WORKFORCE DIVERSITY
Best Managers Still May Need Education For Meeting Challenges of Diversity
By Susan Klopfer I
s diversity in the workforce a reality, when resistance and conflict can be expected as change is presented? It’s a good question to ask, and two popular diversity spokespeople state diversity is clearly possible, as long as leaders are well educated in the requisite skills for manag- ing it.
Consider the imaginary XYZ Company - helpful for understanding diversity. During the last ten years XYZ has experienced at every level an increase in the number of women and people of color. One department, previously all male, transitioned to
35 percent female. Mid-management, formerly almost en- tirely comprised of white males, now includes 30 percent people of color - from African American to Latinos and members of the LGBT community. Imagine that diversity has also had an impact on XYZ’s
upper management. Perhaps a physically disabled wom- an, a financial expert, became its senior vice president of finance two years ago. Then an Af-
r i c a n
American man was named head of marketing. If XYZ was a real com-
pany, how would such di- versity accomplishments affect the company? Diversity expert, Wil-
liam Sonnenschein, au- thor of “Diversity Tool- kit,” demonstrates such change would have its good points and bad. S o m e of the longer term
employees, for instance, might feel “things aren’t going as smoothly” as they used to. Some white males would be concerned about being passed over for promotions. “Many people [might] worry about not having as
much fun, what with sexual harassment laws and oth- er problems created by diversity,” Sonnenschein points out.
In the case of the imaginary XYZ Company, the presi-
dent and CEO welcomes the challenge, seeing it as a chance for growth as a company. The CEO thinks the di- versity has brought more innovation and a better under- standing of the department stores’ customers. The CEO says the transition has not been easy. Yet he believes that with hard work, with properly
trained management getting the most out of all the em- ployees, XYZ will stay healthy well into the
future.It is a scenario similar to what Sonnenschein imagines when writing about organizational diversity. The demographics of the workplace are changing
and will continue to change rapidly, Sonnenschein and other diversity experts, incuding R. Roosevelt Thomas, Jr., a consultant and the author of “World Class Diversity Management,” point out. Almost every organization in the United State looks
different today, in terms of who is employed and the po- sition they hold - compared to even ten years ago. Work- force diversity is not a matter for debate. It is a fact that presents one of the greatest challenges facing today’s organizations and only through hard work and com- mitted leadership, can the potential for benefit be realized. But where will the leadership come
from? How many leaders are needed? What skills do they need? To answer these questions requires first under- standing the current definition of diversity - and most definitions tend to be quite broad. Most diversity experts define diversity as significant difference
34 HISPANIC NETWORK MAGAZINE Celebrating 19 Years of Diversity
www.hnmagazine.com
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