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An online monthly research publication by the Ivey Business School
Volume 13, Number 9: Supplement
September 2007
Diversity in the
Workplace
Click here to download audio/visual
presentation.
Click here to listen to the Q&A.
Many companies have
had diversity initiatives for years. So, have
they done all there is to do? Are Canadian
companies doing enough to show that they truly
value equality in the workplace?
Alison Konrad, a professor of Organizational
Behaviour at the Richard Ivey School of
Business, says some companies have made
progress, while others continue to waste human
capital and lose out on an excellent source of
knowledge, networks and ideas.
In this Q&A, she
outlines the urgency for a more diverse
workplace and why appointing a “head of
diversity” often works. Ashleigh Murphy met with
Professor Konrad and asked her what happens when
new immigrants don’t feel welcomed in their
jobs.
A. One of
the important results is a waste of human
capital because people end up being
under-employed. By that I mean people are
employed in a job that doesn’t even come close
to using their skills and abilities. Research by
Joerg Dietz here at Ivey has shown that the
skills of immigrants are likely to be discounted
by Canadians. And that means that we tend to
underestimate their ability to contribute to our
organizations. So that’s one loss.
Another loss is a
lack of access to knowledge, networks, and new
ideas. Immigrants are a great source of contacts
in other countries as well as knowledge about
how those countries do business. We are losing
all of this information when we don’t employ
immigrants at a level commensurate with their
qualifications.
Finally,
underemployment leads to disenchantment with
Canada and that influences the next generation.
Sadly, recent research by Reitz and Banerjee out
of the University of Toronto showed that the
children of immigrants who are visible
minorities are considerably less well integrated
into Canadian society than their white
counterparts are.
Q. Can you
talk about little bit about the differences
between the experience of white immigrants in
Canadian workplaces compared to visible
minorities?
A. I would
say the main thing that comes out for me is the
ideas. People find that their ideas are not
listened to as well in organizations. Ideas
coming from an immigrant who has different
personal experiences and a different perspective
sound really different and sometimes peculiar to
those of us in the white majority. And people
react negatively to ideas that sound peculiar to
them. Perhaps the ideas don’t resonate with our
more monolithic background and experiences;
perhaps the ideas are based on different
assumptions and worldviews; and also the ideas
that come from immigrants working in other
countries they are untried in the organization,
and so, the new person cannot point to a track
record showing that idea has worked in Canada,
and that’s part of the skills discounting also.
I’ve had more than
one person tell me that after experiencing the
skepticism of their colleagues, their Canadian
colleagues, they just eventually just stay quiet
and don’t share their knowledge and ideas with
the organization anymore, and that’s not good
for Canadian business.
Q. How does
the aging of Canada’s population intensify the
need to incorporate visible minorities into
employment?
A. It’s very
important as the Baby Boom generation retires in
the next several years, there will not be enough
native-born Canadians to fill the vacancies that
they leave. That means we will have a labor
shortage, especially in skilled occupations and
professions.
As the large Baby
Boom generation starts drawing out pensions and
utilizing the healthcare services at a higher
rate, that everybody does as they age, we will
need a robust cohort of younger workers to pay
their payroll taxes in order to fund the needs
of us in the Baby Boom generation.
Deb Matthews did a
study where she projected the future populations
of 26 cities in Ontario. She found that cities
with higher than average rates of immigration
grew vibrantly, while cities with lower than
average rates of immigration are projected to
decline by 2050, some of them quite
dramatically. So, we need to integrate
immigrants to keep our cities strong too.
Q. Do we
still need diversity initiatives? Or is this
something that has already been done?
A. What I’ve
found is leading Canadian organizations no
longer view diversity initiatives as “a project
that has already been done.” I’ve found that the
more a company has done and advanced in the area
of diversity, the more humble it is about the
progress that they have made.
Real leaders, who have actually taken
substantive action in the area of diversity,
know how difficult it is to eliminate barriers
in the organization, and they’ll tell me that
the more they learn, the more they realize they
don’t know.
Q. Do
diversity initiatives amount to reverse
discrimination?
A. I’m glad
you asked that question because it’s a very
common one and people don’t always want to ask
it. Diversity initiatives are about removing
barriers to equal participation by groups that
have historically been denied opportunities in
Canada.
Some of the
barriers that continue to be identified in
Canadian organizations include lack of inclusion
in informal networks, lack of access to high
visibility assignments, lack of mentoring, and
the feeling that people being held to a higher
standard of performance compared to their white
male counterparts.
Removing these
barriers is not reverse discrimination. It is
leveling the playing field so that all
demographic and cultural groups have the same
opportunity to compete on the basis of merit.
Q. How can
managers change the mind of people within
companies who respond by saying something like,
“I've never heard any complaints, so why do we
need to do anything?”
A. My view
on this is that feedback on diversity issues is
a gift, and organizations that are willing to
listen to it can learn things that put them
ahead of the competition. People only give you
that gift if they trust you to respond in a
meaningful way. Most of the time when people
encounter a situation they believe to be
discriminatory, they say nothing to management.
But that doesn’t mean there is no problem.
The reason people
don’t raise these issues is because the first
response many people often get is that the
listener tells them they must be wrong. [They
say something like,] “It’s not really a
diversity issue, there is an alternative
explanation for what happened, you are really
misinterpreting the event.” That kind of
response is really not helpful and it turns
people off and they won’t ever talk to you
again. It is true, sometimes people do
misinterpret things, on all sides; however, the
best leaders are capable of listening really
openly when people raise diversity issues to
make sure that they are considering multiple
perspectives, and not just their own.
Q. What are
a few key things that companies and managers can
do to improve diversity?
A. Research
has supported the effectiveness of having a
“head of diversity” position in the company as
well as a diversity council comprised of senior
line managers. These structures hold people
accountable for diversity, with the result that
the organization employs a more diverse set of
workers and managers.
Research has also
shown that employee network groups are effective
for attracting and retaining people to the
organization. Being able to network with members
of the same cultural or demographic group is
very valuable for people to identify strategies
to be successful in the organization. One really
great example is a large bank in Canada that has
developed an aboriginal network group. The
network members help each other interpret events
that happen to them at work and help each other
identify ways to work effectively with their
supervisors and colleagues who are not
aboriginal themselves. And they say that the
network group is absolutely critical to why they
stay employed at the bank as opposed to leaving.
Finally, research
has shown that mentoring programs are very
useful for career development and satisfaction
of a diverse workforce. A new study by Catalyst
showed that visible minorities were
significantly more satisfied with the career
opportunities in their organizations if they had
access to mentoring.
That was Alison
Konrad, Professor of Organizational Behaviour at
the Richard Ivey School of Business.
Professor
Konrad's Homepage
Impact Vol. 13 No.
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