The challenge of managing diversity in the workplace: corporate America is responding to the changing demographics of the work force with a variety of diversity management programs - Special Advertising Section

Black Enterprise, July, 1993

America's work force is changing -and changing rapidly. By the year 2000, it's expected that only one in seven new employees will be a white male. And as more minorities and women join the work force and the population ages, it will be the companies that manage diversity well who will come out ahead in tomorrow's highly competitive environment.

The old way was to assimilate diversity - to expect people to hide or adapt their cultural differences so they fitted the mold of the company's dominant culture. The new way is to treat diversity as an asset that brings a broad range of viewpoints and problem-solving skills to the company. Good diversity management frees employees of the need to assimilate and play it safe, and encourages them to develop their strengths and present innovative ideas.

Diversity management is very much a long-term process. It means taking a long look at the company's current culture and changing those parts of it that limit cultural diversity. It means recruiting new employees for the skills they can bring to the company rather than their cultural homogeneity. And it means working with people in management to help them understand that cultural diversity is a business issue and that their own careers will benefit from enabling their employees to reach their full potential.

Changes like these have to come from very high in the organization. "You have to reach the people who normally never get touched when these interventions take place," says Ben Harrison, of Ben Harrison Associates Inc. in Oakland. Ironically, it's the members of the "white male club" he says, who are most important in managing workplace diversity. "The changes in the demographics are not yet power shifts. White males still control the resources, and they are probably the most misinformed group, and also the group that carries the most fear. The reports refer to them as the |new minority,' something they've never been before. And the reason they fear things is that no one has explained to them the importance of their involvement."

Elsie Y. Cross, of Elsie Y. Cross Associates Inc., agrees. "Twenty years ago, discrimination was the norm," she says. "And it's still built into the fiber of most companies. Changes have to start with the CEO. He (and it's always a |he') has to understand that this is a business issue. If he invested in new machinery, he would expect to spend time and money teaching people how to use it. Well, he's now dealing with a heterogeneous work force instead of a homogeneous one, and people need to be taught to work with it."

How do you reach CEOs with the diversity message? "By talking about the business bottom line," says Harrison. "If the demographic reports tell us we are going to be faced with an abundance of less educated employees, then as the CEO, I want to be sure that I'm going to get the most talented people to come and work for my company. I have to position my organization to become an employer of choice. The reason they want to come to work here is that we value human resource differences, we manage diversity, we take care of the quality of work life for our employees."

This won't happen overnight; it can be done, however, and it can be done well. Towers Perrin conducted surveys of 200 organizations in March 1990 and October 1991, producing a report titled Workforce 2000 Today: A Bottom-Line Concern. According to this report, 54% of respondents (senior human resource managers) said that management support for work force-related programs had increased over the last two years - recession and economic woes notwithstanding. Two factors were the leading contributors: 95% attributed the increased support to greater senior management awareness, and 89% acknowledged the need to attract and retain a skilled work force.

Workforce 2000 Today also showed that many companies are finally waking up to the need for change. By 1991, when the second survey was taken, issues of cultural diversity and women in the work force were becoming increasingly important in decision-making and strategic planning - especially strategic planning. Sixty percent said management viewed diversity as an asset, not as a problem.

The surveys have revealed some demographic changes that are reshaping the work force and marketplace in this country. They include:

* An increase in the number of minorities and immigrants in the labor pool.

* A surge in the number of women in the work force.

* A shift in values, with more workers putting loyalty to career ahead of loyalty to company, and seeking more balance between work and home life.

* Illiteracy on the rise at a time when many jobs require a more skilled work force.

* An aging population overall, with more senior citizens who no longer contribute to the economy because they are encouraged to retire while they are still active and healthy.

Ben Harrison questions the reliability of the 60% who said management viewed diversity as an asset. "In my work, most managers haven't even a clue as to what diversity means," he says, "let alone to say whether it's a liability or an asset. When they hear |workplace diversity,' most people believe you're talking about equal employment opportunity and affirmative action. But the management of diversity - and the focus here is on management - is just that. It's about operations and procedures, and policies. You are managing the diverse needs of your employees, not their cultural differences. Diverse, yet very common needs, such as child care, flextime, working at home, leave to take care of elderly parents, paternity leave as well as maternity leave. Those needs are in the workplace, and it has nothing to do with a person's cultural difference."