"The Evolution of Inclusion" is an article that I wrote in 2008 and is a tutorial on how the field of inclusion has evolved since I entered the world of EEO in 1988. I have gotten enough feedback on my recent blogs to see that this is still a relevant and necessary discussion, so I hope that you find this post interesting and helpful! This blog post violates one of my rules not to exceed 1000 words, but I wanted to include the article in its entirety (just under 2500 words), for the sake of flow.
Onward!
~ Wendy
In
the beginning
In the beginning there was
Affirmative Action. Affirmative Action
was all about making amends for past discriminatory practices in the workplace
and the academy. Women and people of
color, as well as many others who were not white, heterosexual, Christian
males, were historically barred from many jobs in the United States both
systemically and institutionally. In
1961 President Kennedy issued Executive Order 10925, which created the
Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity and mandated that projects financed
"with federal funds " take affirmative action" to ensure that
hiring and employment practices are free of racial bias. It was not until 1965 when President Johnson
signed Executive Order 11246 however, that there were actual enforceable
actions that needed to be taken. This
Executive Order also strengthened the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which expanded
protection via Title VII of the Act, to prohibit discrimination by covered
employers on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. The Civil Rights Act also changed the
Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity into the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission, giving it broad legal and administrative powers.
Equal employment opportunity
law was the big stick that the government used to assure that employees who
were members of “protected classes” (those covered by the Civil Rights Act)
were protected once they were hired into positions that were previously not
open to them. Affirmative Action
includes guidelines for hiring protected class members based on the qualified
candidate pool within an employer’s geographic zone (a 30 mile radius). The hiring goals are not quotas and never
have been. They are recommendations
based on the local population.
Mandatory training was
implemented for all covered employers in the area of Sexual Harassment
Prevention and for any employer where the EEOC determined that there was a
“probable cause” to validate an employee’s claim of discriminatory treatment. This reactionary approach dominated the field
of EEO for many years and resulted in a strong backlash by conservative groups
and many white men in the workplace.
Reverse discrimination claims began being filed as early as 1978 (Regents
of the University of California v. Bakke) and have become fairly regular
occurrences. There was also a great deal
of negative media regarding affirmative action and EEO cases in an attempt to
de-fang the law and its enforcement.
One of the greatest
barriers to accepting the benefits of inclusion is a fear of numbers. Many myths and misperceptions surround the
reporting of EEO data and Affirmative Action reports to the federal
government. Employers conduct
panic-stricken scrambles every time they are audited by the EEOC; they agonize
over their Affirmative Action reports and their poor performance in relation to
their hiring goals; and they focus on the very numbers that terrify them
instead of the people they represent.
This sense of impotence creates resentment and results in an attitude
that we will do only what we are required to do in many organizations.
They felt trapped by the EEOC requirements and not empowered to do anything
about them.
The
Diversity Revolution
We then experienced the
‘diversity revolution’ a period I like to refer to as the “Kumbaya Stage.” Celebrating difference became the favorite
pastime of many members of organizations.
People like me were able to proclaim pride in our heritage, our
difference - ourselves as were never able to do previously. But after the diversity pot luck luncheons
and diversity fairs, people would head back to their cubicles and remain
exclusive. The celebration of difference
did not extend to most employees’ personal lives. The human resources departments did not see
any relief from their required reports or a great improvement in their
statistics. These disappointments coupled with the negative response from
employees who felt that they were not different enough to matter resulted in
campaigns set out to prove that ‘our differences make us all the same.’ This approach played down race and gender and
focused on less volatile differences such as job title, geographic origin
(among U.S. born citizens), marital status, parental status, etc. These non-threatening differences could be
used benignly, to prove that an organization embraced diversity, without having
to really embrace inclusion.
Diversity practitioners
across the U.S. were then asked by their CEOs, “What’s the return on our
investment for diversity? This resulted
in more panicked scrambling as folks set out to prove that creating a diverse
organization improved the organization’s bottom line. The problem with this model is that it does
not work and that there was no such proof to be provided.
The
More Things Change
The more things change,
the more they remained the same. A major
concern of U.S. employers is poor employee engagement. There are millions of people who make it to
work each day, even millions who arrive on time who are still quite
disengaged. These workers occupy all job
titles and levels, including officers.
They are in every sector and industry.
They are from several different generations. They are from all over the world. They are straight and gay; male and female;
of every race and ethnicity; and they cost employers trillions of dollars every
day. Employers spend an inordinate
amount of money and energy to recruit top talent. They especially spend on the recruitment of
women and people of color. Employers
have, in general, become quite successful at recruitment, but remain unsuccessful
at retention. A phenomenon has developed
in the last decade or so that is referred to as ‘the Revolving Door of Turnover.’
This has become a The 64 billion dollar question.
In January, 2007 The
Level Playing Field Institute published The Corporate Leavers Survey: The
Cost of Employee Turnover Due Solely to Unfairness in the Workplace. The
study found that unfairness in the workplace costs U.S. corporations $64
billion dollars each year - not in law suits - but in turnover of professionals
and managers. People of color are three
times as likely to be among those who leave as compared to white, heterosexual
men and two times as compared to white, heterosexual women.
Marketing Diversity
When the 2000 Census Report
was published organizations became aware of a new customer base. People of Color, Gay, Lesbian Transgender and
Bisexual people, Women, people born in foreign countries were entering an
unprecedented period of prosperity.
Smart corporations began marketing diversity. We could turn on any television channel and
see flawless models representing organizations that looked beautifully
diverse! Benetton led the movement way
back in the 1980s with gorgeous young people wearing their trendy clothing. Their motto “The United Colors of Benetton,”
became a generational celebration of diversity.
Gradually, other organizations caught on and began targeting women and
people of color who now had the buying dollars that they sought. One problem remained; the beautiful ads were
not of actual employees. This was
particularly glaring when looking at the leaders of organizations. According to
a UC Davis Study of California Women
Business Leaders (October 2007) women hold only 10.4% of the board seats and highest-paid executive officer
positions in the top 400 corporations in California. The national average is 15%. Women remain more than 50% (50.9 in 2000) of
the population.
The
Inclusion Evolution
“As
individuals we can accomplish only so much.
… Collectively, we face no such constraint. We possess incredible
capacity to think differently. These
differences can provide the seeds of innovation, progress, and understanding.”
The
Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools
and Societies, Scott E. Page
Scott Page’s book
provides us with scientific proof of the brilliance of multiple perspectives. This is something that I have intuitively
known for a long time, but am really grateful for the backing of a
mathematician! I do not believe that
‘too many cooks spoil the broth’ unless they are bad cooks or bad
communicators. There is always the
possibility that there is an unethical cook in the kitchen who sneaks in extra
salt without letting the others know, but if called upon to create the world’s
best broth everyone wants to be invited!
By this, I mean that it would be an honor to be on the 'A List' of cooks
for this project. The cooks would all
vie to bring their most creative, their most engaged selves to the
process. If they were told that their
participation was predicated on their cooperation and in fact interdependence
with the other cooks, they would pay attention to that fact and learn how to
play well with others or be asked to leave.
In other words, every one of us wants to be asked to make a difference,
to be told that our presence matters, that our contribution is needed. What an amazing feeling it is to matter. Yet, few employers ever asked their employees
to contribute to their innovation. Few
employers ask their employees many questions at all for fear of invoking the
evil God of EEO! This fear of asking questions
results in a phenomenon I call “One third of the tree.” When I look out of the window and see a
beautiful tree, let’s say a Willow tree and I decide that the Willow tree is
exactly the addition that I need to make my organization truly diverse, I
contact my top recruiter to go and get that tree. I do research on the care and feeding of
Willow trees. I tell the other members
of the organization that our team will be joined by a Willow tree and to be
courteous and tolerant and never say offensive things such as “It’s not easy
being green.” Then the recruiter goes
out and chops down that tree and hauls it inside. We place it in a huge bucket and every day
are diligent about adding nutrients and even throw in a few microorganisms to
make the tree feel at home. What we do
not realize is that we are missing two-thirds of that tree. We never thought to ask the tree to bring its
history and cultural perspective to the organization and so it did not. We did not realize how our organization could
benefit by knowing the full being.
Another way to look at this is: I
bring my gender, generation, class, ethnic and racial perspectives with me when
invited to the board room table to contribute.
These perspectives cannot be simulated by others who read about people
like me. They can only be contributed by me.
Isn’t that amazingly wonderful?
Organisms thrive
because their parts are thriving. When
an organism has cancer we cut it out or the organism will die. Yet, many organizations exist with dead and
dangerous departments, units and individuals for years without taking any
action. The whole is only as healthy as
its parts. So, just as we need to get to
know the whole individual in order to benefit fully by their contributions, we
need to think about organizations as organisms that require inclusive care in
order to thrive.
Practical
Steps
The first step to
becoming truly inclusive requires practical steps beginning with the
development of a strategic plan that holds every
member of the organization responsible for creating an inclusive
environment. This plan needs to be
created with the input of the CEO or equivalent and leadership from all areas
across the organization or else it will fail.
This plan also needs to support the organization’s mission and goals or
it will fail. As our world changes at an
increasingly rapid pace, this plan needs to be flexible and adaptable or it
will fail. These are not very difficult
requirements to meet if the planners remember to be inclusive in the process
from the very beginning and remember that they are all interdependent for its
success.
Step two requires a cultural
assessment of the organization: Who are
you as an organization? Where have you come from? What has been initiated
regarding diversity in the past and what has the response been? What education
has been provided and how effective has it been. Great tools to employ at this point are
confidential surveys and interviews. If
people feel really safe they will tell you the truth about their experiences
within an organization. If they do not
they will not.
Step three is to
develop customized inclusion education for each level of the organization. This education needs to employ adult
education theory as no employee enters the training room as a tabula rasa. Everyone brings a wealth of experiences,
knowledge, ideas and again, perspective to the process. This needs to be given a great deal of
attention and respect. The core of the
education should focus on the following: “How do I benefit by being
truly inclusive?”
Step four actually is
step one through five - constant communication.
Tell them what you are going to do, tell them what you are doing and
tell them what you have done. This is the only way to assure support for the
process and again, without this it will fail.
Communication needs to be customized for employees, clients, board
members, stock holders, the public and et al.
Step five is the
establishment of support mechanisms for without them your inclusion strategy
will fail. In addition to regular,
ongoing education and communication organizations need ‘Inclusion Ambassadors’
to champion the importance of inclusion.
These ambassadors may be members of an organization’s diversity councils
or affinity groups and should receive special education on inclusion theory,
communication, team building, project management and leadership. The ‘Inclusion Ambassadors’ of an
organization might sponsor event, write articles, provide training, develop
outreach projects in the community and more.
They will become the face of inclusion of your organization and as such
should be representative of many titles, locations, and functions as well as
being culturally diverse. Another great
support mechanism is cross-cultural mentoring.
Cross-cultural mentoring may be part of a general mentoring program
establish by the organization with specific mentoring on cultural topics or
interests. For example, I might be a
mentor on Puerto Rican culture and have a mentor on time management. Participants should receive training on
mentoring and be clear on the expectations of the program.
Results driven
organizations whether in the public, non-profit or private sectors can benefit
by creating True Inclusion© through an increase in retention of the best and
brightest employees; the development of future leaders and viable succession
plans that assure the continuation of an organizations’ success; an exponential
increase in innovation and market share by involving every member of an
organization in the creative process and hence an organization that thrives in
spite of rapidly changing circumstances.
This process does not have to be difficult. One of the barriers to organizations becoming
inclusive is the myth that this is a difficult and arduous process. Nothing can be easier than inviting people to
be part of their own promotion and success!
It is this simple: the inclusion
of all members of an organization in that organization’s success results in an organization
that thrives!
Wendy Amengual Wark May
2008
