape the organization
Moving toward the last stage requires managerial commitment and an understanding of multiculturalisrn. In this type of organization, managers view the mix of employees as a mosaic, in contrast to the image of a melting pot or a salad bowl (Pomerleau, 1994). The shift toward a multicultural organization requires, in Pomerleau’s view an organizational world view that produces an increased degree of trust, mutually agreed upon processes for win-win conflict resolution, honest modes of communication, and the opening up of structures to facilitate responsiveness.
Four Managerial Tasks
Many diversity strategies fail because they are not integrated into a broader managerial approach that considers where the organization is and where it wants to be in the future. Such a diagnosis is required in order to design appropriate diversity strategies for each stage of organizational development. Indeed, moving from one stage to another requires at least four critical tasks. First, organizational stakeholders must become aware of the benefits of increased work force diversity Only ten can they engage in the second task, a serious pursuit of diversification in the workplace. Third, once a critical mass is available, the manager must find strategies to appropriately motivate, develop, and reward individual members of the diversified work force. The fourth task consists of ensuing that the added value gained by having a diverse workplace is maximized in relation to the organization’s strategic goals. Figure 25.1 presents an overview of these managerial tasks.
Managers may be tempted to work on the four tasks simultaneously It is, however, important to recognize that the first two tasks (considering and pursuing diversity) contribute to generating the right mix of employees required for the success of the next two tasks. In fact, the task of maximizing the value of a diverse workplace applies only in organizations where the cultural shift to embrace multicultural values has taken place.
Each of the managerial tasks involved in promoting diversity—considering, pursuing, managing, and maximizing diversity—requires a creative combination of strategies and tools. Defining tasks, developing strategies, and fashioning tools are, in turn, part of a continuous process. As an organization changes its profile, new strategies are added, and earlier ones are changed. For example, managers of an already diverse work force must sf11 monitor demographic changes In the labor market and reevaluate their strategies so as to pursue further diversity.
A truly multicultural organization may never be fully accomplished. Feedback loops at every stage suggest that managers’ diversity tasks may be as permanent as those proposed by the POSDCORB acronym from classic administration theory (referring to an administrator’s seven basic tasks: planning, organizing, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting, and budgeting) or those suggested by more modern managerial frameworks such as strategic planning and the management of innovation.
Realizing the Promise
To be effective, a diversity agenda must follow a systemic logic linked to an organization’s bottom line. Every diversity tool and activity must be chosen and implemented not only in reference to multiculturalism but also with the goal ofenhancing organizational performance. The following sections illustrate this concept for each of the four managerial tasks described above. Each section begins with an example of a diversity issue encountered in an actual workplace.
Considering Diversity: Strategies to Increase Awareness
In a large municipal agency whose female population represents only 14 percent of its work force of over fifty thousand, about a half dozen informal women’s groups have emerged.’ These groups address the frustrations of working in a historically male-dominated service delivery area where women face an unfriendly work environment. Recently the agency launched a formal initiative to create a women’s advisory council. While welcoming the idea, members of the grassroots women’s groups expressed general discomfort: they felt they had been excluded from the decision-making process used to create and design the new body The agency’s executive director then charged the EEO officer with addressing this concern. The EEO officer first performed a count of the informal women’s groups in the agency Isle then convened a meeting where representatives from each group discussed their needs and ideas.