What is Diversity

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What is Diversity?

• DENR
• Managers Forum

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Agenda

• What is Diversity?
• Why Value Diversity?
• Isnt Diversity Against American Values
• Doesnt Diversity Replace the Mainstream Culture?
• The Business Case for Diversity
• What Next?

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Question

• What are the main differences between the public
  sector and the private sector?

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Common Responsibilities

• Control costs
• Market services in an effective way
• Report business performance to a group of
  stakeholders
• Effectively manage the workforce
• Respond to changes in the business environment
• Manage organizational effectiveness

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What is Diversity?

• Diversity represents all the ways we are
  different
• Laws provide the first basis for diversity equal
  employment opportunity
• Laws based on historical discrimination against
  certain groups in our society race, sex, color,
  religion, national origin, disability, etc.
• Diversity includes all of the above concepts
  organizations cannot do one at the expense of
  another

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Why Value Diversity?

• Future workforce will have huge demographic
  variations
• Companies report competitive advantage as the key
  driver of diversity efforts
• Diverse markets require diverse operatives
  organizations must know the markets they seek to
  serve

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Isnt Diversity Against American Values?

• US is the most diverse collection of cultures in
  the history of the world
• Joel Barker the wealth and power of a
  civilization is directly dependent on its ability
  to mine the diversity of its people

• While the melting pot was the standard, not all
  groups can assimilate
• American innovation has been fueled by diversity

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Doesnt Diversity Replace the Mainstream Culture?

• Diversity does not pit one culture against
  another for dominance it only allows for
  cultural differences to be employed to solve
  business challenges.
• Diversity acknowledges and uses these inherent
  differences to drive innovation as a way of
  creating better organizational performance and
  competitive advantage.

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The Business Case for DiversityImproved
Organizational Performance

• Companies rated on Fortunes 50 Best Companies
  for Minorities outperformed the SP 500 over
  three- and five-year periods
• Academy of Management Journal Organizations with
  diverse management teams correlate with superior
  corporate performance

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The Business Case for DiversityReduced Turnover,
Improved Retention

• Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM)
  study diversity initiatives positively affect
  the bottom line
• Ability to recruit
• Ability to retain
• Improved client relations
• Improved productivity
• Improved corporate culture

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The Business Case for DiversityIncreased
Innovation

• Diversity provides a richer variety of approaches
  to work and problem solving
• Diversity strengthens an organization's
  resilience in changing environmental conditions
• Diversity allows challenges to long-accepted
  views
• Diversity creates dynamic work environments
  through variety of perspectives

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The Business Case for DiversityIncreased
Effectiveness in Minority Markets

• Helps organizations understand how to effectively
  interact with all of its client base
• Informs organizational practices that create
  community support in all populations
• Helps manage perceptions of
• historically underserved markets

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The Business Case for DiversityPositive Impact
on Group Performance

• SHRM and Fortune survey concluded that diversity
• Improves corporate culture 83
• Improves employee morale 70
• Increases creativity 59
• Decreases interpersonal conflict 58
• Enables movement into emerging markets 57
• Improves productivity 52

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The Business Case for Diversity Positive Impact
- Historical Studies

• Exceptional performance within groups of medical
  colleagues representing a wide variety of
  values, experiences and disciplines. (1956)
• Mixed gender groups consistently outperformed
  single-gender groups. Different viewpoints
  caused inventive solutions to emerge. (1961)
• Routine problem solving better handled by
  homogeneous groups, less-defined problems better
  suited to heterogeneous groups. (1984)
• Diverse ethnic groups produced more effective
  solutions than homogeneous groups. (1992)

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The Business Case for Diversity Some Thoughts

• Your organizational culture must be open to
  diversity otherwise this effort will fail
• Managers and supervisors need training and
  education on valuing and managing diversity
• Improving managing diversity is not easy no
  worthwhile organizational change effort is easy
• Leadership must commit to a long-term vision of
  diversity

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Quotes

• "You can and should shape your own future
  because if you don't someone else surely will."
• "No one will thank you for taking care of the
  present if you have neglected the future."
• -Joel Barker

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Quotes

• "Innovation provides the seeds for economic
  growth, and for that innovation to happen depends
  as much on collective difference as on aggregate
  ability. If people think alike then no matter how
  smart they are they most likely will get stuck at
  the same locally optimal solutions. Finding new
  and better solutions, innovating, requires
  thinking differently. Thats why diversity powers
  innovation.
• -Scott E. Page, Professor,
• University of Michigan

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Quotes

• "There is no better fertile ground for innovation
  than a diversity of experience. And that
  diversity of experience arises from a difference
  of cultures, ethnicities, and life backgrounds. A
  successful scientific endeavor is one that
  attracts a diversity of experience, draws upon
  the breadth and depth of that experience, and
  cultivates those differences, acknowledging the
  creativity they spark."
• Dr. Joseph M. DeSimone

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The Business Case for Diversity Bottom Line

• Diversity can create stronger, more resilient
  organizations
• Innovation is a by-product of diversity
• Innovation in government is key to vitality in
  the 21st century

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What Next?

• Executive support for diversity initiatives
• Tactics to smooth the transition to a more
  diverse work culture
• Provide education programs from top to bottom
• Create and maintain a consistent pro-diversity
  message
• Form a diversity council that looks at
  large-scale organizational issues