Workplace Diversity: Things are Changing

Individuals who work in organizations differ in many ways. They hold different jobs, have different work experiences, and have different demographic or cultural characteristics (e.g., age, race, sex, and citizenship). All of these differences create diversity in organizations. The increasing diversity of the workforce in Canada is evident in the following statistics:

  • 73 percent of the people who immigrated to Canada during the 1990’s were visible minorities
  • 18 percent of Canada’s population was born outside Canada
  • 20 percent of Saskatchewan’s population will be Aboriginal by 2015
  • In 2001, approximately 4 million Canadians were visible minorities; by 2017, that number could increase to as much as 8.5 million
  • The largest visible minority group in Canada in 2001 was the Chinese, but the South Asian population is expected to grow more quickly during the next decade
  • Visible minorities currently make up 40 percent of the population of Vancouver
  • By 2017, visible minorities will form more than 50 percent of the populations of Toronto and Vancouver
  • By 2017, 22 percent of the total Canadian population will be visible minorities

Changes of this magnitude simply cannot be ignored by Canadian business firms, non-profit organizations, and government agencies. And some organizations are, in fact, doing a good job of responding to the shifting demographics of the Canadian scene. Mediacorp recognizes these organizations by publishing an annual listing of the top diversity employers in Canada. The listing assesses the extent to which companies have employment initiatives that address the needs of five groups: women, visible minorities, disabled people, aboriginals, and gays/lesbians.

The 2009 list shows which organizations scored well in helping members of the five groups (the list below is illustrative, not exhaustive):

  • women (Blake, Cassels & Graydon, Corus Entertainment, KPMG Canada)
  • aboriginals (Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries, Assiniboine Credit Union, Boeing Canada, Canada Post)
  • disabled people (Canada Mortgage and Housing, Canadian Pacific Railway, HSBC Bank Canada)
  • gays/lesbians (Hewlett-Packard Canada, Intuit Canada)
  • visible minorities (WorkSafe BC, Toronto Police Service)

Various other organizations are also taking steps to deal with the challenges and opportunities that come with rapidly changing demographics. They include Procter & Gamble, Western Union, Bayer Canada, Sun Life Financial, and Enbridge Gas Distribution.

Procter & Gamble

Thirty years ago, P & G was like a lot of other Canadian companies, that is, most of its employees were white males. But that’s changing rapidly. The company organized a major social gathering to celebrate the diverse nature of the 800 people who work at P & G’s Toronto head office (employees come from 40 different countries and speak at least 30 different languages). But the event wasn’t just for fun. Like other companies, P & G has learned that employees are more productive when their differences are respected in the work environment. And that translates into increased corporate success. Since the top management ranks of P & G are still predominantly white male, the company has set a strategic goal to diversify its work force.

P & G thinks that a diverse workforce also helps the company market its well-known brands such as Pampers, Crest, Tide, Mr. Clean, etc. to a diverse group of consumers. And the Statistics Canada report noted above clearly shows that Canadian consumers are becoming more diverse at a dizzying pace. As consumer demographics change, it is important to get more diverse people involved in making marketing decisions. The president of P & G Canada says that a diverse workforce enriches everyone in the company because they are exposed to other cultures. Having diversity among employees also gives P & G a better understanding of its customers.

There are multiple “affinity groups” at P & G, such as the Women’s Leadership Council, the French Canadian Network, the Asian Professional Network, the Christian Network, and the Jewish Network. The goal of these networks is to help employees feel comfortable about participating in corporate life, and to act as resource groups for employees who want to learn how to reach certain specific markets.

Western Union

Western Union is another company that is focusing on diversity, and it may be further along than most companies given the nature of its business: moving money overseas to the families of new Canadians who are working here and want to help their families back in their home country. The potential customers of Western Union are not easily reached by traditional marketing methods, so the company hires people who speak the language of their target market and who know what it feels like to be an immigrant in Canada. When recruiting new employees, Western Union does not demand “Canadian experience” as many other companies do. Rather, the company wants employees with international experience because of the nature of the company’s business. After Western Union hires these people, they seek out local business operators to act as Western Union agents for their own ethnic community.

Marketing Manager Marco Amoranto is typical of the kind of employees that are hired at Western Union. He was born in the Philippines and originally worked for Colgate-Palmolive. He wanted to work in Canada but had trouble landing a job because he didn’t have Canadian experience. At Western Union, he is responsible for marketing to Asians and Europeans.

The Western Union approach has yielded some interesting benefits. In one area of Toronto, for example, customers who wanted to transfer money back to the Philippines got a free loaf of Pan de Sel bread from a local Filipino baker. Thus, the results were positive for Western Union, its customers, and the baker. Western Union also brings in entertainers from its customers’ home countries and then gives these customers free tickets to the concerts.

Bayer Canada

Each year, Bayer Canada has a Diversity Day which showcases the various cultures that are represented at the company. Suzanne Wan began her career with Bayer in Hong Kong and moved to the company’s Mississauga, Ontario location in 1988. She says that businesses benefit from being open to the differing opinions and ideas that are suggested by people from different cultures.

Sun Life Financial

Sun Life Financial Inc. sometimes hires people even before they enter Canada. It recruits them through foreign embassies where potential immigrants go to apply to enter Canada. Sonia Del Rosario, for example, was hired through the embassy in her native Philippines. She was offered the opportunity to work in financial services in her native language with Canadian customers who originally came from the Philippines.

Enbridge Gas Distribution

Enbridge Gas Distribution tries to put new Canadians at ease when they interview for positions by giving them interview questions an hour early so they can spend extra time preparing their answers. The company does this because new Canadians may be anxious about their verbal English skills.

It’s not just companies that are trying to benefit from diversity. David Cohen is an immigration lawyer who has set up a website called Loon Lounge which helps potential immigrants to Canada connect with workers from their hometown area who are already working in Canada. So, for example, people from Nigeria can put their profiles on the site and find other people from their hometown. That may facilitate their entrance into Canada to work. Canadian cities are doing similar things. The city of Halifax launched a program to help immigrants get connected. Professionals from 40 different companies volunteer to meet with newcomers to offer advice and answer questions.

Questions for Discussion

  1. What kinds of problems do diverse work groups encounter? What general guidelines should managers follow as they attempt to effectively manage diverse work group?
  2. When managers use the motivation theories described in Chapter 10 to motivate a diverse workforce, what sorts of issues do they need to deal with?
  3. Consider the following statement: The productivity of organizations with a homogeneous work force will be much higher than the productivity of organizations with a heterogeneous (diverse) workforce. When you put people from diverse backgrounds together in an organization, they will spend much of their time disagreeing with each other, or trying to figure out how to get along with each other. They will therefore be less productive than workers who don’t spend time on those sorts of activities. Do you agree or disagree with this statement. Explain.
  4. Don Smith was reading a government publication that contained some statistics about the Canadian workforce. He learned the following: 8 percent of workers are visible minorities, 1 percent are aboriginals, 60 percent are women, and 5 percent are people with disabilities. In the same document, it was noted that the makeup of the staff at the Canadian Diversity Institute (CDI) is as follows: 11 percent are visible minorities, 6 percent are aboriginal, 66 percent are women, and 5 percent are people with disabilities. Don had also read that the goal in Canada is to have each of these groups represented in Canadian companies at the same level as their proportional representation in the overall workforce. He then became upset, and concluded that the CDI was discriminating against white males. Do you agree with Don Smith’s assessment? Explain your reasoning.

Sources: “The Top 35 Best Diversity Employers,” February 19, 2009, www.thestar.com/Business/article/589497; “Survey Reveals Global Gender Gap,” www.spiegel.de/internatonal/world/0,1518,589955,00.html, accessed February 3, 2009; Tavia Grant, “Wading Into the Talent Pool,” The Globe and Mail, January 26, 2009, p. E5; Deirdre Kelly, “New Faces, New Customers,” The Globe and Mail, January 26, 2009, p. E3; Sandra Rubin, “What Will it Take to Crack the Glass Ceiling?,” The Globe and Mail, December 17, 2008, p. B8; “World Economic forum Gender Gap Index,” November 13, 2008, www.crrc-caucasus.blogspot.com/2008/11/world-economic-forum-gender-gap-index.html; Carly Weeks, “Canada Plunges by 13 Spots in Gender Gap Index,” The Globe and Mail, November 13, 2008, p. L1; Wallace Immen, “One More Gap in Pay Between Men and Women,” The Globe and Mail, August 15, 2008, p. C1; Meagan Fitzpatrick, “Women Still Earning Less than Men: Statistics Canada,” Winnipeg Free Press, May 2, 2008, p. A5; Konrad Yakabuski, “Meet the New Leading Lady of Finance,” The Globe and Mail, March 27, 2008, pp. B1-B2; “Women Less Likely to Aspire to Top Corporate Positions,” Hudson Canada, www.hudson.com/node.asp?kwd=03-06-08-women-survey; Rudy Mezzetta, “Banks, Credit Unions Put Women in Top Spots,” Investment Executive, February, 2008; Matthew McClearn, “Mind the Gap,” Canadian Business, November 5, 2007, pp. 21-22; Margaret Wente, “It’s Manly at the Top,” The Globe and Mail, May 7, 2005, p. A21; Virginia Galt, “P & G Leverages its Cultural Diversity,” The Globe and Mail, April 7, 2005, pp. B1, B18; Jill Mahoney, “Visible Majority by 2017,” The Globe and Mail, March 23, 2005, pp. A1, A7; Virginia Galt, “Western Union Remakes ‘Canadian’ Image,” The Globe and Mail, November 23, 2004, pp. B1, B24; Valerie Marchant,” The New Face of Work, Canadian Business, March 29, 2004, p. 38; Janet McFarland, “Women Still Find Slow Rise to Power Positions,” The Globe and Mail, March 13, 2003, pp. B1, B7; Virginia Galt, “Top Women Still Finding Barriers,” The Globe and Mail, September 25, 2002, p. B7; Marie Drolet, “The Male-Female Wage Gap,” Perspectives on Labour and Income, the Online Edition, December , 2001, www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/75-001-XIE/01201/hi-fs_200112_01_a.html; Elizabeth Church, “Women Still Shut Out of Many Top Posts,” The Globe and Mail, February 10, 2000, p. B15; Belle Rose Ragins, “Gender Gap in the Executive Suite: CEO’s and Female Executives Report on Breaking the Glass Ceiling,” Academy of Management Executive, February, 1998, pp. 28-42; Greg Keenan, “Ford Canada Gets New CEO,” The Globe and Mail, April 9, 1997, p. B1; Greg Keenan and Janet McFarland, “The Boys’ Club,” The Globe and Mail, September 27, 1997, pp. B1, B5; Greg Keenan, “Woman at the Wheel,“ The Globe and Mail, July 8, 1995, pp. B1, B6.

Answers to Questions for Discussion

  1. What kinds of problems do diverse work groups encounter? What general guidelines should managers follow as they attempt to effectively manage diverse work group?
  2. Although diverse work groups have the potential for significant benefits, these benefits are sometimes hard to achieve. Multiple perspectives and values, as well as different ways of thinking can result in benefits to the organization, but they can also lead to various problems, including misunderstandings because of communication problems, mistrust, conflict and incompatible approaches to problem solving, lower group cohesiveness, and greater subgroup formation based on factors like language, race, or gender.

    Several suggestions for effectively managing diverse work groups are presented on p. 469 of the text. These include knowing yourself (how tolerant are you of differences in people), prepare yourself (develop skills in listening and conflict resolution), provide support (for example, support groups and mentors), and guide behaviour (provide positive reinforcement for behaviours that foster tolerance).

  3. When managers use the motivation theories described in Chapter 10 to motivate a diverse workforce, what sorts of issues do they need to deal with?
  4. The most fundamental issue to address is whether motivation theories that were developed during the past 50 years in North America can be used to motivate individuals who have come to North America from a much different culture. For example, individualism is a key cultural characteristic of both the U.S. and Canada. But Hofstedt’s research (see Chapter 4) shows that individualism is not nearly as important in some other cultures. Other factors like power distance and uncertainty avoidance also differ, and these factors can significantly impact the workability of motivation theories.

    Consider a specific example: Maslow’s hierarchy proposes that as people satisfy lower-level needs like security, higher-level needs like self-actualization emerge. That sounds intuitively plausible for North America, but in cultures where uncertainty avoidance is strong, the need for security may be continuing and dominant, not simply a lower-level need that ceases to motivate when it is largely satisfied. Student answers should demonstrate a similar analysis for the other motivation theories discussed in the chapter. For example, Herzberg found that money was not a motivator for the sample of people he studied. But will that be true for individuals from other cultures? Or will they have a different configuration of needs?

    It should also be pointed out that while various differences are evident across cultures, there are also similarities. For example, most people would probably like to have an interesting job, irrespective of the culture they come from. Also, during the past couple of decades, many individuals in developing economies have become (or perhaps have always been) extremely interested in increasing their standard of living, and that is evidence that materialism (the emphasis on acquiring physical goods) is also a need that is found in many cultures. Both of these needs may make it easier to apply motivation theories that have been developed in North America to people from diverse cultures.

  5. Consider the following statement: The productivity of organizations with a homogeneous work force will be much higher than the productivity of organizations with a heterogeneous (diverse) workforce. When you put people from diverse backgrounds together in an organization, they will spend much of their time disagreeing with each other, or trying to figure out how to get along with each other. They will therefore be less productive than workers who don’t spend time on those sorts of activities. Do you agree or disagree with this statement. Explain.
  6. Many students will agree with this statement because it looks plausible. They will likely say that when people have a lot in common (demographics, values, cultural background, racial background) they will be more efficient in dealing with each other because they won’t have to waste a lot of time learning about each other. There will also be less conflict between people because they have similar backgrounds. Students who take such a position may give an example where, say, all the people in a work group are between 50 and 60. The people in such a group would have a lot in common and there may be much tacit agreement about how things should work and what is important. No time is taken up in debate and everyone just does their job. They might contrast that group with one that has both young and old workers in it and point out that since these two sub-groups have little in common, conflicts may break out.

    Other students may disagree with the statement because they have read about the benefits of a diverse workforce. They will note, for example, that diverse work groups are more likely to have multiple perspectives on problems, have differing values and ways of thinking, and have more creative insights than less diverse groups. They will also point out that the assumption that members of homogeneous work groups have fewer conflicts is not reasonable, so having a homogeneous workforce is no particular advantage when it comes to conflict potential.

    Still other students will say that we cannot make a simple “agree” or “disagree” decision regarding the statement. Those who take that position are essentially arguing for a contingency perspective on diversity. (For a description of some interesting research findings regarding the varying impact of diversity on performance, see Nancy Langton and Stephen Robbins, Organizational Behaviour. Toronto: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007, pp. 222-225.)

  7. Don Smith was reading a government publication that contained some statistics about the Canadian workforce. He learned the following: 8 percent of workers are visible minorities, 1 percent are aboriginals, 60 percent are women, and 5 percent are people with disabilities. In the same document, it was noted that the makeup of the staff at the Canadian Diversity Institute (CDI) is as follows: 11 percent are visible minorities, 6 percent are aboriginal, 66 percent are women, and 5 percent are people with disabilities. Don had also read that the goal in Canada is to have each of these groups represented in Canadian companies at the same level as their proportional representation in the overall workforce. He then became upset, and concluded that the CDI was discriminating against white males. Do you agree with Don Smith’s assessment? Explain your reasoning.

This question is designed to test students’ critical thinking abilities within the context of the workplace diversity issue. Because the issue of workplace diversity may be controversial, it is probably best to use this question as the basis for a class discussion about diversity. The instructor should act as the moderator for the discussion to keep it on track, and to ensure that unreasonable assumptions are not being used to make arguments or to reach conclusions, and that the data presented in the question are being properly interpreted.

There are two key points that should be made. First, students need to analyze the facts (and assumptions) that are evident in the question. If we assume that we want exact proportional representation of the four groups in all Canadian organizations, then Don Smith has a point because visible minorities, aboriginals, and women are all overrepresented and white males (and males in general) are underrepresented at CDI. (The reasonableness of this is addressed below.) The discussion about this issue should also focus on the fact that the data are presented in such a way that unfortunate ambiguities are created. The data do give some insights into the situation at CDI, but several important questions cannot be answered because the categories of workers are not mutually exclusive. For example, while we know that 34 percent of the staff at CDI are men, we don’t know how many of these men are white, or visible minorities, or aboriginals, or disabled. We also don’t know what percentage of the women who work at CDI are white females (we know that 66 percent of the staff at CDI are women, but we don’t know how many of these women are visible minorities, aboriginal, or disabled). We also aren’t given information about the proportion of white men and white women in the Canadian workforce. Thus, we need a more detailed breakdown of the various classifications. For both men and women, we need to know what proportion are visible minorities, aboriginal, disabled, and white.

Second, beyond the numbers, several other issues need to be addressed. For example, the idea that we should try to achieve proportional representation of the various groups in Canadian organizations may be challenged by students. For the gender issue, some students may argue that it is not a bad thing that certain occupations are dominated by men or women. For example, they may argue that it is good that the majority of nurses are women because women are more nurturing than men and that makes them more effective in dealing with people who are ill. Or, they may argue that it is a good thing that most engineers are men because research shows that men have more highly developed spatial skills, and those skills are crucial for success in the field of engineering. Of course, these arguments will likely be disputed by other students who will take the position that these imbalances in various occupations are simply the result of historical biases against women and minorities. They will also note that these imbalances are leveling out and that more men are becoming nurses and more women are becoming engineers. As part of this discussion, some students will argue that people gravitate to professions that interest them, and setting standards like proportional representation that don’t recognize this reality are doomed to failure. For the issue of visible minorities, some students will point out that they are overrepresented in certain occupations. For example, visible minorities are well represented in Ph.D. programs and increasingly in the ranks of university professors. Some students will argue that this has happened because intelligent and motivated students from places like India and China have come to North America to get their Ph.D. and to develop their careers in universities here. Another point that is almost certain to be made is that overrepresentation of women, visible minorities, aboriginals, and disabled people is acceptable because we need to “balance out” past injustices that have been inflicted on these groups.