Diversity in the Workforce

Even though there are cries of undeserved and unfair advantages as well as reverse discrimination when discussions of diversity and inclusion arise, most Americans understand the value of diversity and equity in the workplace and education. That being said, diversity and inclusion are rarely ever business priorities. However, not only do workforce diversity and inclusion improve work quality, create an environment with higher employee engagement, foster the creation of innovative ideas because of the talent collected with a myriad of backgrounds, they support organizations’ growth and profits and improve competitiveness. As a result, striving for a diverse and inclusive workforce should be a much higher priority than it is today.

The Cost Effectiveness of Diversity

There are long-term cost savings benefits from obtaining diversity and inclusion in the workplace. “The turnover rate for [Black people] in the US workforce is 40 percent higher than the rate for Whites, and turnover among women is twice as high as for men.” Companies spend sizeable amounts of money in recruiting, staffing, and training new hires. Additionally, women and non-White men have higher absenteeism rates that can be costly to companies; and sexual, race, as well as age discrimination lawsuits are rising against companies. Black people and women typically leave their jobs because they feel there is a lack of career growth, they are subject to negative biases, they are not being tasked with challenging assignments, and their ideas are not as appreciated. If, however, diversity and inclusion in the workforce are prioritized where all employees are respected, feel important, and are treated and paid in a just manner, the organization will save a significant amount of money from retaining its employees due to an increase in job satisfaction. The cost effectiveness should not be the sole rationale behind prioritizing workforce diversity and inclusion. In the article “Building a Business Case for Diversity” published in the Academy of Management Executive Journal, the value of diversity in the workplace is elaborated on:

Diversity utilizes talent more effectively, drives business growth, improves marketplace understanding as the consumer market for goods diversify and market niches grow, increases creativity and innovation, creates an environment that produces more innovative solutions to problems, enhances leadership effectiveness, and assists in the building of worthwhile global relationships (Robinson).

We see the value of diversity and inclusion in the workplace. But how do these diverse individuals fare in current United States work environments?

The Hard Work is What Immigrants Do

In the late 20th century, Los Angeles saw an influx of immigrants from Mexico and South America, becoming the “number one receiving area for new immigrants.” At the same time, the region experienced industrialization and the rise of the service economy. According to the UC San Diego-led study “Brown-Collar Jobs: Occupational Segregation and Earnings of Recent-Immigrant Latinos,” these two concurrently occurring phenomena gave way for the term “brown collar jobs," which are “a number of low-level occupations in Los Angeles.” How do these Latinx-Americans fare? Well, “earnings inequalities grew between recent immigrants” (defined as immigrants to the United States less than five years prior) “and native-born Whites, Blacks, and Latinos.” However, pay disparities did not increase between White people and native minorities, which suggests that there was a substantial rise in the marginalization of new Latinx immigrants in the workforce. Many recent immigrants are willing to accept wages that are considerably low because the wages are still more than what they would have earned in their home country (Catanzarite). For that, some native-born Americans argue that immigrants are “stealing Americans’ jobs.” The reality is that some Americans feel they are above working in low-skilled service jobs or ones that require arduous manual labor, and will not accept the pay that many immigrants are willing to.

The Discrimination Against the LGBTQ+ Community

How else do other groups fare in the American workforce? While sexual orientation has absolutely no proven correlation with job performance, cases of discrimination of people who identity as part of the LGBTQ+ community have risen. The Williams Institute at UCLA’s School of Law conducted a study to evidence workplace discrimination of LGBTQ+ members. In the five years before the 2008 survey, for lesbian, bisexual, and gay employees who were “out” at work, 37.7% reported experiencing any form of discrimination, 38.2% experienced harassment, and 9% reported losing a job according to the General Social Survey (GSS), “a national probability survey representative of the US population.” In 2011, 78% of transgender respondents to the survey reported experiencing at least one form of harassment or maltreatment at work because of their identity, particularly noting discrimination in hiring, promotion, and job retention. Discrimination is also experienced in the pay differentials.

“Census data analyses confirm that in nearly every state, men in same-sex couples earn less than men in heterosexual marriages.”

Many members of the LGBTQ+ community conceal their sexuality for reasons related to fear of discrimination and receptiveness. This negatively impacts those members’ mental and physical health, productivity, and job satisfaction. But what happens when members experience these acts of discrimination? Many go unreported because of fear of unreceptiveness, settlements, unresponsiveness, or they are closeted and don’t want to formally out themselves (Sears).

We see that members of minority communities are negatively impacted in the workplace because of discrimination and the negative stereotypes that people have of them, but what happens when a minority group is set up to be the “model minority”?

The Destructiveness of Stereotyping

East Asians have been coined the model minority and are said to be on par socially with White Americans. As stated in the Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology journal, Asian Americans are stereotyped to be “competent, cold, and nondominant”.

Stereotypes of any kind are destructive, whether they are positive or negative.

By judging people’s character based on the stereotype held about the group they belong to, they are denied a fair chance to prove themselves as individuals and demonstrate their capabilities. When people do not live up to stereotypical expectations, they may internalize that, which can negatively impact their mental health.

East Asian Americans who do not fit their prescriptive stereotype are often harassed in the workplace. Additionally, if East Asian Americans are perceived as more competent than White Americans, but colder and less trustworthy, they are seen as threats to White people, which is consistent with the perception of “yellow peril,” the belief that East Asian people are a threat to the western world. What many people fail to recognize, however, are the negative effects that any sort of stereotype has on one’s mental health (Berdahl). Stereotyped people may begin to question themselves and their abilities if they cannot live up to an expectation, feel overwhelmed by an obligation to be a certain way, or consumed with behaving the stereotypical way. These prescriptive judgements that are levied by society are destructive and stifle the individuality of each worker.

Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?

But what about those who can’t even get into the workforce? A field experiment on labor market discrimination, “Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?” shows that yes, Emily and Greg are more employable than Lakisha and Jamal. In the experiment, resumes were randomly assigned White and Black stereotypical names and it was found that the stereotypical White name was 50 percent more likely to receive a callback than the stereotypical Black name. The most shocking realization was that the content within the resumes were identical. This illustrates that differential treatment as a result of race is still very much prevalent in our society (Bertrand).

Are There Any Possible Solutions?

One way to give everyone an equal opportunity to get hired is to have applicants submit blind resumes and employers hold blind interviews. This means that prospective employees will not have information such as gender, ethnicity, race, socio-economic background, or even their name on the resume. Employers will make decisions solely based on qualifications, and in place of a callback interview prospective employees would be given a prompt to complete by a certain time. The response to the prompt would give screeners a sense of the individual's work quality, how they would handle challenges that arise, show skill level, work ethic, and the timeliness in which work can be completed. These measures would ensure that those who were presented with a job offer were chosen solely on the basis of their work product. Then, still anonymously, wages should be discussed and negotiated. Organizations should publish their starting wages and wages based on exemplifying certain skill sets and qualities. That should be the measure of how much the prospective hire is offered to give every single job applicant a fair and equal shot at being hired.

An additional step that businesses can implement to support diversity in the workforce is to provide mentorship opportunities. The purpose would be to educate employees about the company’s culture and promote self confidence so that the employees could feel safe to be authentic, self advocate, and provide original and alternative views that are useful for the company’s growth.

Mentorship would provide the additional benefit of having high-level employees interacting with more people of diverse backgrounds. The process of mentoring has the potential to dispel stereotypes, as it is often discovered that people are more alike than different. Stereotyping employees is typically the source for workplace harassment and pay differentials. The objective has to be fair and equal treatment of all employees, where diversity is supported by unhindered and meaningful inclusion in opportunities to contribute to the success of the business.