Introduction
According to Syed (2005) diversity management is a novel organizational paradigm. He defines diversity management as a voluntary program aimed at enhancing inclusion of people with different backgrounds into prescribed social networks and programs.
According to Blackburn and Hart (2003, p. 60) diversity management entails logical and planned programs or processes that are meant to enhance interactions among people in the organization especially those coming from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
Management of diversity is meant to ensure that the diversity becomes a source of creativity, harmonization, and enhancement of organizational effectiveness rather than a source of conflict.
According to Adler (2002, 754) the term diversity comprises of visible and invisible differences among people and these includes attributes such as disability, personality, parental status, income, gender, and lifestyle. Invisible characteristics include ethnicity, religion, and marital status among others while visible characteristics include features such as age, disability, race and many others.
Workers represent a significant cluster of stakeholders in organizations. Workers values and concerns regarding employment policies of an organization and social effect of organization’s activities have to be taken into consideration when designing response towards diversity and sustainability (Chatman and Spataro, 2005, p. 330).
From the view point of social responsibility it is significant to translate values such as team work into HR practices. Therefore, managing diversity in an organization is a significant starting point for creating socially responsible organizational policies (Hofstede, 1991, p. 8).
Excellent management of diversity in the organization creates a sense of ownership among the employees and this enhances job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Sound organizational culture, diversity management and corporate social responsibility normally lead to sustainable human resource (Webber and Donahue, 200, p.155).
Most organizations employ people of different gender, cultural background, nationality, and religion. Therefore, organizations must ensure that these employees maximize their potential without any form of prejudice or discrimination.
They should employ strategies that accommodate diversity and ensure equality in the workplace. Some organizations have developed diversity and equality units to facilitate cultural transformation throughout the organization with the objective of entrenching a culture of indulgence, consciousness, and progressive development in diversity and equality (Cox, 2001, p. 7; Webber and Donahue, 200, p.156).
Popular press on racism/ethnicity
In the present days there is very little in the press regarding racism/ethnicity particularly in the workplace. However, this was a dominant subject during 80s and early 90s.Numerous ethnic /racial stories shown on the media evasively report on issues of immigration and racial-based conflicts and violence.
The headline of most newspapers especially the right wing press normally depicts the black minority as the agents of action despite of the fact that most of the blacks are victims of aggressions.
Example of the right wing press is the Tabloid. On the other hand, the police are presented as accountable or impartial despite of the fact that they significantly violate the rights of the black minority through torture and unfair treatment. As many people may expect, government influenced the quality of the press and therefore there is minimal opinionated or policy news regarding racism/ethnicity (van Dijk, 1990).
Discrimination is a regular subject in the liberal press. However, it is always covered in terms of terrible events particularly in business instead of real life events experienced by the black minorities. Liberal press rarely discusses this subject as an intrinsic structural part of racism in society.
In contrast, much of these press and their recommendations normally tend to refute pervasiveness of racism in society and are tend to relate racism with excessive right. Because liberal press is an elite press, it is a form of elite discrimination against the minority groups.
In a nut shell, these newspapers report offensively biased topics related to racism/ethnicity in their country. Liberal press in this case include the Guardian, New York Times, Le Monde, Frankfurter Rundschau, and De Volkstrant (van Dijk, 1999).
Uninformed Stereotypes and reality
Negative stereotypes and images of African Germans and other Germans of colour are persistently used, redecorated, fooled around, altered, and passed along white kinship and friends from generation to generations and from one community to the next.
Up to now, most whites in Germany still view blacks in terms of archaic negative stereotypes of the age-old fictions that portrayed blacks especially Africans as brainless, lethargic, wicked or criminals. Some of them pass these views even though there are numerous evidences contradicting these views. Number of them takes actions on the basis of these uncorroborated shared views.
In addition, whites normally pass along a range of imaginary stories in their social networks on how they are superior, industrious, bright and morally upright. Therefore, most of whites discover their sense of racial position in social networks (Feagin, 2000).
However, according to numerous behavioural study carried out in Germany the IQ gap between whites and blacks is very negligible and therefore it is hard to say that whites are more intelligent than blacks. Even though there are high cases of immorality among the black community experts attributes this to socio-cultural factors. There are also numerous cases of immorality among the whites (Wrench, 2003).
History has proven that blacks are naturally strong and industrious and that is why they were used as slaves in the past. Furthermore, statistics shows that most black immigrants in Germany are employed in more than one job (often lesser occupation) as they struggle to make the ends meet. Moreover, there is no race without violent and wicked elements. For instance, Nazis are not black (Feagin, 2000; Velling, 1995, p.3).
Ethnic/Racial discrimination in the workplace
According to Velling (1995) migrants in Germany are normally subjected to stringent labour rules. Most of the migrants have acquired adequate education and training in their home country and are partly qualified for top positions in the German labour market but they are often assigned in lower positions.
Most of the studies have focused too much on discrimination in U.S and U.K labour market (Hicks, 2003; Gill 1994). However, there are very few studies that have been carried out on workplace discrimination in Germany (Velling, 1995, p.3).
Hicks (2003) defined workplace discrimination as the valuation in the labour market of individual attributes of workers that are not related to productivity. Hicks’ definition clearly points out the need to detach discrimination factors from productivity factors. Nonetheless, there are other forms of discrimination that may result in different valuation given the matching productivity that were not covered by Hicks.
Therefore, the most significant aspects of the labour market that could be affected by workers discrimination are hiring process, occupational achievement and promotion, and lastly wages.
Since all these forms of discrimination can results in wage difference even if the productivity of the workers are the same, any study carried out on wage discrimination must take into consideration the other three elements (Hicks, 2003, P. 230).
In the case of Germany, it significant to note that major forms of discrimination are already in place implicitly through institutional policies. The most affected lot are immigrants from overseas. The German law demands that all the foreigners who want to work in their country must have a work permit which is only issued on fulfilment of certain requirements.
Only a few groups are exempted from these rule and they include EU citizens, foreigners who have secured subsistence eight years stay, and certain types of occupation such as athletes, journalists, scientists among others. Those do not belong to these groups must secure two work permits. The all-purpose work permit is limited to investors and employers entering the German labour market (Velling, 1995, p. 4).
Even though institutional discrimination are aimed at protecting the locals in the labour market, they utterly results in different forms of discrimination. Foreign immigrants who are non-EU citizens normally find it more difficult to secure a job in Germany since they are required to have a general work permit. Immigrants from developing economies are the major victims of this form of discrimination.
In addition, there are some occupations that are easily accessible to foreigners at the same time they are locked out of other occupations. These implicit forms of discriminations limit foreign immigrants to only certain types of jobs and occupations. Majority of the affected people are the recent immigrants as compared to those who have lived or grown in Germany (Chideya, 1995, p. 10).
Whereas the country’s law affects the occupational structure of the immigrant workers, it does not influence the process of setting wages. Therefore, from the institutional perspective there is nothing that causes absolute wage discrimination. The inherent institutional discrimination can be compounded by employer discrimination.
Webber &Donahue (2001) in their study to analyse discriminatory practices among American employers established that Hispanic job-seekers were discriminated against during the recruitment process as opposed to Anglo job-seekers. On the other hand, Velling (1995) found out that in Germany citizenship plays a significant role in the recruitment process.
Nevertheless, it is not apparent whether the discriminatory traits of a number of employers affect the participation of foreigners in the labour market or whether they results to a selection of particular types of job and occupation. Besides, participation rate among foreign immigrants does not deviate too much from the natives with similar characteristics (Velling, 1995, p.6).
Furthermore, the legal prospects for companies and organizations to pay different wages to natives and foreign immigrants are limited. Wage contract negotiated between trade unions and organizations does not discriminate between the nationals and foreign immigrants.
According to the country’s Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, most of the almost all the industrial employees work under collective wage agreement. Nonetheless, there is still room for wage discrimination even with collective wage agreement in place. Natives tend to be classified in a higher wage bracket and receive greater fringe benefits compared to the foreign immigrants (Velling, 1995, p.7).
To understand the impact of public perception and generalization in Germany focus has to be shifted on one of the most oppressed minority group in the country-Blacks/African Immigrants. Among all the minority groups, blacks have found themselves in the centre of racial discrimination for a long time in the German history.
Ostow, 1996, p. 60). The stereotyped beliefs have led to blacks being employed in low-level and low paying jobs exclusively. Their working experience and academic qualifications have often been ignored.
In addition, some of the Western stereotypes do not believe that African schools can produce qualified personnel and for that reason always doubt qualifications of the black immigrants. Therefore, well qualified and fluent immigrants are considerably excluded from job opportunities they deserve because of racial/ethnic stereotyping and prejudice (Velling, 1995, p.18).
Managing Racial/Ethnic Stereotypes at Work
Dealing with workplace diversity means understanding and relating well with people in an organization. An organization can only be propelled into new dimension of performance when people from different backgrounds come together and build strength and unity through their diversity (Grossman, 2000, P. 22).
Therefore, companies and organizations that want success in the future must have employees and leaders who are conscious and knowledgeable in dealing with existing differences along identity lines (Jones, Pringle & Shepherd, 2000, P. 3).
In the context of increasing awareness of issues of employment discrimination across Germany government and the private sector have bowed down to the pressure from human rights activists and are now the principle advocates for equality in the work place.
Workplace diversity management offers an alternative in restructuring anti-discrimination and equality practices in German companies in a business friendly approach (Wise & Tschirhart, 2000, P. 48).
Diversity management is to some extent different from the previous employment equity approaches used in the country to help underrepresented ethnic minority groups, for instance, equal opportunity and affirmative action approaches (Grossman, 2000, P. 24).
First, diversity management is principally aimed at enhancing competitiveness and efficiency in the organization and is propelled by the business goals and market advantage.
In relation to this diversity management emphasizes on the need to appreciate cultural differences among people working in an organization and making necessary adjustments in the organizational policies to accommodate these differences.
The idea behind diversity management is that promoting an environment of cultural diversity where people’s differences are highly valued enables employees to perform to their full potential in a comfortable, more innovative, and more productive organizational environment.
One of the advantages of diversity management is that it applies positive approach to counter workplace discrimination instead of negative approaches that are simply aimed at circumventing anti-discrimination laws (Grossman, 2000, P. 26).
Diversity management tries to avoid challenges associated with the earlier strategies and is not viewed as a policy mainly directed towards the interest of a section of the employees (under-presented minority groups). Instead it is viewed as an all-inclusive policy which carters for the welfare of all the employees, including the majority groups (Wise & Tschirhart, 2000, P. 50).
There are numerous questions that have been asked by experts concerning ways of combating racial/ethnic discrimination in the workplace and heightening profile of diversity management. Different countries use different approaches to combat racial/ethnic discrimination in the workplace and some of them have stretched the definition of the approach used to an astonishing level.
For instance, the two prominent case studies carried out in the EU member states are ‘Combating Racism at the Workplace’ and Cultural Diversity and Mainstreaming in Employment’. The rest of the case studies are almost similar to the two (Jones, Pringle & Shepherd, 2000, P. 4).
Wrench (2003) explored different literatures related to workplace racial/ethnic discrimination and came up with different organizational response to this vice across Europe. These included training of the immigrant workers, making cultural allowances, challenging ethnic/racist attitudes, combating all forms of discrimination, equal opportunity strategies with positive action, and diversity management.
The main reason behind training of immigrants is to help the ethnic minorities to integrate in the society. Formal training is necessary to enhance their education and skills and to study new language, culture and customs of the host country. Training may also include different ways of finding jobs and how to manoeuvre in the labour market (Wise & Tschirhart, 2000, P. 51).
Making of cultural allowance are done to accommodate particular religious or cultural needs of the minority groups in the organization. These may include allowing women to put on headscarf which is common among Muslim communities and allowing employees to celebrate religious festivals.
This may also involve informing the social workers, teachers and medical practitioners about the special needs of the minority groups. For example, most of the organizations in Germany currently have set up worshiping rooms for the Muslim employees (Wise & Tschirhart, 2000, P. 52).
Government and private sectors have come up with anti-discrimination policies with the assumption that the main obstacles of change are people’s attitudes and prejudices. This is the reason why there have been extensive publicity, campaigns and training in the formal and informal sectors to change people’s attitudes.
In Germany trade unions and employer’s federation embarked on a program where natives were being encouraged to live or share a roof with the foreigners. The campaign targeted a million apprentices in German industries and by using media and training packages they were able to counter xenophobic and intolerance attitudes (Jones, Pringle & Shepherd, 2000, P. 6).
Besides the policies aimed at changing the attitudes and behaviours of the natives, companies and organizations are also urged to embrace fair recruitment and selection process and training of their HR staff on how to undertake this exercise and to comply wit the country’s law on workplace discrimination.
Companies can also adopt disciplinary measures against any form of discrimination within the organization. Tackling discriminatory behaviours in this manner plays a significant role in setting up a level playing field in the organization by eliminating unwarranted obstacles to opportunities (Wrench, 2003, P. 7).
Equal opportunities strategies with positive action entail long-term policies that emphasize on ethnic mix of the native population, removal of discriminatory barriers at all levels of the organization, and encouraging underrepresented minority groups to apply for top positions among other measures.
In other words, positive action refers to extra steps taken by the organizations to help and support the excluded minority groups (Jones, Pringle & Shepherd, 2000, P. 8).
Diversity management entails numerous elements of the above mentioned approaches but adds diversity philosophy and practices to these approaches to form a wholesome approach. According to Syed (2005) diversity management is divided into two levels. The first level is the valuation of diversity.
This is the stage where there is a positive desire to work in a diverse environment and recognition of the benefits of a diverse workforce. The second stage is that of managing diversity and entails active management of diversity in accordance with the organizational goals and development of a mixed culture (Grossman, 2000, P. 25). The most embraced diversity management philosophy was introduced by the AB Volvo in Goteborg.
The company responded to a number of racists incidents by putting up an advert entitled “What would AB Volvo without foreign workers’. This pointed out the significance of the immigrant workers in the success of the company. The diversity management is set out in the company’s corporate philosophy (Wrench, 2003, P. 9).
Conclusion
The capacity of an organization to manage diversity is currently a principal skill in a synergetic and global world. The concept of diversity is highly correlated with culture. This is because the term diversity to a greater extent refers to demographic variables including but not limited to the elements identified by the scholars above.
Culturally driven values have significant impact on workers commitment, organizational citizenry and employment satisfaction. Understanding cultural diversity is very crucial since conflict can emanate when cultural sensitivities and differences are overlooked, leading to poor results in organization. Racial and ethnic discrimination continues to be a persistent problem in the workplace in many countries across the globe.
Some countries like Britain and South Africa which have tackled this problem for so long have a seen a decline. However there are some countries including the ones that have been long recognized like Germany where this problem still dominates. There are numerous approaches used to manage diversity globally to enhance performance.
They include training of the immigrant workers, making cultural allowances, challenging ethnic/racist attitudes, combating all forms of discrimination, equal opportunity strategies with positive action and lastly diversity management. Workplace diversity management offers an alternative in restructuring anti-discrimination and equality practices into German companies in a business friendly approach.
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