Unconscious bias and diversity management in retail service organizations

Organizational Behavior -- Managing Diversity

American society has changed tremendously for the better since the Civil Rights Era of the 1960s. However, in many ways, the most substantial benefits of that era of U.S. history had only begun to transform the nation into a harmoniously culturally diverse nation prior to the turn of the 21st century. While constitutional law and other formal rules, laws, and regulations have specifically prohibited many overt forms of cultural prejudice for decades, covert biases and unofficial institutional cultures that contradict those social advances still exist covertly within many professional fields and organizations.

Consequently, the operational management of cultural diversity within business organizations is still in its relative infancy as a focus of management training and perspective. As the American community genuinely begins to reflect the principles embodied in all civil rights legislation and public policies more and more, it becomes essential for modern business organizations to manage diversity issues effectively and efficiently. That is especially true within retail sales and service industries where interaction between personnel and clientele is a fundamental part of establishing repeat business and (ideally) brand loyalty as well.

Organizational Behavior and Diversity Management in Modern Business

Business organizations hoping to cultivate a corporate culture of effective diversity management face significant challenges (George & Jones, 2008). For example, individual employees all bring with them their internal states of mind that reflect the sum total of their personal experiences and the values and attitudes to which they were exposed during their social development. In many cases, their internal states of mind create patterns of social expectations and assumptions that conflict with modern diversity management principles and practices (George & Jones, 2008).

Understanding the role that unconscious expectation and patterned responses play in dictating interpersonal communications and interactions is one of the most fundamentally important issues in managing organizational change (including diversity issues) within the professional business environment (Armenakis, Field, & Harris, 1999). In the specific case of diversity management, it may be even more important to understand the unconscious and other subtle ways that culturally ignorant expectations and communications can survive relatively intact despite targeted diversity training of employees. That is especially true in the retail sales and service environment by sheer virtue of the frequency of direct interactions between staff and clientele (Robbins & Judge, 2009).

The reason that the realm of unconscious attitudes, expectations, perceptions, and states of mind are so important to diversity management in contemporary business organizations is that they are directly responsible for the majority of customer complaints and dissatisfaction in this area (Russell-Whalling, 2008). In business relationships, as in other areas of American society, overt racism, sexism, ageism, and other aspects of social intolerance that are inconsistent with cultural sensitivity and acceptance of diversity are not tolerated, particularly in the professional business environment. Therefore, the types of intolerance that occur today are fundamentally different from the way that social intolerance was typically expressed only a few decades ago (Kennedy, 2006).

Luckily, one of the outcomes of the Civil Rights Era and subsequent legislation that it made possible is that social tolerance and diversity management are no longer opposed by dominant social values in the workforce or in institutionalized organizational behavior that is contrary to the concepts of social and professional equality and opportunity (Kennedy, 2006). Naturally, the fact that overt forms of social intolerance have largely been eliminated from the vocational environment is a beneficial result of increasing social tolerance in society and/or decreasing social and professional acceptance of intolerance. However, fundamental differences in individual experiences and perception are more difficult to address through formal rules or even diversity training, precisely because they are the product of automatic behaviors and unconscious interpretations (Russell-Whalling, 2008).

Whereas in previous generations, social intolerance manifested itself in extremely obvious ways (Kennedy, 2006), diversity-inappropriate conduct in the vocational environment today is much more likely to occur without malice and often even without conscious awareness on the part of the offenders (Russell-Whalling, 2008). That also is especially important in the retail sales and services industries because negative interactions between personnel and clients is extremely costly, and even more so in the current economic recession (Williamson, 2009). Among other changes to modern business in the realm of communications management (Williamson, 2009), employee motivation (Lencioni, 2009), and leadership ((Bennis, 2009), diversity management is even more challenging in the modern business environment because of the myriad ways that subtle issues can dictate success or failure of business organizations.

Organizational Dynamics and the Role of Managers in the Retail Services Industry

The highly competitive nature of modern retail restaurant services makes traditional supervisory and management practices comparatively ineffective, especially in areas outside of direct operational dynamics. Traditional supervisor-subordinate relationships are sufficient to provide training in mechanical procedures and operations; they are comparatively ineffective at cultivating a commitment to becoming part of an organizational culture (George & Jones, 2008).

Especially with respect to inexperienced, part-time, non-career, and seasonal employees, it is preferable for organizational leaders (Bennis, 2009) and managers (Lencioni, 2009) to develop a more personal connection to their staff members. In fact, the low median age of servers and hosts in particular only increases the importance of the ability of managers to develop the type of rapport and communications channels with their direct reports. When it comes to cultivating diversity sensitivity among restaurant personnel, the relative youth of restaurant staff is a distinct advantage to managers who know how to connect with their subordinates.

Conversely, the same age dynamic can magnify the inability of managers to increase diversity sensitivity in any genuine way where they are not skilled at connecting or communicating with young employees. Ultimately, therefore, managing diversity within a restaurant environment is both a challenge as well as an opportunity for contemporary managers depending substantially on how successful they are at communicating the necessary concepts to their employees.

References:

Armenakis a, Field H, and Harris S. "Making Change Permanent: A Model for Institutionalizing Change Interventions." Research in Organizational Change and Development. Vol. 12, (1999). Stanford: JAI Press.

Bennis W. "Acting the Part of a Leader." Business Week; September 14, 2009.

George JM. And Jones GR. (2008). Understanding and Managing Organizational

Behavior. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Halbert T. And Ingulli E. (2007). Law & Ethics in the Business Environment. Cincinnati:

West Legal Studies.

Kennedy, E. (2006). America Back on Track. New York: Viking.

Lencioni P. "The No-Cost Way to Motivate." Business Week; October 5, 2009.

Locker KO. (2006). Business and Administrative Communication. Boston: McGraw-

Hill.

Robbins SP and Judge TA. (2009). Organizational Behavior. Upper Saddle River, NJ:

Prentice Hall.

Russell-Whalling E. (2008). 50 Management Ideas You Really Need to Know. London:

Quercus.

Williamson B. "Managing at a Distance." Business Week; July 21, 2009.