Early this year, research distributed by the University of Southern California analyzed Hollywood films and television shows during the Oscars in February and concluded there is a diversity problem and an “inclusion crisis” for the industry.
The study, titled “Inclusion or Invisibility? Comprehensive Annenberg Report on Diversity in Entertainment,” found just one-third of speaking characters were female, despite the fact that women represent more than half of the population in America.
In addition, just 28 percent of characters with dialogue were from non-white racial/ethnic groups, even though such groups are nearly 40 percent of the U.S. population, according to census data cited by NPR.
Similarly, when considering the business of publishing, science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and corporate CEO statistics, the term ‘diversity’ has become a buzzword for organizations looking for change. The issue, however, is that most diversity programs are doomed to fail.
Large technology corporations, like Intel, Apple and Google, allocate hundreds of millions of dollars towards diversity initiatives, particularly in sects that are dominated by white and Asian men. Many of these kinds of firms average a base of 70 percent male employees and Blacks at less than 7 percent total, according to the New York Times.
U.S. companies regularly incorporate diversity terms and marketing in daily practices. But as these ideas are used in mission statements and recruiting materials, more research infers that diversity training programs at more than 700 national companies have had little positive effect on diversity.
Some programs even saw decreased diversity in subsets, like Black women,according to the American Sociological review.
One reason could be a difference in goals with increasing diversity in the workforce. Is the goal to champion diversity, earn profits, avoid ridicule or a combination of the three?
Tony Dill, president of HR Partnerships in Carmel, Indiana, said the key is to not think of diversity as a single event or program, but as a change in a company’s culture entirely. His organization mostly assists smaller companies with 300 or fewer employees, and he says his plan is to always issue a culture assessment of a business to see if they have the ability to create an effective diversity movement.
“It’s about those at the top of the company to champion the cause,” Dill said.
He also said some of the complications comes from company leaders who see diversity as something to meet only because of the law and potential discrimination cases.
“It is much easier for a CEO to go to a HR department and say ‘we have to create an affirmative action program or plan.’ Then they make their recruitment efforts follow that plan from that perspective. It becomes a program like a health plan and then the CEO can say they’ve worked in accordance with the law.”
Scholars for the Harvard Business Review say diversity programs and policies make it more difficult for overt and covert discrimination to be taken seriously in a court of law. Once reported, administrators can point to programs and infer that the system has been made fair, thus, there is no need for additional changes.
Marquee instances of this practice include a 2011 Supreme Court class action case where Walmart, “successfully used the mere presence of its anti-discrimination policy to defend itself against allegations of gender discrimination.” Researchers noted that Walmart is not alone in this defense tactic. More companies cited in a judicial study also used current policies as a defense to deny employees settlements related to discrimination.
On the reverse side of the workplace diversity problem, there is evidence to support the idea that diversity programs makes white men more likely to believe that they themselves are being treated unfairly.
In one experiment, young white men were studied in a hiring simulation for an entry-level job at a fictional technology firm. For half of the applicants, the firm’s recruitment materials briefly mentioned pro-diversity values. For the other half, the materials did not mention diversity at all, according to researchers.
The following standardized job interviews, which were videotaped for research purposes, concluded that the cardiovascular responses of the white male interviewees indicated increased stress levels when pro-diversity ideas were discussed.
In another set of experiments, diversity initiatives did not reportedly convince ethnic minorities there was more inclusion in the firm, either. The implications of this research are part of a compilation suggesting that managers, industry leaders and lawmakers must champion diversity and inclusion, but also know the limits of the programs they use.
In order to foster fair, inclusive workplaces, researchers say, diversity initiatives must incorporate accountability and avoid unintentionally angering a substantial portion of the existing workforce, i.e. white males, who are also more likely to be managers.
Cheryl Kaiser, lead author of a study on workforce diversity and University of Washington associate professor of psychology, says companies should also continue to actively seek a diverse workplace, even if diversity programs are already in place.
“Our fear is that companies may prematurely stop thinking about diversity among their workers because they’ve credentialed themselves with these programs,” Kaiser said. “Our findings suggest that diversity programs can be window dressing — even those that do very little to increase diversity may still be perceived as effective.”
Many diversity programs seem rational and useful, she said, until they fail.
“By their design and goals, we’re inclined to assume they would be successful. The catch is that since very few are tested for efficacy, these rational assumptions may not actually map onto the reality.”
Carissa Romero, a partner at Paradigm, a diversity consulting group that works with firms like Pinterest, Slack and Airbnb, told media earlier this year that diversity policies, in the future, need to be, “grounded in science” to evaluate successes.
Joelle Emerson, Paradigm’s founder and CEO, said positive examples of commitments to diversity programs include Google’s efforts to retain more women by lengthening maternity leave. But she says the evaluation of diversity programs must go beyond the anecdotal.
“I think one big problem is there isn’t a lot of research done in real organizations to mark the impact of specific diversity policies,” Emerson said. “There should be tons of these examples over time, but organizations haven’t been good at measuring data, or have touted the amazing change they’ve experienced, when the data don’t really seem to bear that out.”
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