- I’m looking for companies that are able to show more than just figures of diversity, companies transparent about how marginalized and minority peoples feel comfortable in going to work every day. Not only producing diverse organizational percentages, but a step further in researching ways minority groups feel supported walking through the door every day; producing better because of outwardly supportive allies as leaders; perhaps feeling less like a statistic only helping a company appear diverse. I came upon Ben & Jerry’s excellent explanation of systemic racism and was off and running with what this ICE CREAM company is doing. It’s simple, it’s fairly grassroots, but it’s effective and I would love to delve more into their actual offices, if possible, to see how it operates and to see how they came upon this simple, effective, poignant, activism that’s as palatable as their ice cream flavors. I have these two inspiring sources do far:
https://www.benjerry.com/home/whats-new/2016/systemic-racism-is-real
https://www.forbes.com/sites/janicegassam/2019/09/04/ben-jerrys-creates-new-flavor-to-highlight-racism-and-criminal-justice-reform/#653e2f244b47
2.While Austin and Pisano are positively exposing and representing neurodiverse peoples, emphasizing overall the advantages of having them on a team, they also look at the impact of including differently abled people and the overall challenges, mostly discussing how management and leadership is being affected and molded through this process, unfolding how important adapting leadership to the inclusion and diversity process is. Likewise, in Kaplan and Donovan’s topic of understanding Key Diversity & Inclusion Concepts they look at how conversations about unconscious bias and insider–outsider dynamics can easily be lost in the noise of the daily office grind, taking us through the day and life of “Kim”, whom represents a composite of managers they’ve interacted with over the past twenty years, and how intent frequently does not equal impact and when brought into the public light, the special facilities have an impact vastly different from the intention.
This seems to be common in our responses, and especially important right now, in HOW the environment is for diversity, not just claiming diversity is a good thing. It thrives in a good environment that accepts it. I’ve heard nothing but positivity from people about Ben and Jerry’s and what they stand for. A lot of companies could learn a lot following in their footsteps. It takes acknowledging a need for diversity, getting that diversity, but also knowing what to do with it once they have it.
This is another good way to focus an inquiry–around a case study of a particular organization.
I definitely love this idea of including more than just numbers and percentages. I feel like I could gain so much knowledge out of the research you do with this especially because now we’ll be able to reflect on the FEELINGS of minorities in the workplace and not just statistics. In a way, it becomes a much more deeper subject matter. For example, a question that came to my mind was: Just because a company portrays diverse employees, are they being treated equally and appropriately? I have learned in my prior classes at SU about about unfair labor practices occurring in third world countries among minorities so your answer sort of made me recall this topic too. I think this is a really interesting and unique concept of what you would research about and I hope it goes well for you!
What you’re pointing us toward here, Sam, is the importance of engaging with stakeholders–hearing from people who are directly involved with, invested in, and affected by the issue we’re examining. When we include those stakeholder groups among our sources, we greatly increase the likelihood of moving toward a fuller understanding of the topic.