Managing Diversity
Speech to have been delivered by Zita Antonios, Race Discrimination Commissioner, to the Women, Management and Industrial Relations Conference, 29 July 1997
Let me begin by thanking Ed Davis and the Macquarie Graduate School of Management for the invitation to speak this morning on the topic of managing diversity. I have to admit though that I often have difficulty with the idea that diversity is something to be managed. In the way that the term is sometimes used, managing diversity is too often about addressing the diversity "problem" and there are times when managing diversity sounds a little too much like controlling diversity for my liking. Diversity is a fact of life and a reality for modern management, but I would assert that it is not a problem to be managed. Rather diversity is a source of untapped potential.
So today, I want to talk more about valuing diversity. To ask you to think about the importance of managers embracing the opportunities of diversity. My comments today are about finding strategies to embrace a workforce which is more highly diverse than ever before.
I should also say at the outset that when I suggest the workforce is highly diverse, I am talking about more than ethnic and cultural diversity. As the Race Discrimination Commissioner, I am keen to point out that Indigenous Australians and people from non-English speaking backgrounds continue to be disadvantaged in employment. The racism that we know exists in other areas of public life, also exists in employment and if we are to value diversity at all, we must face up to this reality.
But a discussion of valuing diversity must also be about more than race. It must also be about gender, age, disability and sexual preference. It must be about the diverse skills, professional histories and personal values of our workers. It should also be about the different ways we like to work and the ways we view the world. In short, valuing diversity is about the infinite variety to be found among Australian workers which includes cultural diversity.
There was a time when there was no need to talk about workforce diversity. When Henry Ford harnessed the power of mass production and gave the world a model T ford, it seems unlikely he was particularly concerned about who his workers actually were. So long as they could learn to perform a simple and discrete task accurately and quickly, the production line would keep on going and profits would continue to pour in.
Many year’s ago, Ford’s factory symbolised workplaces in Australia as well. Decisions were made by a manager. Workers carried them out. Systems were developed by bosses and performed by their staff. Change meant developing a new rule book or production line. Management was the task of determining the actions to be performed and just about anyone could be trained to do them. Diversity simply wasn’t a management issue.
Not that we said much about diversity in the rest of our lives either. Australians did not engage with the world in nearly the same way as we do now. Travel took longer and cost more. Men and women had clearly defined roles and we expected migrants to be absorbed by the dominant culture.
The image of our workforce was overwhelmingly male and white. While Aboriginal peoples, South Sea Islanders and other migrants made significant contributions, particularly in rural areas, they were the exception that proved the rule. Relatively few people undertook higher education and those who did trained in a relatively small number of professions. Workers developed skills on the job, working their way through secure firms, taking over a family business or using their skills of trade. Not a lot of diversity to manage.
Over time the task of management changed. Partly inspired by the economic advances of Japanese manufacturing, employers found they could improve their productivity by focusing on staff morale and workplace culture. A happy worker is a better worker and a worker that believes in the goals of the company is even better again. The role for management focussed not only on the tasks to be done but also the people who would do them.
And those people were becoming far more diverse. An active migration program and changing role for women meant that the workforce no longer looked the same as it once had. Managers had to learn to pull different workers together for the good of the corporate goal. As women, Aboriginal peoples and migrants became more assertive about their aspirations and less willing to put up with discrimination, legislation was passed to protect peoples’ rights and prevent harassment.
In 1975, the Racial Discrimination Act was enacted sending a clear signal that it was not acceptable to treat people differently because of their race. This was followed by the sex, and eventually disability discrimination acts. Over this time states and territories introduced their own anti-discrimination legislation.
Employment has always been a key element of anti-discrimination measures. Protecting peoples right to work and to develop economically was a vital part of a social justice imperative to address racial inequality. Employment cases have always accounted for the bulk of complaints received under the Racial Discrimination Act as people have protected their right to equality in employment.
Throughout the 80's and 90's we have become more refined in our understanding of indirect discrimination. We have started to debate the existence of glass ceilings and segmented labour markets. We have seen the need for career development strategies for those who don’t get invited to the boys’ club after work. Equal employment opportunity and affirmative action programs are now a feature of modern management bringing greater equality between different elements of the workforce. Managers now talk about diversity both to keep on the right side of the law and to make sure that new parts of the workforce maintain a commitment to the organisation and its goals. Diversity became a fact of life and for many managers anti-discrimination policies a necessary evil.
But the 1980's saw another fundamental change in the nature of work and the Australian economy. Deregulation, economic rationalism, the floating of the dollar and public sector reform have forced many employers to realise that change is perhaps the only constant. We are continually told that to survive our manufacturing must be internationally competitive, our community services cost effective and our workers highly responsive. Quality assurance, bench marking and performance appraisal are now common tools developed in an environment where we constantly have to find new ways of doing things and innovative approaches to meet new pressures and demands.
Our workforce needs have changed accordingly. We have begun to hire rain makers, lateral thinkers and problem solvers. We have had to call on the diversity that exists within our staff and learn new ways to work productively.
And as women, Indigenous Australians and migrants have slipped into our professions and our boardrooms, we have just started to see that more diversity in management itself may also mean different ways of doing things.
This is a very different Australia from the one my family migrated to in the 1950's. It is an Australia drawn from 160 different national backgrounds, with 40% of the labour force being born overseas. It is a more highly educated Australia. Not only are young people staying in the education system longer, but their parents are studying alongside them, retraining through the increasingly specialised courses of their choice.
Australians have a wider array of personal aspirations and values. People wish to combine family and community responsibilities with professional and career ambitions. Managers today have no choice but to think about diversity.
My reason for looking back at the changes in work and society is that I think we have seen two profound changes, both dealing with diversity. The first is that we have developed a society and workforce that is more diverse than ever before not only in terms of its ethnic and cultural diversity but also in terms of its history, experience, training and values. Secondly, all employers, whether private or public, in finance, manufacturing or community services need to call on a diverse package of business strategies and a diverse range of skills if they are to achieve their corporate goals.
If we are to respond effectively to a new world of work then we also require a new model of management. And that is what we are talking about today. The new model however, needs to go beyond simply managing diversity. It has to seek it out. Management has to value diversity as a path to success.
We cannot afford to dismiss diversity issues as politically correct, social justice issues from a bygone era. Quite apart from the ongoing social benefits of employment equality, valuing and managing diversity is good business. Globalisation has brought a new imperative to discussion of diversity issues, the imperative of the dollar.
I am certainly not the first to suggest this. Enterprising Nation, also known as the Karpin Report, severely criticised Australian managers for their lack of skills in capitalising on the diversity of the Australian population. The report found that:
poor management of diversity ... which impedes the efforts of individual employees to progress through management ranks, are inefficient and are poor business practice. there is also a need for Australian management to think more creatively, to develop new business elements and to combine old elements in new ways. The valuing of difference in organisations can uncover new perspectives, tap different knowledge and experience, and generate ideas, suggestions and methods not previously considered. Tapping diverse resources enhances the ability of organisations to respond more imaginatively to opportunity.
Karpin’s insight is important. There is a glimpse of the opportunities we are yet to fully take. Unfortunately however, the report did not give us many practical strategies about how to capitalise on the diversity we have before us.
Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis have tried to do just that. Their recently published book, Productive Diversity: A New Australian Model for Work and Management is well worth a look for managers trying to think through what social and workforce changes mean for their style and I have found its analysis useful in preparing this discussion today.
In their book, Cope and Kalantzis tell the story of the Prestige Group, cookware manufacturers who owe their current business existence to the diversity of their workforce. In the early 1990's faced with possible closure, the business was revived by picking up on a suggestion from their Asian staff.
Staff said that ordinary cookware was too hard to lift, particularly when they were cooking for their extended families. Instead they wanted large saucepans with two handles, easily transportable and large enough to feed ten. The organisation kept talking to its workers and new pans were designed. The line was a winner and is now sold overseas.
The Prestige story is a simple example, but it sheds some light on successful management in contemporary Australia. For a start there is a diverse workforce willing and able to make suggestions about the direction of the company. This is not a story of workers adhering to a predetermined corporate goal. It is a story of workers who use their broader experience cooking for their extended families to develop a business strategy that works.
Secondly, there is communication. Clearly there were some way by which decision makers could hear the suggestion and then keep talking about it. Through conversation, and probably a level of debate and disagreement, the organisation came to release the new range.
Thirdly, the Prestige story is about realising that a diverse range of skills in a new combination can bring unexpected results. No one worker, not even the General Manager, has all the answers. But with the freedom to be innovative, skills and perspectives worked together.
Prestige is not the only firm to see the sense in maintaining a diverse workforce. The finance sector is placing increasing value on those workers with second language skills. The National Australia Bank, has been using the diversity of its workforce to build relations with ethnic communities for many years and have recently developed a banking education package with the Adult Migrant Education Program of Victoria. Australia Post has developed an active and effective recruitment and retention strategy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Public sector agencies which have endeavoured to meet employment targets for some time, are also starting to look at ways of maintaining diversity through strategies to retain staff and give them career paths. The NSW Police Force, emerging from the Wood Royal Commission, has been targeting ethnic and gay and lesbian media in an effort to recruit a workforce more representative of the policing issues it responds to. All of these examples are positive signs that we are becoming more aware of diversity in the workplace.
But there is another reality in Australian workplaces. And it is the reality that the benefits of valuing diversity are still yet to be heard in many places. Between 1991 and 1996, over half the complaints of discrimination and harassment made under the Racial Discrimination Act, related to employment. During the 1996-97 financial year, sexual harassment cases accounted for just under half the complaints under the Sex Discrimination Act. Most of these complaints were in employment.
Many of you may be surprised at the blatant nature of some of the discrimination complaints that come to the Commission. Let us take just one example, the case of Alex Rugema. Mr Rugema, is a French national of black African origin. He was employed as a machine operator for six years and was efficient and qualified to perform his work. He was also subjected to an ongoing campaign of racial abuse and harassment, including racial slurs and the display of signs including the words ‘whites are superior’. Mr Rugema complained to his employer, but with no proper processes for investigating complaints, no action was taken. After just over six years of employment, Mr Rugema developed a major depressive illness and post-traumatic stress symptoms. He still has not fully recovered. And all of this occurred between 1989 and 1996. Racial harassment is still very much a problem of today.
Alex Rugema was awarded a compensation payment of $55,000, the largest compensation award ever made by the Commission. Perhaps, the size of the payment will lead other employers to give greater importance to the issue of racial harassment. Needless to say, nothing can take away the long-term health effects that the harassment has caused.
Some commentary in media reports of the Rugema decision seems surprised that racial harassment is an issue with which employers have to deal. Many employers are still to appreciate that race, and indeed diversity more generally, are management issues. There are a large number of employers that are a long way from valuing and capitalising on diversity in the manner we have been discussing today. For every workplace that has come to see new opportunity in diversity, I can show you one that hasn’t.
Indirect discrimination is also an ongoing issue in employment. Ian Watson and the former Bureau of Immigration, Multicultural and Population Research, released a report last year arguing that a glass door existed for managers of a non-English speaking background. The report argues that while the few migrant workers who break through into management have a chance to go all the way, very few people born outside Australia make the transition from staff to management. Watson suggests that interviewers presume highly qualified people from non-English speaking backgrounds are not able to become managers, because they do understand elements of the cultures of their staff.
My colleagues in the Sex Discrimination Unit released the results of a study into the careers of women in the Australian finance industry and revealed that women are not advancing primarily due to organisational culture. Despite the fact that women make up the majority of workers and that the industry makes broad use of part-time employment, the ways of advancement still follow the traditional career paths of men. There is still a need for change in the way organisations are managed and the values that they rely on.
Research by Bob Birrell and Lesleyanne Hawthorne, from the Centre for Population and Urban Research, recently found that while Australian migrants are increasingly skilled, they are not achieving the same employment results due to a strong business preference for Australian-trained workers. There is a pool of skills in the Australian workforce that are being under-utilised by recruitment managers who value more strongly particular parts of Australian society.
While the public sector is acknowledged as having increased its diversity in recent years there are still real issues about ensuring that all levels of the public service reflect community diversity. In 1995 only 18% of the most senior commonwealth public servants were women and only 10% were from a non-English speaking background. Women from a non-English speaking background number just 28 from a total group of 1600, a tiny 1.75%.
So where do we go from here?
I don’t pretend to have all of the answers. In fact if we are to be true to our rhetoric, then the best results will probably come out of discussions in our workplaces and through the exchange of experiences at conferences like this. But here are few suggestions to get started:
- ask the diversity questions. Workplaces need to think about the diversity they need to succeed. Ask questions about the language skills you need, the professional backgrounds you should draw on, the various informal skills that would offer a new perspective on your particular situation. I am pleased to see that in his current revamp of the Public Service Act, Peter Reith has included a requirement that all agencies develop a diversity plan. Modern management includes diversity.
- collect the data. There is nothing discriminatory in asking staff to volunteer information about their ethnicity, skills, backgrounds and abilities. It may also demonstrate that your organisation contains a wider array of talent and potential than you realise. This is important information to work out whether you need to recruit new skills or have untapped potential sitting at your fingertips.
- bring quality into equal employment opportunity. The goal of equal employment opportunity needs to be about more than access and numbers of people from target groups at various levels. Diversity in management itself will only be maintained where people are appointed to positions but are also able to bring their different experiences and skills to their work. EEO has a role in ensuring that all workers have quality jobs on their own terms.
- develop strategies that deal in the reality of diversity issues. In 1997 social inequality still leaves workers at different places in the labour market. Valuing diversity suggests that we need to develop human resource strategies that deal with this reality. Aboriginal people for example have far lower participation rates in formal education and training and do so at different stages in their lives. It is impractical to expect Aboriginal workers to arrive with the same qualifications other workers might. Valuing the diversity that Aboriginal people bring to many workplaces and businesses, therefore means developing strategies that allow for on the job training, career paths and mentoring, rather than the recruitment of individuals formally trained and qualified.
- avoid stereotyping diversity. While it is undoubtably true that the bilingual skills of workers from non-English speaking backgrounds are a resource to be called on, valuing diversity calls on managers to look at their staff more holistically than this. Many workers from ethnic and cultural minorities, find themselves marginalised in their workplaces, seen as a specialist community relations officer with little to contribute to the remainder of the organisation. It is a mistake to presume that when a Vietnamese worker comes to your organisation that she will be best used as informal translator. Valuing diversity means treating workers as individuals, and therefore using the fact that your new worker may also hold an unrecognised engineering degree that well equips her to work as a project manager on a major construction project.
- review the way you recruit and what you recruit for. In 1992, as part of the workplace relations program, HREOC worked with a manufacturing firm to improve their commitment to diversity. Recruitment was one way in which simple changes could produce better results. The firm abandoned their practice of advertising vacancies on the factory gate in favour of using the CES to refer job seekers to them. The firm found not only did the diversity of their workforce increase but so too did their productivity and staff retention rates. By being clear about the skills they needed and more open in the way they advertised, the firm started to reap the benefits of diversity.
- train managers and staff in cross-cultural communication. The ability to communicate with different people is essential if we are to value diversity. Training should focus on where each organisation needs to improve its internal communication. It may cover awareness of Indigenous history, information on gender issues or attempt to span a generation gap. There is a need for workers to be able to communicate between professional groupings and across levels. Cross-cultural communication is essential if our staff are to combine their difference into better results.
- work flexibly. Remember that one of the reasons diversity assists your workforce is because of the skills that people bring from the remainder of their lives. There are advantages to be gained by finding ways for workers to combine not only their professional and child rearing commitments, but also their involvement in community organisations, professional bodies and education. Flexible work not only allows workers to achieve their personal goals in conjunction with meeting business imperatives but it allows them to bring new skills and experiences back into the workplace.
We also need to look at some structural issues that will make valuing diversity in individual workplaces possible and more successful. There is an ongoing role for governments, researchers, educators and bodies such as HREOC, to create the structural supports to value diversity.
As a start we need to:
- continue social research. Social research gives us the opportunity to assess where we are up to on diversity issues. We need to continue to monitor the overall progress of various parts of the population and the barriers they face. Not only do we need to continue to watch the progress of women and migrants but also people with a disability, workers of different ages and particular ethnic communities. We need to be aware of how traditional barriers to education and training affect our workforce.
- teach diversity in our management and business schools. Colin Hay of KPMG, reported recently that while most business educators felt students would have a comparative advantage by being trained in cultural diversity, very few of them were actually doing it. Educators did not perceive that there was either student or employer demand.
- promote the business as well as the social justice imperative. Whilst we must never lose sight of the social reasons behind equal opportunity, many firms need to hear the message that valuing diversity improves business too. We talk a lot about the business gains to made by engaging with the world, particularly Asia. Elements of the business community need to hear that the same can be said about engaging with the people of the world living in Australia.
There is one more strategy, that at the end of the day may be the most effective. It is one that relates neither to the structure of our economy nor to the strategies of our workplace. It is simply this. Value diversity in your own work and management. More than anything else, managers and organisations need to see diversity at work and bringing results. Practical examples and people implementing the theory are perhaps the most powerful tool we have.
References
Birell, Bob & Hawthorne, Lesleyanne
Immigrants and the Professions in Australia (1997) Centre for Population and Urban Research
Cope, Bill & Kalantzis, Mary
Productive Diversity: A New Australian, Model for Work and Management (1997) Pluto Press
Charlesworth, Sara
Stretching Flexibility: Enterprise Bargaining, Women Workers and Changes to Working Hours (1996) HREOC
Hay, Colin
Managing Cultural Diversity: Opportunities for Enhancing the Competitive Advantage of Australian Business (1996) BIMPR
Karpin, David
Enterprising Nation: Renewing Australia’s Managers to Meet the Challenges of the Asia Pacific Century (1995) AGPS
Sex Discrimination Commissioner, HREOC
Enterprise Bargaining: A Manual for Women in the Workplace (1996) HREOC
Sexual Harassment: A Code of Practice (1996) HREOC
Still, Leonie V.
Glass Ceiling and Sticky Floors: Barriers to the Careers of Women in the Australian Finance Industry (1997) HREOC
Watson, Ian
Last updated 1 December 2001Opening the Glass Door: Overseas-born Managers in Australia (1996) BIMPR
