Are we doing all that we can?

Introduction 

In the wake of increasing globalization, global diversification and integration in our societies are inevitable. In the constantly changing world, every single culture or population needs the help of the global population in its location. Whereas significant milestones have been achieved in promoting cultural diversity and tolerance, certain populations still have greater societal benefits because of their ethnicity, race, language, class, religion, and age. This paper argues that we are not doing all that we can in eliminating workplace stereotyping.

There is every good intention to eliminate bias in workplace, but evidence from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reports shows that workplace stereotyping and bias remains unresolved in corporate America. For instance, the commission reported it received 82,792 private sector discrimination charge filings in 2010 alone. It further found that most discrimination allegations reported were based on race, retaliation, and sex. In today’s workplace, issues and concerns of discrimination and bias are countered with defensive positions from the organizations’ leadership because of the fear of being accused of being racist. In their defense, such leaders will cite their organizations’ strong anti-discrimination programs, policies, and procedures in disproving such bias allegations thus labeling such allegation false. This behavior illustrates how we fail to acknowledge the potential of bias amid best people, programs, and processes.

It has also been demonstrated that organizations with employees that come from different religions have challenges managing their differences at individual and group levels. This was made worse following the 11 September attack in the U.S. whereby the American-Islamic relations council reported a 15% increase in discrimination and mistreatment in the workplace. This stereotyping of Muslims as a terrorist population group has led to increased job dissatisfaction among the affected population group. In other instances, there are cases where organizations have rigid dress policies that have violated the provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on employee discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin or gender. According to Islam religion, wearing of hijab is a symbol of her religious affiliation as a Muslim woman. It is not news that some organizations have violated Muslim female employee rights by discriminating on the basis of the scarf. If we were doing all that we could, such rigid company dress policies that do not take into consideration the protected traits such as religion, disability, age and pregnancy and associated dress codes would not be in existence in the modern workplace.

There are also cases of employee stereotyping that limits employees from certain minority groups from advancing in their career development and growth. For instance, the Asian-Americans are stereotyped as smart, technically competent, hardworking, and quiet. This is as a result of the U.S. immigration law that gives preference to highly educated and highly skilled applicants as immigrants into the U.S. This hyper-selectivity leads to stereotyping of Asian-Americans, which employers have taken advantage of by criticizing the population group as being too focused on academic smartness and lacking in personal skills, thus denying them job promotions to management and leadership positions. As a result of this stereotyping, the Asian-Americans rank much lower in earnings compared to their white counterparts. For example, Asian-Americans are less likely to be promoted into management and executive roles at top technology companies.

Conclusion 

While there have been critical milestones in promoting cultural diversity and tolerance in our society, it is evident that we are not doing all that we can as a society to eliminate discrimination, prejudices, and stereotyping based on ethnicity, race, language, class, religion, and age. There still exists some overarching stereotyping that continues to draw back and cripple efforts to ensure total inclusivity and tolerance of our diversity. There is a need for societal awareness on employee rights as provided for in the equal employment opportunity (EEO) and fair employment laws as enshrined in the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In addition, there is a need for enhancing training and development of cultural competence in all career fields in order to foster a good understanding of the diversity of our views of the world we live in. Consequently, this competence will help eliminate the negative labels and biases about other cultural groups in our workplace environments. It is important to understand that by embracing diversity and inclusion in our organizational settings, we will create a more acceptable and open-minded society which in turn will foster increased creativity, innovation, and prosperity.