DIVERSITY IS
AGE
RACE
GENDER
STATUS
INCOME
ABILITIES
EDUCATION
LIFESTYLES
MEMBERSHIPS
MARITAL STATUS
RELIGIOUS
BELIEFS
YOUNGSTOWN STATE UNIVERSITY
Brought to you by Managing Diversity Students
Globalization | Stereotyping | History | Acknowledgments | Informational Flyer
“Diversity” represents a new way to think.
Since the equal opportunity legislation of the 60s, affirmative action
programs have shaped our understanding of demographic differences. Those
programs are concerned with social justice towards particular groups of the
What
are diversity competencies?
Diversity skills include the ability to listen from someone else’s perspective. Diversity competence requires that a person can change how he or she thinks about a product or service, a work process, and about how the environment operates. To be competent, an organization needs to recognize that each person in the market and each employee have a unique background and a variety of identities. Each identity brings perspectives to the workplace. Having a competitive organization means recognizing this fact and capitalizing on it. Being wedded to particular processes or to one set of values inhibits an organization's abilities to think of and try new things, to relate to a variety of cultural and individual values and needs, and to create vision for itself. Interactions among employees, or between employees and members of the market, should be rooted in personal and organizational perspectives that define variations in identities and values as highly desirable. Such variations are not seen as problems or disagreements. Otherwise, the organization may communicate impatience or indifference to customers making new demands. It may miss opportunities.
How
does an organization benefit from diversity?
If
an organization recognizes that competing in today's economy means commitments
to more customized approaches to the market place, then it will learn that
homogeneity is deadly. When people
are the same, norms develop that create inertia and resistance to change.
Some values emerge which are presumed to be better than others.
Responsiveness declines. An
organization, committed to maximizing the relevance of the variety of talents
and perspectives available, adopts an approach that gives it several competitive
edges including the following: it
adopts a learning stance, it can view work and mission from multiple
perspectives, it listens to its customers and employees about those matters, and
it continuously renews its vision and identity. It then becomes an organization
whose members take a mission perspective and who can interface with people whose
perspectives and values are not the same as their own.
This enables a hospital, for example, to treat the full community
effectively. Such competencies enable a bank, for example, to provide products
and services that actually meet needs of different customers; and they permit a
university to attract and soundly educate a variety of different individuals
(e.g., working adults, graduates of urban and rural schools, new immigrants).
What kinds of differences are captured by the term, "diversity" as you use it?
Diversity includes the full range of talents, skills, identities, experiences and perspectives in a set of individuals. We differ not only by gender and race (terms often used in affirmative action discussions) but also by age, memberships (labor/ management), religion, social class backgrounds, sexual orientation, education, job experience, work history, and physical, mental and emotional capabilities. Each of us has multiple identities, not one. The perspective associated with each one of them is potentially a valuable asset to growing a firm and our valley's economy. Older experienced individuals have much to learn from the perspective of someone much younger, right out of school. Similarly, the new employee has much to learn from the older, experienced employee. Managers have much to learn from union members working on their factory floors, and union members have much to learn from managers. If we stifle difference, we lose the diversity advantage. White men are diverse; young women entering the labor force are diverse; welfare-to-work persons are diverse; college athletes are diverse. It is about treating each individual in terms of his or her own heritage, skills, values and goals.
What, then, is the goal from a diversity perspective?
The goal from the point of view of this perspective is to create a very competitive workplace in which each individual contributes to mission in ways that improve both the mission and the individual's competencies. Obviously, a firm cannot do this on its own. It requires a cultural change toward work. The goal is not agreement, consensus, uniformity, etc. This is not a "melting pot" perspective. The goal is to build an economy that thrives and provides for the well-being of citizens and their communities by appreciating the range of individual choices about their own cultural, religious, economic and social life roles. This requires a culture as promised in the earlier days of this country--a culture in which individuals enjoy freedom of values and culture while participating in the larger economic and political life of our country.
Diversity
initiatives are not directly programs aimed at reducing racism.
However, a good diversity program should enable individuals to recognize
that racism is not good for the economy or the community.
It should also create a culture that is more responsive to initiatives
and information directed at improving social justice issues related to racism.
Diversity programs tend not to compare people using the experience of
Euro-American as the norm or standard. They
do not tend to stereotype races by social class, and they do not use racial
identity as a "master" status. In
the
