Page 125 - DMGT550_RETAIL_MANAGEMENT

Retail Management

Notes
!
Caution There can be possible lawsuits and legal tangles from disaffected employees who
feel aggrieved because of instances of discrimination and harassment based on their
ethnicity or gender.
Your Role
You have a key role in transforming the organizational culture so that it more closely reflects
the values of our diverse workforce. Some of the skills needed are:
1. an understanding and acceptance of managing diversity concepts
2. recognition that diversity is threaded through every aspect of management

3. self-awareness, in terms of understanding your own culture, identity, biases, prejudices,
and stereotypes
4. willingness to challenge and change institutional practices that present barriers to different
groups
It’s natural to want a cookbook approach to diversity issues so that one knows exactly what to
do. Unfortunately, given the many dimensions of diversity, there is no easy recipe to follow.
Advice and strategies given for one situation may not work given the same situation in another
context.
Managing diversity means acknowledging people’s differences and recognizing these differences
as valuable; it enhances good management practices by preventing discrimination and promoting
inclusiveness. Good management alone will not necessarily help you work effectively with a
diverse workforce. It is often difficult to see what part diversity plays in a specific area of
management.
To illustrate, the following two examples show how diversity is an integral part of management.
The first example focuses on the area of selection, the second example looks at communication:
Issues
1. How do you make the job sound appealing to different types of workers?

2. How can recruitment be effectively targeted to diverse groups?
3. How do you overcome bias in the interviewing process, questions, and your response?
Strategies
1. Specify the need for skills to work effectively in a diverse environment in the job, for
example: “demonstrated ability to work effectively in a diverse work environment.”
2. Make sure that good faith efforts are made to recruit a diverse applicant pool.
3. Focus on the job requirements in the interview, and assess experience but also consider
transferable skills and demonstrated competencies, such as analytical, organizational,
communication, coordination. Prior experience has not necessarily mean effectiveness or
success on the job.
4. Use a panel interview format. Ensure that the committee is diverse, unit affiliation, job
classification, length of service, variety of life experiences, etc. to represent different
perspectives and to eliminate bias from the selection process. Run questions and process
by them to ensure there is no unintentional bias.

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