Accommodating diversity is just good business

U of Ideas of General Interest ó June 1998
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Contact:
Craig Chamberlain, Education Editor
(217) 333-2894; [email protected]

HUMAN RESOURCES
Accommodating diversity is just good business, companies find

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. ó Affirmative action and similar efforts have lost favor in recent years with politicians and the public, but many corporations are only working harder to promote and manage diversity in their workforces, says a University of Illinois researcher.

And itís the bottom line, more than anything else, that is driving their policies and programs, according to Rose Mary Wentling, a professor of human resource education. Social responsibility and fear of lawsuits often are lower on their lists of concerns.

Wentling draws her conclusions from a series of studies on trends in diversity and how it is managed in the workplace. She describes her findings from one of those studies, based on extensive interviews with a dozen leading diversity experts, in the June issue of Human Resource Development Quarterly. Research associate Nilda Palma-Rivas co-wrote the article.

According to Wentling, many companies now see effective management of diversity as ìmore of a survival kind of thing. Itís more that they want to have a competitive edge. They want to hire the most talented and the best people to work for them, and many companies see that the only way they can do this is by effectively managing diversity.î

And generally the more a company must draw from a diverse population for its workforce, sell to a diverse group of customers, or do business internationally with people from different cultures, the greater is its interest in the topic, Wentling said. Few can choose to ignore it, she noted, since women and minorities represent the vast majority of the growth in the labor force. They also now receive the majority of business degrees, both bachelorís and masterís.

ìThere was agreement among all the diversity experts that to improve productivity and remain competitive was the major reason for organizations to manage diversity,î Wentling said. Six of the 12 listed social responsibility as a major reason organizations saw to manage diversity, and only five mentioned legal concerns. Eight of the 12 saw a major reason was to form better work relationships among employees.

Much of what is meant by managing diversity is just good management of people, Wentling tells both her students and occasional corporate consulting clients. The focus is on developing policies, programs and a workplace culture that enable all employees to reach their full potential. All of the experts in her study agreed that diversity ìshould be defined in the broadest sense,î so that it is ìall-inclusive and recognizes everyone as part of the diversity that should be valued.î

One benefit of this approach is that it eliminates feelings of us-versus-them, or of favoring one group, Wentling said. It also allows everyone to take advantage of policies or programs that might be established with certain groups in mind ñ like child day care for women or mentoring programs for African-Americans ñ ultimately benefiting all the employees and the organization.

-cdc-