Diversity: An EEO Re-Run?
Reprinted From The February, 1997, Issue Of Contractors Compensation Quarterly
“Keep your company free from employee law suits. Prominent attorneys show you how to survive diversity in the workplace.” Those are the actual headlines for a contractor workshop on “Diversity”. What’s interesting is that those are the exact same headlines that have been used to promote EEO, Affirmative Action, and ADA workshops. Is “diversity” just another re-run of affirmative action quotas and burdensome EEO paperwork? Is it just another liberal intrusion into the world of business?
The word diversity refers to the ways that people appear, think, value, and behave differently. Some people think the glass is half-full, some think the glass is half empty. Some supervisors think schedule, some supervisors think cost. In other words, diversity is far more encompassing than just differences in age, sex, and race. There is one more important meaning to the word diversity as it is currently being used. The word diversity also describes a social trend. The work force is becoming increasingly dissimilar. Workers wear different clothes, talk differently, value money and work differently, to name just a few instances in a lengthening list.
The trend toward greater diversity is an inevitable part of an open and free society. Diversity is what makes the competitive market work and it is, at the same time, the cause of much social unrest whether it be gay rights or employee management disputes. In other words, diversity, as we know it is far deeper and broader and more important than just differences in gender, race and age. Diversity is the ever changing face of the American social fabric. It is what makes a democratic society strong and it is also what makes it more demanding of its citizenry, government, and commerce.
In times past when contracts were sealed by hand-shake and people stayed ’til the job was done, things were indeed simpler and less complicated. Business today is considerably more demanding both technically and socially. It requires a level of sophistication several notches above the common denominator of even a few years ago. Construction is an example.
Today, a successful construction business composed of just plain Americans requires a contractor to bring together low skill, high skill, narrow thinking, broad thinking, men, women, African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Europeans, heterosexuals, homosexuals, school drop outs, college graduates, computer illiterates, hackers, republicans, democrats, Baptists, Catholics, and a multitude of other differences, all to form a work unit that can achieve a project objective amidst regulatory nightmares for an equally diverse client organization. This is a tall order and it isn’t getting easier.
Businesses that successfully manage in this environment have managers and supervisors that are both technically competent in construction as well as skillful in making a diverse workforce benefit the company. Here are some things contractors are doing to get their managers and supervisors “diversity smart”.
- Enrolling in business and language studies at various universities and colleges
- Entering cooperative programs with foreign and domestic engineering/construction schools
- Appraising employee ability to work with diverse and/or contentious groups
- Writing diversity goals into business plans
- Changing pay systems to reward and promote diversity smart employees