MGMT 4640 Lecture 1: Mgmt-Presentation-write-up
• Hiring/Service Diversity Strategies- Jaai
o Corporate governance and workforce recruitment/retention
o Cox + Blake
o https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/7020924324.pdf
Identify a Fortune 500 company and determine how/why they created a diversity
initiative. Refer to the Cox & Blake research (Ch. 1 of text) and describe which of six
specific business-related reasons why organizations should value diversity apply to your
company. Which reasons formed the basis for your company’s diversity initiative?
Include how the initiative was designed and introduced to the employees and how it was
presented or promoted to the public, customers, or how it was used to capture new
market or revenue stream, or rebuild its reputation, whichever is appropriate. Explain
the specific area of diversity examined and describe what happened or did
nothappen. Assess the extent to which diversity initiative benefitted or hampered
organizational performance and describe the results.
Cost
Employee Turnover
The costs associated with doing a poor job of integrating
workers from different backgrounds can be extremely
high. Lower job satisfaction and the subsequent costs of
turnover among women, minorities, people of various
religious faiths, gay men and lesbians, and others whose
contributions are often devalued in organizations can be
tremendously expensive. Cox and Blake and other
researchers have reported lower satisfaction and higher
turnover of women and minorities when compared to men
and Whites. This finding is an important organizational
concern, particularly as the number of women and
minorities in the workforce increases. If, along with
women and minorities, employees from other groups are
dissatisfied and quit in response to negative organizational
treatment, organizational costs related to turnover may be
tremendous. However, researchers have found that, for
some employees, organizational efforts to support
diversity can enhance commitment and reduce intentions
to quit even when employees perceive discrimination.
On the other hand, if minority employees feel that
their organization’s purported commitment to diversity is
insincere, dissatisfaction, lowered commitment, and
cynicism can result. In organizations with homogenous
leadership, employees also perceive more racial and ethnic
harassment and discrimination than in organizations with
heterogeneous leadership.
Other research indicates that at times both minorities and
Whites experience discomfort in cross-race interactions,
with minorities expecting to be targets of prejudice and
Whites fearing being perceived as prejudiced. The
possibility that increased diversity may be associated with
lower attachment, turnover, and discomfort for people of
different backgrounds suggests that organizations should
take proactive measures to address and circumvent these
negative outcomes while maximizing the positive
outcomes. In addition, educating workers about the
individual and organizational benefits of increasing
diversity, and treating all employees with respect and
providing them fair opportunities may reduce
dissatisfaction, detachment, and fear among those who are
uncertain about increasing diversity. In a study of public
employees, when employees, including White men and
women and men and women of color, perceived there was
equal access to opportunities and fair treatment, intent to
turnover decreased, for all employees.
Costs associated with turnover include exit interviews, lost
productivity while positions are unfilled, and recruiting
costs and background checks for replacement employees.
Organizations may find replacement to be more expensive
than retaining current employees. This is particularly
true when the learning curve and training costs of
replacements are also taken into consideration. Specific
organizational efforts to address needs of specific workers
may minimize turnover. For instance, research indicates
that workers with child care responsibilities (commonly,
women; increasingly, men) have more organizational
commitment and lower turnover when companies provide
child care subsidies, on-site day care, or other child care
support.
Lost Business
Costs associated with lost business should be added to the costs of
absence, turnover, and discrimination lawsuits that are commonly
associated with unfair treatment of employees or customers. Consumer
Racial Profiling is defined as “differential treatment of consumers in
the marketplace based on race/ethnicity that constitutes denial of or
degradation in the products and/or services that are offered to the
consumer”. When employees or customers learn of or personally
experience unfair treatment toward their group by an organization, they
are less likely to want to work there or patronize it. In their study of
discrimination against obese customers, King and colleagues found that
customers who experienced discrimination spent less time in the store,
less money than they had planned to spend, and were less likely to
return to the store in the future.
In addition, other groups who were not personally affected may find
overt discrimination or other negative behaviors morally offensive and
withdraw. Dealing with negative publicity and protests against
discriminatory policies can be expensive and time-consuming for
organizations, as experienced by Cracker Barrel in response to its
discriminatory policies toward Black customers and gay male and
lesbian employees, discussed in Chapters 4 and 11, respectively.
Resource Acquisition
An organization’s ability to attract and retain employees from different
backgrounds is referred to as resource acquisition. Those who have
often been overlooked or devalued as potential employees often include
women, racial and ethnic minorities, workers with disabilities, sexual
minorities, and people from non-dominant religious faiths. Cox and
Blake proposed that if an organization develops a reputation for valuing
all types of workers, it will become known as an employer of choice,
increasing its ability to compete for employees. Empirical research
provides support for the positive effects of heterogeneous recruitment
advertisements on minorities’ desire to work for organizations.
Conversely, if an organization develops a reputation for valuing only a
subset of workers, it may miss out on hiring excellent workers who do
not fall into that subset. Other researchers have similarly argued that
“talented people may be predisposed to avoid companies that
discriminate.” Such organizations may also have higher compensation
costs because of drawing from a smaller pool of workers (i.e., supply
would be lower, making demand costs higher). As discussed in Featured
Document Summary
Hiring/service diversity strategies- jaai, corporate governance and workforce recruitment/retention, cox + blake, https://ecfsapi. fcc. gov/file/7020924324. pdf. Identify a fortune 500 company and determine how/why they created a diversity initiative. Refer to the cox & blake research (ch. 1 of text) and describe which of six specific business-related reasons why organizations should value diversity apply to your company. Explain the specific area of diversity examined and describe what happened or did nothappen. Assess the extent to which diversity initiative benefitted or hampered organizational performance and describe the results. The costs associated with doing a poor job of integrating workers from different backgrounds can be extremely high. Lower job satisfaction and the subsequent costs of turnover among women, minorities, people of various religious faiths, gay men and lesbians, and others whose contributions are often devalued in organizations can be tremendously expensive. Cox and blake and other researchers have reported lower satisfaction and higher turnover of women and minorities when compared to men and whites.
