Lecture Business and society: Stakeholders, ethics, public policy (14/e): Chapter 17 - Anne Lawrence, James Weber

Chapter 17 - Managing a diverse workforce. After studying this chapter you will be able to understand: Knowing in what ways the workforce of the United States is diverse, and evaluating how it might change in the future; understanding where women and persons of color work, how much they are paid, and the roles they play as managers and business owners; identifying the role government plays in securing equal employment opportunity for historically disadvantaged groups, and debating whether or not affirmative action is an effective strategy for promoting equal opportunity;…

Managing a Diverse Workforce

Chapter 17

Ch 17 Key Learning Objectives

 Knowing in what ways the workforce of the United States is

diverse, and evaluating how it might change in the future

 Understanding where women and persons of color work,

how much they are paid, and the roles they play as

managers and business owners

 Identifying the role government plays in securing equal

employment opportunity for historically disadvantaged

groups, and debating whether or not affirmative action is an

effective strategy for promoting equal opportunity

 Assessing the ways diversity confers a competitive

advantage

 Formulating how companies can best manage workforce

diversity, making the workplace welcoming, fair, and

accommodating to all employees

 Understanding what policies and practices are most effective

The Changing Face of the Workforce

 Diversity – Refers to variation in the important human

characteristics that distinguish people from one

another

 Primary dimensions: age, ethnicity, gender, mental or

physical abilities, race, sexual orientation

 Secondary dimensions: such characteristics as

communication style, family status and first language

 Workforce diversity: diversity among employees of a

business or organization

The Changing Face of the Workforce

 Today, the U.S workforce is as diverse as it ever has

been, and it is becoming even more so Consider the

following workforce diversity trends:

 More women are working than ever before

 Immigration has profoundly reshaped the workplace

 Ethnic and racial diversity is increasing

 The workforce will continue to get older

 Millennials are entering the workforce

Gender and Race in the Workplace

 Following World War II, the proportion of women

working outside the home has risen dramatically

 Most dramatic increases have been married women, mothers

of young children, and middle-class women

 Increase in professional, technical and service jobs produced

“demand-side” pull for women into the labor force

 Labor force rates for minorities have always been high

 Change is that wider range of jobs are available to minorities

as discrimination barriers have fallen

Figure 17.1

Proportion of Women and Men in the Labor Force

1950-2010

The Gender and Racial Pay Gap

 Pay gap – Women and persons of color on average

receive lower pay than white men do

 Gap has narrowed over the past 3 decades

 Still, in 2010 black men still earned only slightly more than

three quarters of white men’s pay; black women earned ‑about 70 percent, and white women 81 percent

Figure 17.2

The Gender and Race Pay Gap 1990-2010

The Gender Pay Gap

 Reasons for pay gap

 Some believe is evidence of sexual discrimination

 Some believe is women’s choices in pursuing lower paying jobs or slower advancement

 Others believe occupational segregation is occurring

• Inequitable concentration of a group in certain job categories

 Women have made great strides in entering professional occupations, however “pink collar ghetto” still exists

• Examples include preschool teachers and secretaries

Women and Persons of Color in

Management

 Women have broken into management ranks

 Tends to be, however, in occupations where women are

numerous like education and health care

 Only a very few women or persons of color have

achieved highest positions in corporate America

 Although women and minorities are as competent as white men

in managing people and organizations, they rarely attain the highest positions in corporations

The Glass Ceiling

 Invisible barrier that exists in reaching these higher levels has been named the glass ceiling

 Reasons for the glass ceiling:

 Glass walls – fewer opportunities to move into positions that lead

to the top; many women and minorities start in staff rather than line positions

 Recruiters fill positions by word of mouth and is still “old boys

network”

 Recent advances show some cracking of the ceiling

Figure 17.3

Extent of Diversity in Selected Management Occupations

Women and Minority Business

Ownership

 Some women and minorities have chosen to avoid the

glass ceiling by opening up their own businesses

 2010, 40% of over 10 million U.S businesses were

owned or controlled by women

 Although most female-headed firms are small, collectively they

employed over 13 million people in the United States and

generate $1.9 trillion in sales

Women and Minority Business

Ownership

 According to the Small Business Administration, there

were around 5.8 million minority-owned businesses in

the United States in 2007

 Hispanic-owned businesses were the most numerous,

followed by African-American and Asian-owned businesses

 Immigrants were responsible for a good share of the

entrepreneurial spirit in the minority community; immigrants are nearly 30 percent more likely to start a business than are non-immigrants

Equal Employment Opportunity

 Government involvement in securing equal

employment for all began in the 1960s on a large

scale

 Is defined as discrimination based on race, color,

religion, sex, national origin, physical or mental

disability, or age

 In U.S is prohibited in all employment practices

 Government contractors must have written affirmative action

plans detailing how they are working positively to overcome past and present effects of discrimination in their workforce

Major Federal Laws and Executive Orders Prohibiting Job Discrimination

Figure 17.4

Affirmative Action

 Since mid-1960s, government contractors been

required to have affirmative action plans

 Purpose to reduce job discrimination by encouraging

companies to take positive steps to overcome past discriminatory employment practices

 Affirmative action became increasingly controversial

in the 1990s and 2000s

 Some states passed laws banning it in public hiring

 Opponents cite possibility of reverse discrimination

 Some women and persons of color called for less

Sexual Harassment

 Occurs at work when:

 Any employee, woman or man, experiences repeated,

unwanted sexual attention or

 When on the job conditions are hostile or threatening in a ‑ ‑

sexual way

 It includes both physical conduct—for example, suggestive

touching—as well as verbal harassment, such as sexual innuendoes, jokes, or propositions

 It can also occur if a company’s work climate is blatantly and

offensively sexual or intimidating to employees

 Is illegal and U.S EEOC is empowered to sue on behalf of

victims

 E.U recognized sexual harassment as a form of gender

discrimination in 2002, required its member states to bring

Racial Harassment

 Is also illegal, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act

 Under EEOC guidelines, ethnic slurs, derogatory

comments, or other verbal or physical harassment

based on race are against the law, if they create an

intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment

or interfere with an individual's work performance

Preventing Sexual and Racial

Harassment

 In 1998, the Supreme Court ruled that companies

could deflect lawsuits by taking two steps:

 Develop a zero-tolerance policy on harassment and

communicate it clearly to employees

 Establish a complaint procedure—including ways to report

incidents without retaliation—and act quickly to resolve any problems

 In addition, stated that companies that took such steps

would be protected from suits by employees who claimed harassment but had failed to use the complaint procedure

Diversity Policies and Practices

 Well run companies go beyond required legal

actions to welcome employees of all backgrounds

 Actions taken by companies to manage diversity

effectively:

 They articulate a clear diversity mission, set quantitative

objectives, and hold managers accountable

 They spread a wide net in recruitment, to find the most

diverse possible pool of qualified candidates

 They identify promising women and persons of color, and

provide them with mentors and other kinds of support

Strategic Advantages of

Managing Diversity Effectively

 Companies that promote equal employment opportunity

generally do better at attracting and retaining workers from all

backgrounds

 Businesses with employees from varied backgrounds can

often more effectively serve customers who are themselves

diverse

 The global marketplace demands a workforce with language

skills, cultural sensitivity, and awareness of national and

other differences across markets

 Companies with effective diversity programs can avoid costly

lawsuits and damage to their corporate reputations from

Balancing Work and Life

 Changing demographics, including increasing

number of dual income families, have led people to

adopt wide range of strategies for combining full and

part-time work with the care of children, elderly

relatives, and other dependents

 Helping “make it work” for employees trying to

balance the complex, multiple demands of work and

family life has became a major business challenge

Child Care and Elder Care

 Types of programs companies are offering:

 Child Care

 Elder Care

 Parental and family leave

 Work flexibility

 Benefits to non-traditional families

 Some employees have been reluctant to take

advantage of work flexibility options, for fear of being

labeled “mommy track” or “daddy track”

 A shift in corporate cultures is needed to truly become a

“family friendly” company where men and women are fully supported in their efforts to balance work and family

Domestic Partner Benefits

 Many corporations in the United States have begun to

acknowledge differences in employee sexual orientation and gender identity Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender

employees have become a vocal minority, winning important victories in the workplace

 A 2012 report by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation

found that 86 percent of the Fortune 500 companies included sexual orientation in their non-discrimination policy, and 60 percent provided health benefits to domestic partners and same-sex spouses

 Lotus Development was the first major employer to offer

spousal benefits to same sex partners; it was followed by many ‑others, including AT&T, Chase Manhattan, Microsoft, United Airlines, and the Big Three automakers

 Other steps companies have taken to support their homosexual

Exhibit 17.C