Workplace Diversity: Things are ChangingIndividuals who work in organizations differ in many ways. They hold different jobs, have different work experiences, and have different demographic or cultural characteristics (e.g., age, race, sex, and citizenship). All of these differences create diversity in organizations. The increasing diversity of the workforce in Canada is evident in the following statistics:
Changes of this magnitude simply cannot be ignored by Canadian business firms, non-profit organizations, and government agencies. And some organizations are, in fact, doing a good job of responding to the shifting demographics of the Canadian scene. Mediacorp recognizes these organizations by publishing an annual listing of the top diversity employers in Canada. The listing assesses the extent to which companies have employment initiatives that address the needs of five groups: women, visible minorities, disabled people, aboriginals, and gays/lesbians. The 2009 list shows which organizations scored well in helping members of the five groups (the list below is illustrative, not exhaustive):
Various other organizations are also taking steps to deal with the challenges and opportunities that come with rapidly changing demographics. They include Procter & Gamble, Western Union, Bayer Canada, Sun Life Financial, and Enbridge Gas Distribution. Procter & Gamble Thirty years ago, P & G was like a lot of other Canadian companies, that is, most of its employees were white males. But that’s changing rapidly. The company organized a major social gathering to celebrate the diverse nature of the 800 people who work at P & G’s Toronto head office (employees come from 40 different countries and speak at least 30 different languages). But the event wasn’t just for fun. Like other companies, P & G has learned that employees are more productive when their differences are respected in the work environment. And that translates into increased corporate success. Since the top management ranks of P & G are still predominantly white male, the company has set a strategic goal to diversify its work force. P & G thinks that a diverse workforce also helps the company market its well-known brands such as Pampers, Crest, Tide, Mr. Clean, etc. to a diverse group of consumers. And the Statistics Canada report noted above clearly shows that Canadian consumers are becoming more diverse at a dizzying pace. As consumer demographics change, it is important to get more diverse people involved in making marketing decisions. The president of P & G Canada says that a diverse workforce enriches everyone in the company because they are exposed to other cultures. Having diversity among employees also gives P & G a better understanding of its customers. There are multiple “affinity groups” at P & G, such as the Women’s Leadership Council, the French Canadian Network, the Asian Professional Network, the Christian Network, and the Jewish Network. The goal of these networks is to help employees feel comfortable about participating in corporate life, and to act as resource groups for employees who want to learn how to reach certain specific markets. Western Union Western Union is another company that is focusing on diversity, and it may be further along than most companies given the nature of its business: moving money overseas to the families of new Canadians who are working here and want to help their families back in their home country. The potential customers of Western Union are not easily reached by traditional marketing methods, so the company hires people who speak the language of their target market and who know what it feels like to be an immigrant in Canada. When recruiting new employees, Western Union does not demand “Canadian experience” as many other companies do. Rather, the company wants employees with international experience because of the nature of the company’s business. After Western Union hires these people, they seek out local business operators to act as Western Union agents for their own ethnic community. Marketing Manager Marco Amoranto is typical of the kind of employees that are hired at Western Union. He was born in the Philippines and originally worked for Colgate-Palmolive. He wanted to work in Canada but had trouble landing a job because he didn’t have Canadian experience. At Western Union, he is responsible for marketing to Asians and Europeans. The Western Union approach has yielded some interesting benefits. In one area of Toronto, for example, customers who wanted to transfer money back to the Philippines got a free loaf of Pan de Sel bread from a local Filipino baker. Thus, the results were positive for Western Union, its customers, and the baker. Western Union also brings in entertainers from its customers’ home countries and then gives these customers free tickets to the concerts. Bayer Canada Each year, Bayer Canada has a Diversity Day which showcases the various cultures that are represented at the company. Suzanne Wan began her career with Bayer in Hong Kong and moved to the company’s Mississauga, Ontario location in 1988. She says that businesses benefit from being open to the differing opinions and ideas that are suggested by people from different cultures. Sun Life Financial Sun Life Financial Inc. sometimes hires people even before they enter Canada. It recruits them through foreign embassies where potential immigrants go to apply to enter Canada. Sonia Del Rosario, for example, was hired through the embassy in her native Philippines. She was offered the opportunity to work in financial services in her native language with Canadian customers who originally came from the Philippines. Enbridge Gas Distribution Enbridge Gas Distribution tries to put new Canadians at ease when they interview for positions by giving them interview questions an hour early so they can spend extra time preparing their answers. The company does this because new Canadians may be anxious about their verbal English skills. It’s not just companies that are trying to benefit from diversity. David Cohen is an immigration lawyer who has set up a website called Loon Lounge which helps potential immigrants to Canada connect with workers from their hometown area who are already working in Canada. So, for example, people from Nigeria can put their profiles on the site and find other people from their hometown. That may facilitate their entrance into Canada to work. Canadian cities are doing similar things. The city of Halifax launched a program to help immigrants get connected. Professionals from 40 different companies volunteer to meet with newcomers to offer advice and answer questions. Questions for Discussion
Sources: “The Top 35 Best Diversity Employers,” February 19, 2009, www.thestar.com/Business/article/589497; “Survey Reveals Global Gender Gap,” www.spiegel.de/internatonal/world/0,1518,589955,00.html, accessed February 3, 2009; Tavia Grant, “Wading Into the Talent Pool,” The Globe and Mail, January 26, 2009, p. E5; Deirdre Kelly, “New Faces, New Customers,” The Globe and Mail, January 26, 2009, p. E3; Sandra Rubin, “What Will it Take to Crack the Glass Ceiling?,” The Globe and Mail, December 17, 2008, p. B8; “World Economic forum Gender Gap Index,” November 13, 2008, www.crrc-caucasus.blogspot.com/2008/11/world-economic-forum-gender-gap-index.html; Carly Weeks, “Canada Plunges by 13 Spots in Gender Gap Index,” The Globe and Mail, November 13, 2008, p. L1; Wallace Immen, “One More Gap in Pay Between Men and Women,” The Globe and Mail, August 15, 2008, p. C1; Meagan Fitzpatrick, “Women Still Earning Less than Men: Statistics Canada,” Winnipeg Free Press, May 2, 2008, p. A5; Konrad Yakabuski, “Meet the New Leading Lady of Finance,” The Globe and Mail, March 27, 2008, pp. B1-B2; “Women Less Likely to Aspire to Top Corporate Positions,” Hudson Canada, www.hudson.com/node.asp?kwd=03-06-08-women-survey; Rudy Mezzetta, “Banks, Credit Unions Put Women in Top Spots,” Investment Executive, February, 2008; Matthew McClearn, “Mind the Gap,” Canadian Business, November 5, 2007, pp. 21-22; Margaret Wente, “It’s Manly at the Top,” The Globe and Mail, May 7, 2005, p. A21; Virginia Galt, “P & G Leverages its Cultural Diversity,” The Globe and Mail, April 7, 2005, pp. B1, B18; Jill Mahoney, “Visible Majority by 2017,” The Globe and Mail, March 23, 2005, pp. A1, A7; Virginia Galt, “Western Union Remakes ‘Canadian’ Image,” The Globe and Mail, November 23, 2004, pp. B1, B24; Valerie Marchant,” The New Face of Work, Canadian Business, March 29, 2004, p. 38; Janet McFarland, “Women Still Find Slow Rise to Power Positions,” The Globe and Mail, March 13, 2003, pp. B1, B7; Virginia Galt, “Top Women Still Finding Barriers,” The Globe and Mail, September 25, 2002, p. B7; Marie Drolet, “The Male-Female Wage Gap,” Perspectives on Labour and Income, the Online Edition, December , 2001, www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/75-001-XIE/01201/hi-fs_200112_01_a.html; Elizabeth Church, “Women Still Shut Out of Many Top Posts,” The Globe and Mail, February 10, 2000, p. B15; Belle Rose Ragins, “Gender Gap in the Executive Suite: CEO’s and Female Executives Report on Breaking the Glass Ceiling,” Academy of Management Executive, February, 1998, pp. 28-42; Greg Keenan, “Ford Canada Gets New CEO,” The Globe and Mail, April 9, 1997, p. B1; Greg Keenan and Janet McFarland, “The Boys’ Club,” The Globe and Mail, September 27, 1997, pp. B1, B5; Greg Keenan, “Woman at the Wheel,“ The Globe and Mail, July 8, 1995, pp. B1, B6. Answers to Questions for Discussion
Some of the advantages of workforce diversity are described in the “Managing Workforce Diversity” exercise on p. 165. That exercise, which focuses on decision making, notes that managers who tap into the ideas of diverse employees are likely to make more effective decisions because diverse employees provide a wider range of perspectives on problems, offer different interpretations on how problems are defined, and may be open to new ways of doing things. Overall, getting opinions from employees increases the chance that decisions will be creative and unique. Some disadvantages of diversity are noted in the “Managing Workforce Diversity” feature on p. 457 of the text. That exercise, which focuses on work teams, makes the point that communication may be inhibited if language differences are significant. As well, the lack of a common perspective among people from diverse backgrounds usually means that more time must be spent discussing issues, so decision making time is lengthened. It may also be more difficult to make a decision, even if extra time is allocated. Overall, however, the benefits of diversity outweigh the costs. The “Managing Workforce Diversity” exercise on p. 457 of the text provides several suggestions for managing a diverse work team, including (a) understanding and accepting that differences exist among team members, (b) empathizing with the perspectives of others, (c) being tolerant and allowing team members to be themselves, and (d) engaging in two-way communication in order to understand the needs of various team members. The most fundamental issue to address is whether motivation theories that were developed during the past 50 years in North America can be used to motivate individuals who have come to North America from a much different culture. For example, individualism is a key cultural characteristic of both the U.S. and Canada. But Hofstedt’s research (see Chapter 3) shows that individualism is not nearly as important in some other cultures. Other factors like power distance and uncertainty avoidance also differ, and these factors can significantly impact the workability of motivation theories. Consider a specific example: Maslow’s hierarchy proposes that as people satisfy lower-level needs like security, higher-level needs like self-actualization emerge. That sounds intuitively plausible for North America, but in cultures where uncertainty avoidance is strong, the need for security may be continuing and dominant, not simply a lower-level need that ceases to motivate when it is largely satisfied. The implications for other motivation theories are described on pp. 416-417 of the text. It should also be pointed out that while various differences are evident across cultures, there are also similarities. For example, the desire for interesting work seems to be a common need of most people, irrespective of the culture they come from. Also, during the past couple of decades, many individuals in developing economies have become (or perhaps have always been) extremely interested in increasing their standard of living, and that is evidence that materialism (the emphasis on acquiring physical goods) is also a need that is found in many cultures. Both of these needs make it easier to apply motivation theories that have been developed in North America to people from diverse cultures. Many students will agree with this statement because it looks plausible. They will likely say that when people have a lot in common (demographics, values, cultural background, racial background) they will be more efficient in dealing with others because they don’t have to waste a lot of time finding out what other people like and don’t like. There will also be less conflict between people. They may give an example where, say, all the people in a work group are between 50 and 60. The people in such a group would have a lot in common and there may be much tacit agreement about how things should work and what is important. No time is taken up in debate and everyone just does their job. They might contrast that with a group that has both young and old workers in it and point out that these two sub-groups may have little in common. Other students may be influenced by what they have read about the benefits of a diverse workforce and therefore disagree with the statement. They will make some of the same points that are made in question #1 above about the advantages of a diverse workforce. They will point out that members of homogeneous work groups also have conflicts about a variety of work-related matters, so having a homogeneous workforce is no particular advantage. Still other students will say that we cannot make a simple “agree” or “disagree” decision regarding the statement. Those who take that position are essentially arguing for a contingency perspective on diversity. (For a description of some interesting research findings regarding the impact of diversity on performance, see Nancy Langton and Stephen Robbins, Organizational Behaviour. Toronto: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007, pp. 222-225.) posted on June 08, 2009 |
LinksRecent PostsSearch |
