Introduction
The UK recognises the need for people’s equity irrespective of their individual disabilities, looks, race, gender, age, or ethnicity. However, research demonstrates that Black, Minority, and Ethnic (BME) people continue to experience barriers to the extent that their share in senior positions is low. They face these experiences not because of their inability to deliver their job mandates but because of prejudiced views and wrong perceptions about their capabilities. Considering the incredible talent potential possessed by BME people as discussed by Tresh (2017), their discrimination and unequal upward career mobility presents a major disadvantage in the UK’s employment sector. BME people are well qualified as the White population. Colour does not contribute to the creativity or innovativeness of an employee. This paper argues that discriminating BME people in workplaces is detrimental to the UK’s economy. It discusses the contemporary forms of racial discrimination, the underlying disadvantages in the workplace, and the use and usefulness of strategies for overcoming the challenge.
Contemporary Forms of Racial Discrimination
People’s capability to meet job openings based on their possession of the necessary skills and experiences need to inform the decision to employ them. Discriminating people based on their genetic information, skin colour, or ethnicity disadvantages an organisation (Noon 2017). It not only minimises the range of talent potential for building competitive advantage but also hinders the development and nurturing of future aptitude that is imperative for innovation. While workplaces across the UK are aware of this disadvantage, the White race continues to dominate in paid employment. Race Disparity Audit (2017) supports this assertion by noting that despite the increased employment rates for all ethnic groups in the UK, massive differences between the White British and the BME people continue to be witnessed in terms of their participation in the employment market. In fact, “around 1 in 10 adults from a Black, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, or Mixed background is unemployed compared to 1 in 25 White British people” (Race Disparity Audit 2017, p. 9). This trend exists at a time when the number of people identifying themselves as White decreased from 87.4 per cent in 2001 to about 80% in 2011. Hence, in the UK, discrimination of BME people in workplaces continues to be a major impendent to their career mobility and absorption in the employment sector.
Van Laer and Janssens (2011) conducted a qualitative study with the objective of understanding subtle discrimination as a form of contemporary racial favouritism. After conducting 26 in-depth interviews involving minority subjects drawn from Maghreb and Turkey, the researchers identified three characteristics of race-oriented workplace prejudice. First, they presented restrained favouritism as indefinite and one that habitually entails disempowerment through noticeable empowering actions (Van Laer & Janssens 2011). This finding indicates that one form of BME people’s discrimination in workplaces involves their treatment as less powerful individuals who are not fit in making decisions compared to a person from another decent race such as the white community that constitutes the majority of the workforce in the UK.
Secondly, Van Laer and Janssens (2011) present discrimination as an unethical issue that involves legitimising individuals. In other words, in the workplace, positions taken by people who are apparently considered superior regardless of their skin colour, ethnic background, and/or whether one comes from the minority or majority population segment are considered approved and incontestable. Consequently, BME people feel disempowered. Thirdly, subtle discrimination is linked to societal structures and discourses (Van Laer & Janssens 2011). In this case, societal perceptions and ideological beliefs about the abilities and capabilities of some people diffuse into the workplaces to the extent of being reproduced through organisational workplace encounters. This situation gives rise to a stereotypical form of workplace discrimination.
Disadvantages of BME Discrimination in the Workplace
Discriminating BME people entails the failure to recognise the value and importance of workforce diversity (Hunt, Layton & Prince 2015). The most pressing issues pertaining to workforce diversity are more inclined to women mistreatment. This concern coupled with the increasing educational level for the girl-child has compelled many nations, including the UK, to adopt more women-friendly workforce policies (Davies 2011). The accruing benefits suggest that workforce diversity management is vital for today’s UK managers. While the issue of women inclusion in the workforce has dominated the debate on diversity for decades, contemporary matters such as race, minority, and ethnicity constitute the major issues and key approaches to managing diversity.
Where minority, ethnic, and black groups of people largely perceive themselves as being more oppressed or discriminated, it is apparent that they will consider taking steps that are unhealthy to the performance of an institution. For example, workplace discrimination may lead to suboptimal performance and poor organisational commitment. This outcome is widely probable due to minority employees’ intense awareness of their rights and the existence of stricter codes of conduct and regulations that have been predominantly formulated to govern behaviours within the workplace. Indeed, Saxena (2014, p. 177) argues, “it is in the interest of the management of all firms to sensitise their workforce towards race and gender issues and ensure that the workplace is free of discrimination against minority groups, as well as women”. From this dimension, any UK-based company that discriminates BME people in the workplace fails to enjoy the contribution of the diverse workforce to the productivity of the respective company and the country by extension. This situation hinders the effective furthering of institutional goals and the creation of positive changes within the corporate community (Subhash & Archana 2017). Discriminating BME people also hinders the promotion and strengthening of organisational business partnerships. In fact, a talent pool possessed by people from the BME group may be the most effective strategy that can take a company to the next level of corporate success.
A major disadvantage of BME people’s discrimination flows from the difference between diversity and the inclusion of all people in the workplace. Oswick and Noon (2014) present a mushrooming body of research contending that diversity involves recognising values inherent in different people who form an organisational workforce. According to the authors, such values underline the need for managing diversity in a manner that leads to a company’s commercial advantage. Consequently, discriminating BME people poses a commercial disadvantage whereby a business fails to tap into the gains accorded to an institution by such people. Indeed the benefits are impossible to realise without the inclusion of a diverse workforce, for instance, the BME people. Such inclusion implies the processes for incorporating differences among people into a firm’s business practices to realise the value in their operations.
A direct correlation exists between employee diversity, job performance, dedication, and the perception of being valuable resources in a company. For instance, Fields, Cheeseman, and Fields (2013, p. 73) observe,” if management and team members fail to value women and minorities, a company’s productivity will likely suffer as a consequence.” This claim infers that the mismanagement of workforce diversity and the failure to ensure the inclusion of all people translate into increased organisational costs. In the context of the UK, companies that discriminate BME people in their workplace are likely to plunge into problems of productivity and competitive advantage. This situation arises from the poor management of various talent pools, and the propagation of stereotypes, the discrimination and harassment of BME people in the workplace.
The Use and Usefulness of Strategies for Overcoming BME Discrimination in the Workplace
In a full contemplation of the disadvantages of discrimination that is directed to BME people in the UK workplaces, there is the need to establish mechanisms that can help to overcome the issue. The strategies should be aimed at enhancing inclusivity, diversity, and equality of BME people in the UK workplaces (Oswick & Noon 2014). The strategies may take the form of equal opportunities and diversity approaches. Diversity strategies focus on the need to appreciate the value of employees who are drawn from all population demographics, owing to their capacity to enhance organisational outcomes such as productivity and other commercial gains. Arguably, the motive here does not focus on how employees consider themselves valuable to an institution. Instead, organisations endeavour to make workers feel precious with the objective of gaining from such recognition.
Diversity-oriented strategies for addressing BME discrimination in the UK workplaces are useful to the extent that an organisation gains in terms of profitability and diverse ideas. Equal opportunity strategies aim at ensuring that people access job openings in an organisation based on merit but not their demographic traits, including ethnicity, colour, their origin, and/or the size of their population segment (Beech et al. 2017). Consequently, such strategies foster the inclusion of a diverse workforce. Since equal opportunity strategies consider merit and capability to execute organisational roles that lead to the attainment of particular outcomes, they are not only useful to them but also to employees.
In the UK, different employment sectors recognise the need to respond to the issue of discrimination that is directed to BME people. Tomlinson et al. (2013) studied the experiences of BME and white women in their legal profession. Depending on the career point of the sampled study group (68 women from Wales and England), the researchers identified “assimilation, compromise, playing the game, reforming the system, location/relocation, and withdrawal” as the main six career strategies (Tomlinson et al. 2013, p. 245). Apart from withdrawal, the other strategies reproduce, as opposed to transforming, the structures of the opportunities presented within the legal profession. Therefore, women’s experience in the legal profession depicts the reproduction of traditional organisational structures instead of transforming to embrace BME and White people to guarantee equal opportunities in their career. Rather, in Wales and England, old structures characterised by inequalities prevail. To this extent, strategies for overcoming BME women’s discrimination in the legal professional workplace fail to embrace equal opportunities for all people.
Coming from the history of women restriction to domestic chores in the 17th and 18th centuries, the UK has recognised the role they can play in enhancing economic growth through their inclusion in the workforce (Seierstad 2016). Davies (2011) argues that women in Europe and the U.S. constitute about 60% of university graduates. Indeed, the UK notices the value of tapping into this pool. Davies (2011) supports this claim by observing that about 51% of the total UK’s workforce is now comprised of women. This strategy seeks to overcome the failure of the economy to reap optimally from the talent potential of its people. The plan has been adopted following the realisation that companies, which have overlooked the input of BME people in the UK, have been recording a below-par performance (Seierstad 2016).
Over the last 12 years, women have significantly taken senior job positions, including directorships. Recognising these efforts and considering the benefits, including the case where women now make over 70% of household-related purchasing decisions, the UK is now well capacitated to respond to the issue of discrimination encountered by BME people (Howe-Walsh & Turnbull 2016). After all, women have been ardently included in workforce whereby the fruits from such a move have already been felt in the UK’s economy (Seierstad 2016). Consequently, the case of women involvement in paid labour in the UK continues to constitute an important benchmark in decision-making processes and hence the dire need to respond to the labour market demands that are characterised by increased knowledge repositories among BME people.
Conclusion
All people are entitled to a decent living and access to sources of livelihood. Apart from engaging in business activities, employment constitutes an important source of livelihood for many people in the UK. Consequently, it is important to eliminate all issues that impede people’s participation in paid employment at all job levels regardless of their racial, colour, and other demographic characteristics. Indeed, mitigating workplace discrimination paves the way for the provision of equal opportunities to all people. Therefore, transformative strategies that seek to change the conventional working structures in the UK are necessary, especially upon noting the changing trend whereby BME people have secured positions that match those of their White counterparts. The paper has regarded such a move as beneficial to the country’s economy since productivity in organisations is equally felt in the country’s augmented performance.
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