Diverse Staff and Inclusive Practices Hugely Benefit Businesses — So Why Is the Workforce Homogenous?

By B. Adams, PsyD

Instructor of the ProThink Learning online course Diversity and Inclusion: Concepts and Strategies for Success

Workforce diversity is good business. Studies show that companies with higher percentages of women in management roles have higher financial returns; ethnically diverse companies are more likely to outperform companies with limited diversity; companies with greater ethnic and gender diversity innovate faster, and improved gender diversity alone can add trillions of dollars to the global GDP.

When the way we’ve hired employees and set up structures and processes no longer create the kinds of organizations we want to be, how do we step out of our old business models and mindsets? How do we begin to walk a new path of diversity and inclusion that will enable us to achieve growth, heighten performance, and increase innovation?

A Crisis in Our Companies

Despite all the benefits of workforce diversity, modern prejudice and groupthink are alive and well in many businesses today, even in Silicon Valley — the place that purports to value difference, to be different, and to think differently. Businesses that recognize the importance of, and even champion for, workforce diversity and inclusion are usually unable to overcome the culture and mindset that make this work, let alone be sustainable. Companies that are interested in bringing about change inevitably find that they come up against obstacles they are ill equipped to handle.

We’ve heard companies lament the difficulty of finding diverse, qualified candidates, such as the challenges in locating marginalized individuals with science and engineering degrees. When asked why, companies responded that the lack of qualified candidates with marginalized identities stems from deeply entrenched, historical issues. The blame game sounds something like this:

· Young girls are discouraged by parents and teachers from pursuing technical careers.

· Too few African American and Latino students take Advanced Placement courses in high school.

· Unconscious biases lead us to hire those who look like we do.

While there’s some truth to all of this, it’s also true that the attrition rates of recruits with marginalized identities are unusually high in many tech companies, which have often done a poor job of hiring and retaining people from marginalized communities, even for nontechnical roles.

Technology companies are, of course, not alone in dealing with the ongoing problem of an overly homogeneous workforce. A lack of women in executive roles and deficient opportunities for people of color have been perpetual challenges in many industries for decades. For instance:

· Over 30 years have passed since the now-famous “glass ceiling” was first identified by Gay Bryant, editor of Working Woman magazine.

· Over 40 years have passed since significant numbers of women began arriving in the corporate workforce.

· Over 50 years have passed since the initial equal pay laws and Civil Rights legislation were enacted in the United States.

A 2015 study by LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Company found that corporate America’s path to gender equality is progressing at a pace so slow that it will take more than 100 years before women achieve parity with men in executive roles and at least 25 years for women to reach parity at the Senior Vice President level. This study further validates that barriers to advancement are real for both white women and women of color.

Gender Barriers at Work

You probably know some of the standard explanations for the disparity in numbers between men and women in corporate power positions. Such justifications include:

· Childcare and eldercare responsibilities typically and primarily fall to women;

· Communication styles are different for men and women; and

· We all possess implicit biases that lead us to unintentionally discriminate by hiring and promoting those who look and act like us.

In her book Just One of the Guys?: Transgender Men and the Persistence of Gender Inequality, sociologist Kristen Schilt interviews dozens of transgender people whose perspectives and experiences validate the existence of substantial barriers for women in the workplace. Schilt found that individuals who were already established in their careers before they transitioned from female to male were presumed more competent as men. They also noted that before transitioning, as women they were assumed to be either less competent or incompetent until they proved themselves otherwise. Furthermore, they experienced that their advice given as men was taken more seriously than advice given as women.

Overall, Schilt’s study confirms the presence of gender stereotypes favoring men in the workplace. She offers a unique viewpoint, that of people with experience participating in the workforce from both a male and female perspective, validating the reality of gender discrimination in the workplace and shining light on a deeply entrenched patriarchy that is a barrier to all women.

Changing the Way You Do Business for the Better

Race and gender are just a couple of many ways that we differ from our colleagues, but it is these variations — age, physical ability, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, education, etc. — that combine to form the diverse and unique dimensions of the human experience. In order to advance a new path for workforce diversity, equity, and inclusion, we must embrace all of the complex, multidimensional layers that people bring to the workplace. Take action to achieve diversity that will benefit your business and employees, widen your audience, and elevate your industry as a whole.