 Welcome to chapter 7. Today I will talk about another perspective on the context of human resource management and organizations, namely the diversity of society and how that impacts the constitution of people within an organization and what that means for human resource management. In short, I will talk about diversity and inclusion and I will specify in this clip the moral and legal views on diversity and inclusion. So after this clip you will understand the following. First of all, why should we bother about diversity and inclusion? Then I will dive into some moral perspectives on equality and finally I will tell you about the legal perspectives, especially focusing on discrimination. In the next clip I will talk about more the psychological aspects of diversity and inclusion because there are a lot of cues in psychology theories how to deal with actually diversity and inclusion in organizations. But let's first have a look at the moral and legal perspectives. Starting with defining diversity, what are we talking about? Well, go to the literature and you'll see that any difference between individuals on any attribute that may lead to the perception that the other person is different from oneself. That is a general introduction to diversity. So it can refer to multiple socio-demographic characteristics such as women, men, are you local-born or foreign, what kind of culture do you bring? Languages, religion, classes, age, disability. Another characteristic of diversity is that it's often a distinction between a small group, a minority and a larger group, the majority. So for example, think about your own country, what is the majority group? What do they look like and who are the minorities in your country? Workforce diversity refers to the presence of perceived meaningful differences in characteristics between people that work together in a group. Just to refresh your mind and to know what we are talking about, some examples of diversity that come across in daily life. For example, the Black Lives Matter movement has pointed our attention to the disadvantaged position of many colored people in Western countries. Another issue that often confronts organizations is the difficulties that people with a disability have to, for example, enter offices. So they have a distance to the labor market which is highlighted by organizations not being willing to adapt to that. So that's an example where organizations can be discriminatory. Also think about all the workers. To what extent is it really important that somebody has a certain age for a certain job, especially given that a lot of populations are graying and all the workers are becoming a large part of the workforce. And also, of course, think about differences that are not immediately visible. So for example, people with different gender orientations. All these identities, all these differences are brought to organizations and their people form a diverse workforce. And working together happily is not always automatic. There's some research by the best place to work into organizations that try to encourage the inclusion of minorities. And what's interesting to see from these graphs is that organizations that try to be as diverse as possible so to include as many minorities as possible they oftentimes focus on either, for example, gender equality, so promoting that women can move through the ranks of organizations or, for example, ethnic diversity. Making sure that your workforce is as diverse as possible in terms of epic backgrounds. An interesting thing to see is that according to this 2014 research there are very few organizations that succeed in doing both. So advancing minorities that are from different identity backgrounds. So either women or ethnic is the trend there. So this kind of illustrates that for organizations that want to advantage minorities in their organizations there's a lot of struggles to overcome. So one step back, why would organizations be interested in advancing diversity at all? So there are different reasons if you look into research that organizations say why they would like to have a diverse workforce. Some organizations say that they just believe, simply believe that it's the moral thing to do, it's the best thing to do. They truly believe that all individuals deserve equal opportunities. So they don't need to have any other arguments, they just say it's the right thing to do, just being good means being inclusive to all people that also inhabit society. So societal demographics should be represented in the organization. They also feel that it's just a simple societal responsibility to make sure that people are working and living together as harmoniously and without conflict as possible. That's the first reason organizations mention, not all of them. There are also organizations that just want to adhere to rules and regulations just to avoid that they are in conflict with any law. So the legitimacy requirements also brings organizations to focus on diversity measures. So think about, for example, agreements that are in laws that say that you have to have non-discriminatory policies, collective labor agreements can have clauses that lead to diversity management. And sometimes, for example, customers can be really demanding that an organization takes into account diversity. Think, for example, of television shows, television programs, if you want to make a television show, and you want to be funded by some government-sponsored institution. One of the requirements might be that the cost that is on television is as diverse as possible. So that's an example of a legitimacy requirement that brings organizations to work on a more diverse workforce. The last reason why organizations mention they want to work on diversity is that they hope or believe that diversity will bring better organizational performance. So a lot of talk is about that if you have a diverse workforce, you will succeed in bringing more ideas to the organization and this diversity will prevent the group thing, so that everybody is thinking the same thing and that you overlook kind of the other perspectives, that you will have a broader access to talent and to networks and resources. And while this all sounds really, really nice, I have to warn you, so from an evidence-based perspective, the organization performance related to diversity is not that obvious. What oftentimes happens is that if you bring people from diverse backgrounds together, you also create a lot of tensions, a lot of difficulties. People don't automatically speak each other's language. So in a way, having a homogeneous workforce for optimal performance and coordination, that's easier. So the business case for performance is that if that's the only reason to advance diversity in your organization, it's a complex one. If you look at the effectiveness of policies in organizations from a research perspective, those organizations that have a through ideology, that diversity is important and that we should do it, they have a better chance of making their diversity policies really work and land in the organization. So different reasons why organizations are interested in diversity I will zoom into the legitimacy perspective in the next slide because that is related to what we should do, what is laid out in the law. So go back to the United Nations Declarations of Human Rights and found it in 1948 after a period of wars across the world. Nations came together and decided that in order to prevent future conflicts, they should have a global manifest to steer behavior of countries. So a big, big, hairy, audacious goal. And the first article is already about diversity. Read with me. So all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and in rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in the spirit of brotherhood. So I'm going to zoom in on the word dignity and rights because these are leading in many of the laws that are applicable in different countries. So what does it mean? Equal in rights. Equal in rights means that the same procedures apply to all individuals no matter their differences. So also we call this equal in procedures. So no matter who you are, no matter your age, no matter your race, no matter whatsoever, the procedure is the same for everybody and this is called equality. Equal in dignity means that all individuals can enjoy the same benefits. So the same positions in organizations, mind, the same status and the same income, no matter who they are. So here it's not about the procedure and the process of getting there but it's about the outcome. It's equal in outcomes. And in the literature we know this type of equality as equity. So this distinction is important and it's also complicating diversity management. Let's have a quick look with using a picture what it actually means, the difference between equality and equity. So in this picture you see examples of equity and equality. First equality, so the equal in procedures. If everybody is to use their bike as a main form of transportation and that's a rule, then everybody should have the same bike. And you see that giving everybody the same bike will probably have an advantage for some and a disadvantage for others. Meaning that the person that is most suited to this particular procedure will benefit from it. And those that do not easily match the procedure or experience obstacles and hindrances in using it, they will not benefit eventually the outcomes. So if you want to make sure that there is equity, that people are equal in outcomes, you need to look into the procedures that lead people to these outcomes. Mind game. So in organizations that want to advance diversity because they believe in it, they have this difficulty that they have to balance between equality in procedures and equality in outcomes. So in the one hand, same procedures for all, but on the other hand distinguishing between people in procedures to make sure that you are diverse in all ranks of the organization. I'm going to build on this distinction between equity and equality by turning to the model of Tomai, who distinguished moral models that are used in organizations that justify equality. So there are three models. And you will see that these relate to this distinction between equality and equity. So the first moral model is making sure that there is procedure or individual justice. So like said, this means that the same procedure applies to all individuals, no matter their differences. And this means equality in procedures, which means, you know, it's equality, like said. The second perspective is the equity perspective. And that means group justice. Group justice means that in an organization all individuals can enjoy the same benefits. So no matter whether you're a man or a woman, no matter your age, you should be able to achieve the same position as the majority group. The same status, the same income. Now have a look at organizations. And what do you see if you look into the higher levels of the organization? You'll probably see that the diversity of the higher levels is less than the diversity in the lower ranks of the organization. So typically in higher ranks of the organization you see fewer women, and you see fewer people from an ethical background, and you see hardly any people with a disability. So in order to promote group justice, at some point you need to violate the procedural or individual justice, because you need to push people, we are a little bit disadvantaged to the higher levels. A final perspective that's trying to integrate a bit both is the equality in the recognition of diversity. And this is a relatively modern perspective. Equality in procedures means that everybody has the same vehicle to get somewhere. Equality in outcomes means that we try to fit everybody to the same model no matter their outcome, no matter their identity. Equality in recognition of diversity means that everybody has the right to be different. So that means it goes further than group justice. It means that you don't have to assimilate into the majority. You don't have to act like the majority in order to be part of the group. You are entitled to be your own unique self and to have merit in that, and that you can still or you can just, like everybody else, benefit from everything in the organization. So whereas the first two moral models kind of disregard the individual, the last model is really about celebrating that we are a diverse bunch of people in an organization. So what are the consequences for human resource management following from these three moral models? Obviously, I think the most easy one is that if you want to advance procedural or individual justice, it is important to check all the procedures in organizations and to see that these do prevent discrimination. As a basic standard, you can turn to anti-discrimination laws and the legal framework. They just say that you have to do that. There are also consequences if you want to advance the group justice in organizations. For group justice, you need to first analyze which minority groups are underrepresented in the higher ranks of your organization or in certain positions, and then you can start initiating promoting rules for these specific minorities, and this is known as positive discrimination. I will say a few words about that in one of the next slides because positive discrimination has the word discrimination in it, which means that you are going to violate the procedure or individual justice. So advancing one group means discriminating another group. Difficulty there. The last one, equality as recognition of diversity. This is seen as the future how human resource management should address diversity because if you manage to create a climate of inclusion where people just accept that we are not all the same, that there are people who pray during the day, that there are people who have this advantage in hearing or seeing, or that it's okay to be different and I value my colleagues no matter who they are for the work they do. And how can organizations advance such a climate for inclusion? This is for example by celebrating all the diversity that is inside the company. Celebrate for example Pride Week, celebrate all the different holidays or festive days that adhere to the different religions. So make sure that the organization is just proud of being diverse. I'm going to turn to the complexities of the first and second point. The first point being the procedures related to the law and the second point trying to promote people for minorities in that context. So what we need to do now is to have a look at what does the law say about discrimination. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights also provides a statement about discrimination and actually it's the second article of the declaration. And I'll read it out and highlight some of the words in there. So discrimination means denying people rights and freedoms. So that means you are going to exclude people. As set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by making distinctions between people. Based on characteristics like race, color, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, ethnicity, birth or other status. If you go to look up similar clauses in for example constitutional laws, you'll find that many countries have similar acts that discrimination is prohibited. And when it's prohibited it means that if you do, if you act in a discriminatory way, you are legally viable. You can be punished for that. So the words, all the categories that are mentioned in the statement these are called the legal grounds for discrimination. And if somebody discriminates another person in hiring, Human Resource Management for example, basis on one of these legal grounds then they are violating the law. This is an interesting thing to reflect on a little bit in the light of the discussion that we just had. So if you are an organization and you have rules in your organization for hiring for example, then you need to make sure that these are all non discriminatory. And then you want to promote women to the higher ranks of organizations. So how are you going to argue that men cannot apply? Because you are in that case denying in this case men the rights and freedom to act in the same way as women in this case. So how does it work? Because Human Resource Management is all about making distinctions honestly. Think about all the decisions that managers have to make all the time who is going to be promoted? Who is going to be selected? How are the rewards distributed in the organization? So the legal framework is really really important because that tells you what you can and cannot do in Human Resource Management. So the law says as long as your decisions are based on merit you can make distinctions between employees and what is merit? Merit means that for a job you have to demonstrate which performance criteria really matter to the outcomes of the job. So also for selection you need to determine which criteria are really important for a good performance in the job and those criteria should be leading in the selection and nothing else. What is not allowed is all the following you cannot use one of the prohibited grounds for discrimination as a reason to make distinctions. So you cannot say this job is not suited for women. Think for example we had an interesting case of allowing women in the Marines especially on submarines and for a long time the argument was well it's a man's world this is not suited for women we don't have separate showers and things like that and it went to the court and it said no this is not a reason why it should not be possible you are making a distinction based on one of the prohibited grounds in this case gender and discrimination. So think organization think of a way you have to make sure that women can work in this environment as well. So this is a case of obvious and clear direct gender discrimination and often times discrimination is more subtle and I'll show a little bit on the next slide. So subtle discrimination is not immediately visible that it is leading to discrimination on one of the prohibited grounds for discrimination but it does effectively lead to exclusion. If you look at the grounds for discrimination that are prohibited you will see differences in different countries. For example in Ireland there is a prohibited ground against the travellers community so people of the travellers community are really highlighted in the constitutional law that they cannot be discriminated against so you won't find this category in other countries because it's really specific to Ireland in this case. In employment law there are a few exceptions where it's sometimes allowed to discriminate based on things that are normally not allowed. So for example think about age discrimination. The law makes exceptions especially for teenagers that they can't work in night shifts but there's a protective element to that law and the same is for example for pregnant women after a certain time in their pregnancy they are not allowed to do very heavy lifting anymore. So employment law comes on top of the basic human rights law and you should consult with that as well to make sure if you can make a distinction for certain groups that you cannot normally make distinctions about. So let's dive a little bit deeper in this distinction between direct and indirect discrimination. Direct discrimination I just gave the case about the submarine workforce and that women should be allowed. It's a case of direct discrimination that means in that case they said women can't come because they are all women so that makes a distinction based on one of the prohibited grounds and that's basically not allowed. Indirect discrimination is defined as follows so you ask a worker for a non-job-related characteristic that leads to you a systematic exclusion of people with certain characteristics that are listed in the prohibited grounds for discrimination. One example is asking for example for language proficiency. So imagine that you have a cleaning job you're looking for personnel to fulfill that position and one of the requirements is being fluent in English. Imagine that somebody is perfectly capable of doing all the tasks in the job but has a huge accent because they were foreign born. So a judge will say to what extent the real proficiency in the language is actually a requirement to perform well. You can ask, you can reason that it helps if somebody is able to express themselves in English but really being fluent so you can't use that as a criterion because it's not really needed for the job. How can you prove that a criterion is really needed for a job? Well that is very much a matter of doing a good job analysis. So really try to understand what is required in this job and don't just go into a selection and saying I think that this matters, this matters and this matters and let's just go because there is a huge risk that your criteria will include prohibited grounds for discrimination indirectly. So let's turn back to the discussion that I raised before. In some cases you do want to make a distinction. You want to make a distinction between let's stick to the example of moving women to higher ranks to have a more diverse management team and you need to actively push minority members to those levels in order to realize the equal division there. So when or how can direct or indirect discrimination be justified? One example of justification, so basically bottom line, no, you can't do that. There is anti-discrimination law that says that HRM should ensure that all policies meet the law and that there is procedural and individual justice. So a judge will bottom line answer if you want to make distinction, it's not possible. However, if you can demonstrate that there are really difficulties to achieve group justice so that there is systematic discrimination in the higher ranks of the organization and that you have tried a lot of things to make sure that it was solved and for example you trained all the minorities, you helped them, you encouraged minority members to apply and still nothing much changes. If you can really, really demonstrate that, a judge will allow that you make distinction based on one of these prohibited crimes for discrimination for a certain time until the situation is resolved. There are examples for example in the academic context where the balance between the gender division in the higher ranks is geared towards men. Despite all the help that is initiated for women in lower ranks sometimes it really helps to just say this is a position and it's only open for women to make sure that organizations meet the targets that are required also from a government perspective to be diverse as a public institution. So now I come to the end of this presentation. Now you know which concepts and definitions belong to diversity and inclusion. We've also looked at reasons why organizations pursue diversity and we've seen that if you have the moral belief that this is a stronger position than what you do the legal or opportunistic reason. We've also discussed Tomah's model with the different moral views on equality and how they lead on different views to how to advance diversity in organizations so procedural group or inclusion and we've discussed a little bit of legal requirements about discrimination. I would like to make a disclaimer about the last one of course it's a very brief introduction and should you really have questions that concern the law please turn to your legal advisors as well.