Diversity Management: Lessons Learned
Spring 2016
at Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (Vienna University of Economics and Business
Photos: wheelchair experience (Disability in Organization class)
1. Asked for free napkins from a street sausage stand. The owner was very freindly and kind and came out of his store to talk with me;
2. Successfully bought a coffee from a store, but then realized that I wasn't able to move the wheelchair with the coffee in my hands;
3. Tried to use the restroom. Eventually I failed because my arms are not strong enough to support my body.
Diversity Management in Practice is a great class offered in WU. I am very glad that I chose this class at the first place, because it not only addresses a lot of issues regarding to the difference of people in the business world today, but also gives insights on the different diversity management efforts that companies put in to deal with these issues.
The first topic we focus on is the Sexual Orientation in Organization. We discussed the overall situation of LGBT diversity recognition in Europe with Mr. Jean-Luc Vey. The UK is a pioneer on LGBT rights and the same-sex marriage is legal there. Also, as a girl from Barcelona mentioned in class, the situation in Spain and Portugal is considered good as well, as shown by their LGBT Pride Parade. However, in Germany, Austria and France, it is still not so easy on LGBT groups. Employees might be fired because of their sexual orientation and people may choose to hide their sexual orientation because they fear about the consequence. In places like Poland, Turkey, Greece, Romania, LGBT’s recognition is categorized as “Clearly inferior substitute to marriage”, meaning that in these places, the acceptance level for LGBT diversity is not as good as in other places in Europe. However, overall, Europe’s LGBT recognition is good compared with other places in the world. For example, there are countries like India, Iran, and Pakistan where LGBT groups get punishments like imprisonment or even death sentences if they come out.
We then link LGBT diversity to its influence on business and the corresponding management approaches. LGBT Diversity related to Business is that: Sexual orientation is more of an “invisible” dimension of a person and you couldn’t tell if an employee is of the group or not, unless they come out. However, for companies that do not recognize the importance of the existence of different sexual orientation, there can be pressure put on individuals in the company who may be in the LGBT group. And these employees could then decide not to come out to protect themselves, and actually pretend to be another person, and lead a “double life”. However, such life can be very exhausting physically and mentally, and can lead to the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the employee at work, thus a waste of resource for the company. Therefore, it is important for companies to have programs that properly manage LGBT diversity. Right now there are some organizations that strive to bring the awareness of LGBT diversity into companies, and to protect these groups of people by encouraging them and giving them career and personal consultant, or by organizing support groups discussion to exchange experience. For example, there are LGBT Pride Employee Network globally, where they address the challenges and provide supports to LGBT groups at their career. Also, a lot of the networks not only takes in LGBT group people, but also are open to their alliances.
I would personally like to join a LGBT Employee Network as an alliance, because I would like to respect and support their choice and how they identify themselves. I want to be open-minded and be willing to listen to other people’s story. I will avoid stereotyping anyone I meet. I think that it is important for me to try to get to know everyone as “who they are” and as unique individuals, rather than putting them in a group and put the group’s stereotyped characteristics on them. If I am a leader of such a Network I would like to emphasize the idea to viewing people as individuals and the importance to getting to know a person without pre-judgement. I would organize and facilitate different workshops to companies and talk about the problems related to LGBT Diversity and their rights, to reveal the problems and let people know more about it. I would also open up a hotline where people in the LGBT group who fear that their sexual orientation could be a problem at work or who feel pressured can call and get help. I would also like to create a blog where people can share their stories online, thus forming an online community for people to get help from each other, inspired by each other, and know that they are not alone.
It is also important for LGBT Employee Network to provide advice and supports to young employees who are at the start of their career. I think that LGBT Employee Network can reach out to universities and facilitate conference with students and talk about the issue. They can talk about real-life cases of how some people in the LGBT group behave at work, and should inform the students who are soon going into the society of how their sexual orientation could influence them at work. This is important because then the students would started to think about the potential situations and know that what kind of companies with what kind of cultures they are looking for. Also, the Network should let the students aware of the resources where they can get help and supports. The students should be well informed about what may potentially happened after they graduate and start to work if they come out, yet they should be encouraged to be themselves rather than leading an exhausting “double life”. Also, the Network should let the young employees know that “being different is nothing wrong”, and suggests companies to put efforts in diversity management and recognize the area of LGBT Diversity.
The second topic we discussed is Ethnicity in Organizations with Mrs. Beatrice Achaleke. In class, she pointed out that the key dimensions of diversity management includes: Age, gender, ethnicity, disability and sexual orientation. And the three most visually obvious ones are age, gender and ethnicity. It is important for companies to have diversity management that covers as many dimensions as possible, in order to be functional and helpful in improving employees’ productivity. If a company have good diversity management, it can save a lot of administrative money on supervision of workers, the process of firing and hiring workers, and also on improving workers’ efficiency. Also, a good diversity management can help a company to create an open environment where fresh ideas and different insights will be able to take place. The general management approaches are: The companies need to talk about the differences, rather than avoiding them; It is crucial to know that “being different is not wrong” and to be able to celebrate diversity as well as similarities; Companies can choose to start from one dimension and then go into others, for instance, companies can start from Age, and then gender, like “young men, old men, young women”, etc.
Then we went in the topic of ethnicity. The issues with ethnicity arrives from the difference among cultures. Nowadays, in a more and more globalized world, people with different backgrounds and cultures often times are mixed together in business settings, like in some global companies. While culture is different all over the world, and it comes with different kinds of food, languages, values, behaviors, traditions, religions, art & music, bias, appearances, etc. Because of these differences, it is sometimes easy for conflicts to arise if people are not fully aware of or understand cultural diversity. Therefore, it is important for companies that has people with different cultures to come up with solutions of such differences. On the other side, there are some demographic change regarding the aging population over the world right now. All over the world, except for Africa, there is a trend of aging population, and it is estimated that by year 2050, 35% of European population will be older than 65 years old. Therefore, it is foreseeable that in the future, the world will become a more cultural diverse place where the working force from different places of the world will be moving a lot. Also, with the development of science and technology, the world’s mobility is rapidly improving. This also increase the chances when people from different countries and cultures to meet and work together. The last but not least, in the fast-changing world today, for companies to remain competitive, they need to be innovative. A culturally diverse company therefore, can gain different insights and ideas from employees with different cultural background, and therefore, have higher information richness and resource. Therefore, an effective cultural management of a company is very important. It not only helps keep the employees’ productivity at a high level, but also help attracts talents and nurture new ideas and innovation.
Some solutions of cultural diversity that we came up in class are: Put diversity management as part of the company’s mission statement; Host cultural events for employees where employees can experience different cultures and learn from each other; Promote diversity in social media, so the company can build up a good image and also to attract talents; Provide cross cultural trainings to employees to bring up their awareness of cultural diversity and to create an environment where everyone’s voice can be heard.
The third topic we discussed was Disability in Organization. This class was the most fun and interesting class that I had, because students get to experience life on a wheelchair for an hour. Our teacher, Mr. Michael Sicher provided us wheelchairs and let us sit on the wheelchairs and go out and to do certain normal things in life, like buying a coffee in the store, going to the U-Bahn station, or just to wander around on the street. It was a very rewarding experience, because I get to really notice a lot of details that I have not noticed before, and to see the world, and the city’s infrastructure from another angle, from a wheelchair person’s perspective. I realized how difficult it is to use the restroom without using my legs, because it requires an enormous amount of strength in arms; I started to noticed the bumps on the street and at the gates, and how difficult it is to get through them without other people’s help; I found out how huge the gap between the platform and the train could be for wheelchair people; and I also felt grateful and happy to see how generous people were and how most of them were willing to help. We also had in class discussion on several topics. We talked about the insecurities of people who meet disabled people: People can feel reluctant or awkward in interacting with disabled people if they don’t have the experience before; People tend to be too sensitive and worry too much when meeting disabled people, thinking that a certain words or gestures could hurt them; People may feel a huge responsibility to make friends with or date disabled people, and they don’t want to put in such emotional efforts, time and energy in the relationship; People, when meeting with disabled people, may only see or focus on their disability, rather than really see the person as who he/she is, therefore not really getting to know the person. We also talk about how disability can influence a person in seeking jobs. Mr. Sicher suggested that it is very important that the job seeker and the employer both have adequate information of each other. For example, the job seeker needs to inform the employer about his/her disability, and in which aspects it may influence the work (like doctor’s appointments), but in which aspects it could be a strength (like time management & efficiency). The employer also need to let the job seeker know if the company have or intend to build accessible facilities for disabled people, like restrooms, elevators, etc. Therefore, this is a mutual selecting process.
Lastly, we discussed Age Management in Organizations. Commonly we can see that in a company, there are people with different ages working together- people who are older and with more experience, people who are at the middle age, and people who are younger with less experience but more new ideas. Often times, people in the same generation have similar cultural experiences and therefore share some similar values, identities, attitudes and behaviors. But people from different generations, because of their different cultural experience, tend to have different values and behaviors. And when these different generations work together in the same company, conflicts could arise because of the differences. Therefore, it is necessary for age management to take place, and enable an age-appropriate work-environment. On the other hand, there is an aging working force trend over the world demographically. By the year of 2050, 41.8% of the European working force will be older than 45 years old. Therefore, a good age management can lead to a company’s competitive advantages and give a better preparation for the consequences of demographic change. We explored the different characteristics of different generations, what they need and how they can contribute to the company with their strengths. For example, young employees of age 21-35 in an organization are more energetic and more innovative. They enjoy having a personal life (work-life balance), trying new things and they are quick learners. Middle-aged employees of age 36-49 are more harmonized in their job and private life. They like to set goals for themselves to accomplish, may be redesigning their life, and are often hard working people. They also want to spend time with their family. Older employees with more than 50 years old are more stable, peaceful, and regular at work. They tend to be more experienced and have more social connections, and are able to see the big pictures of the business operation. In their work, they can be mentors of younger employees and give them helpful advice and bring know-how to the company. In the end, we talked about some examples of age management in companies. For example, the Business Angel Model is the highest level of age diversity, where wealthy individuals provide start-up businesses with capital, guidance/experience in management, business know-how, contacts and social networking. Usually, these wealthy individual will provided these in exchange of the startup’s ownership equity. This kind of program is an example of how different age groups are able to integrate and benefit from each other.
