Is Equal Employment Opportunity Sufficient?

Is Equal Employment Opportunity Sufficient?

Introduction

Workplace equality and diversity continues to be both an interest and a concern to organizations worldwide. Efforts to provide greater access to corporate careers for groups that have been historically discriminated against are not new. However, what is more modern is the examination of how inherent and subtle biases, as well as privileges, may facilitate the movement of some groups up the corporate ladder. Managing equal opportunities and diversity efforts that focus on more closely examining the organizational norms, values, and practices that enhance or impede diversity can therefore be met by appreciation as well as resentment and backlash by organizational members and the public at large.

Discussion

As organizations began to grapple with issues of equality and diversity, organizational researchers have sought to understand the implications of the increasingly diverse workplace on organizations, work, and individual performance. Research has also sought to better understand the realities of diverse workers. There are two approaches to considering the relationship of workplace diversity to career development. The individual-difference approach takes a broad perspective about diversity and considers every form of difference as equally relevant and important to career development in diverse organizations.

Therefore, differences in personality and cognitive ability are equated to forms of difference that stem from race, culture, gender and ageing population within the U.S labor market and the difficulties that 16-24 year olds are facing in order to get jobs and the high levels of unemployment of the over 55s plus. The individual-difference perspective strives to be inclusive by expanding the criteria by which one falls under the diversity umbrella. The individual-difference approach is important in that it can attract majority group members, like White men, to diversity-related conversations and action planning. Although this approach may decrease resentment and backlash from the majority ...