Social Perception

Social Perceptions Stereotypes and Diversity Stereotypes are bad. Diversity is good. Such ideas seem to be truisms in today's American business climate, which is often broadly brushed with the label of being 'politically correct' to the detriment of productivity. However, it is easy to speak highly of the value of diversity. It is easy to say the cultural wars of the business world have been won. It is easy to engage in such rhetoric but far more difficult to achieve a truly harmonious and diverse workforce in a functional fashion.

After all, stereotypes are one of the ways individuals apprehend the world -- making assumptions based on what they have been told about other people and past experiences. Often this cognitive tendency towards stereotyping can work against creating a climate of positive diversity in the workplace. But being aware of possible differences between individuals is not necessarily an act of stereotyping.

It can be quite positive and tolerant to remember how perceived differences simply make certain employees culturally unique from one another and that certain relational styles may be more particular to the opposite gender's socialization process. For instance, an awareness of an Italian vs. A Japanese individual's more highly confrontational style enables one to interpret his or her behavior in a less hostile fashion (Tannen, Talking from 9 to 5, 2001). Understanding that women may stress commonality rather than difference, even in conflict-based situations helps both genders have a more working harmonious life.

(Tannen, You Just don't understand! 2001) Diversity is partially a legal issue for employers. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on irrelevant matters pertaining to race and gender. But beyond not discriminating in the hiring process, organizations must continue, throughout the training process, manage the implications of diversity in the workplace and decrease the negative effects stereotypes in the minds of employees though heightened awareness.

Then, when individual employees are working collaboratively on projects they may hopefully use the different backgrounds of individuals in their midst, international and national, to create a more fertile creative environment rather than a conflict-based working environment. But diversity, again, must be ore than a buzzword or a phrase. Company attitudes towards diversity regarding gender might be reflected in its maintenance of day care and effective family leave policies for its female employees, for example.

Individuals whom are in prominent leadership positions of various ethnic and racial backgrounds must used as mentors to lower-level minority employees and recent, young hires, rather than remain remote figureheads and thus be seen as 'tokens' fairly or unfairly. One way that diversity has been improved in the workplace is the monitoring of outside organizations for businesses that deploy positive internal strategies.

Proctor & Gamble is one such a company, proudly listing on its website awards not only from Hispanic and African-American employee monitoring organizations, but also from organizations that promote the rights of working women as well. P&G does not achieve this merely through pictures of diverse individuals on its website, but offers concrete benefits, advice for minorities preparing for P&G company interviews, and detailed information about the company in its international as well as its national setting.

(P&G website, 2004) The international focus of the company, combined with its far-reaching stretch and its relatively diffuse and shifting sense of corporate values makes diversity attainable and useful for the company's international focus and reach.

Rather than attempting to simply create a company manifesto that stresses the empty rhetoric of diversity, or even focusing a few core values that might confine the company to a narrow, national, or regional base, P&G has deployed diversity in a creative and interesting way for itself as a company and for its employees.

(P&G Website, 2004) An organization lacking in diversity is not necessarily a 'bad' organization, it must be stressed, but often an organization with a more narrow focus in terms of its products than P&G, and a narrower talent base.

Microsoft, as is true of many technically oriented companies, is often accused of having an employee base that has few women amongst its fold, and although it has a minority presence, often the minorities and ethnicities are more confined to a few select ethnic and national groups, rather than spanning the world, as is evidenced on the P&G Website.

Technology companies that focus more on products, allow individuals to work alone, and have less of an interest in friendly people relations tend to de-emphasize diversity within their corporate cultures. While P&G stresses the need to become acclimated to.