Studies conducted and/or reviewed by Bendick, Egan, and Lanier reveal that so-called "diversity" can be detrimental to the employee, company and customer if diversity is followed in a shortsighted manner. Rather than accept enslavement to "diversity," the authors explore inclusion, "in which all employees are treated fairly and with civility, have equal access to resources and opportunities, and are able to contribute fully to their employers' objectives and thus their own success" through assessment and utilization of the employee's full range of job-specific skills, teaching and enhancement of "cultural competence," training, guided hiring, guided assignments, guided promotions, guided compensation systems and monitored systems holding managers accountable for "inclusion practices and diversity outcomes." As is illustrated by Tesco's case, a company's inclusion/diversity plan can be admirable yet poor unless the plan is carefully plotted and applied.
Human Resources -- Diversity in Organizations
The business case for diversity and the perverse practice of matching employees to customers by Bendick, Egan and Lanier explores the vital differences between a shortsighted application of "diversity" and a thoughtful plan of "inclusion." While "diversity" is a current catchword for workplace equality, "inclusion" captures the true spirit of equality. Applying the authors' conclusions to the Tesco test case, the reader can see that a well-intentioned inclusion/diversity plan can be simultaneously admirable yet poorly drawn.
Business Case for Diversity Made by Bendick, Egan, and Lanier
The authors begin with a general discussion of workforce diversity, explaining the advancement of business objectives of productivity and profitability through diversity (Bendick, Egan, & Lanier, 2010). Though they mention the three key benefits of access to a broader employment pool, the ability to relate to a diverse community of customers and greater productivity, the authors focus on diversity's supporting argument that employee diversity increases a business' ability to serve diverse customers (Bendick, Egan, & Lanier, 2010). While this argument seems tenable, the authors assert that the application of that concept is often detrimental to minority employees, particularly when simplistically applied by line managers (Bendick, Egan, & Lanier, 2010). According to the authors, the simplistic and shortsighted use of race only is documented in numerous industries (Bendick, Egan, & Lanier, 2010).
The article then goes on to document how "Neighborhood Stores," an alias for a Fortune 500 company, touts its diversity policies while engaging in an "all minorities are alike" system of assigning African-American store managers to lower income, lower education, even non-African-American neighborhoods to which these managers are poorly matched (Bendick, Egan, & Lanier, 2010). Furthermore, the intention of increasing minority sales by matching employees with minority populations is not effective, as consumers apparently are not very concerned with the racial makeup of the retailers' managers (Bendick, Egan, & Lanier, 2010). Furthermore, the limitation of diversity to a single trait ignores the fact that diversity is comprised of "a set of differences of individual traits" comprising different individuals (Panaccio & Waxin, 2010). In addition, through its shortsighted use of its diverse labor pool, the retailer is forfeiting possible advantages of diversity, including optimum use of its diverse talent and a beneficial blend of its diverse workforce (Bendick, Egan, & Lanier, 2010). Finally, assigning minority workers to these "minority" stores significantly harms the careers of these managers by forcing them to work in smaller, underperforming, stressful environments in which they are paid less due to lower sales volumes and higher "inventory shrinkage" from theft, are so overworked that they cannot participate in career-advancement training as much as their counterparts, are notably less likely to be promoted to more powerful decision-making positions, and tend to quit their jobs more often than do their counterparts (Bendick, Egan, & Lanier, 2010). All these detrimental practices constitute a "diversity revolving door" in which African-Americans were aggressively hired, yet used ineffectively and to their detriment.
The advertising industry reportedly also suffers from short-sighted hiring and use of African-Americans. Relying on the belief that "all blacks know blacks and nothing else," advertising agencies tend to hire African-Americans for niche advertising to the black community, while white people are employed for presumed wide-ranging abilities (Bendick, Egan, & Lanier, 2010). As a result, African-American employees are not used as effectively, are not paid as well, are not allowed to contribute to the wealth of diversity that could exist by more readily intermingling employees of different races, and are not promoted as often. The authors believe these discriminatory practices are symptomatic of exclusion from organizational culture.
Noting the shortcomings of "diversity without inclusion," the authors submit a business case for inclusion "in which all employees are treated fairly and with civility, have equal access to resources and opportunities, and are able to contribute fully to their employers' objectives and thus their own success" (Bendick, Egan, & Lanier, 2010). This approach rejects the notion of matching employees to target populations based on a single characteristic such as race; rather, the employee's full range of job-specific skills is assessed and utilized by the company (Shen, Chanda, D'Netto, & Monga, 2009). Finally, this inclusive approach depends on "cultural competence" in which cross-cultural skills are taught and enhanced so employees can effectively work across barriers such as race, ethnicity and gender, rewarding successful cultural competence and sanctioning cultural incompetence (Panaccio & Waxin, 2010). This ideal is accomplished through training, guided hiring, guided assignments, guided promotions, guided compensation systems (Shen, Chanda, D'Netto, & Monga, 2009), and monitored systems holding managers accountable for "inclusion practices and diversity outcomes" (Bendick, Egan, & Lanier, 2010). Consequently, human resources specialists must ensure that their companies' "statement of the business case" reflects the state-of-the-art inclusionary mindset.
b. Tesco's Engagement with Diverse Groups, Use of Inclusion and Diversity Practices as Key Means of Providing Better Customer Service and Whether Tesco's Approach is Strategically Advantageous
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