- From the reading entitled “Why Diversity Matters” many questions surrounding diversity arise for me. The first one being why do gender and ethnically diverse companies produce better results financially. Because of this, how do we further diverse companies so that most companies are outperforming and doing better financially than they did in the past. Although this is a hard task to do, it can be done over time. According to the article, for every 10% in recital and ethnic diversity, the company sees a 0.8 in earning before taxes and interest. This number should catch the eye of a lot of companies and as a result, hopefully diversify not only the workers, but leadership as well. In the other reading talking about culture, I noticed that using the quotes of various people, culture plays a huge role in our everyday lives. Katanga’s quote stood out to me which read “culture is how organizations do things.” I thought this was interesting because there are a bunch of different cultures in companies so I was wondering how do organizations go about this.
- In the article “Why Diversity Matters” there were a lot of intriguing quotes. The one I would like to talk about is “Companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 15 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians.” This statistic raises a bunch of questions for me. One being why don’t more companies diversify their organizations if the numbers show drastic improvements? In addition, what do people outside of these companies think? all these statistics show that with less diversity, it is harder to succeed and the same amount of financial returns. In a lot of companies, you need people of many different backgrounds and cultures to connect to all the customers which is why these diverse companies show such an improvement. Although it may be difficult and take more time, these statics show that is is well worth it and companies should be changing their hiring.
Writing and organizational cultures
Hi Justin! I asked a similar question in my responses, I have no idea how would an organization go about diversifying its staff. However, I think your points about incentives say more about the incentives we have right now as a result of our society rather than the concept of incentives as a whole. Do we want people to diversify organizations if they are just doing it for potential financial gain? My answer is yes, an incentive like this which promotes diversity is excellent no matter what an organization was trying to get from it.
One reason I could think of for a company struggling to become diverse would be a lack of diversity in the first place. Many people of different ethnicities, races, and genders might not want to work at a company that lacks those kinds of people. Starting changes at the top might make it easier for a company to attract diverse applicants because if they see people in high positions that are like them they can envision themselves at that company achieving a greater position.
Right, Michaela–a lack of diversity can be a deterrent for people from marginalized groups, who worry that they may not feel welcome within an organization or who come, find out that it’s hard to be different there, and leave for a more comfortable and safe situation.
Sometimes, this sense of not belonging is hard to put your finger on; it’s a sort of ‘feeling.’ Other times, it’s much easier to pinpoint direct hostility–i.e. a person of color who is maligned by their coworkers as a “diversity hire,” a though (s)he didn’t deserve to get the job. It’s hard to stay when your coworkers are outright telling you that you shouldn’t be there.
So, the good news is that diversity programs can help to increase diversity within organizations. The fact that this doesn’t happen quickly or universally is, well, the not-so-good news–it suggests that implicit biases/prejudices still exert powerful force. In other words, it reveals that there is still an awful lot of discrimination (both latent and overt) still evident in our society…..