Discrimination can be a daunting source of discouragement in the workplace and managers are often challenged with the ability to manage diverse workforces and achieve the organisational goals with the people under their charge, no matter how diverse they are. In a story by H.G Wells titled: “The Country of the blind,” the author narrates the experience of a mountaineer who falls into a valley in South America where all the inhabitants have been blind for fifteen generations. Of course, his immediate reaction is among this group of disadvantaged people, he can easily establish himself as being superior since he is the only one that has his sight. As the saying goes, “In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king!”
How wrong he is. He soon learns that the whole society is structured around blindness as a norm, so his sightedness affords him no advantages. Indeed in many situations, it becomes a disadvantage. He finds it difficult to integrate and he is hardly accepted. The modus operandi is completely different from anything he has ever witnessed: All work is performed in the dark of the night, when the weather is cooler; the community has no need of lights and buildings have no windows.
His perception and interpretation of things based on sight: colour, shape and height, have no meaning whatsoever to the inhabitants. His other senses: feel and touch, smell and hearing are all underdeveloped because of his sight, and so he cannot participate in the culture of his new environment. In the end, he is left with a major decision to take: have his eyes gorged out or leave the community.
The real moral of the story is being different from a social group that we wish to operate in can produce disadvantages for an individual no matter what qualities, abilities or expertise we have.
The real moral of the story is being different from a social group that we wish to operate in can produce disadvantages for an individual no matter what qualities, abilities or expertise we have. In the example given here, the mountaineer has sight, which ought to be an advantage in the circumstances, but is a disadvantage because sadly, sight is undervalued and of little importance. In fact it is a disadvantage!
In the world we live, race/ethnicity, disability, gender, religion and sexuality are often reasons for discrimination and therefore are a disadvantage. We find individuals suffering from the subtle surges of discomfort that people have with them to the rather rash and sometimes violent display of dislike. They suffer rejection, non acceptance, and unfair treatment in workplace and commercial settings all because they are different. They can feel excluded from proper participation in activities or be marginalized and sometimes even suffer violent attacks from the dominant group in their environment.
The nature of discrimination is such that there is an unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of race, age, sex, or disability. There are certain characteristics that identify people as being different. Race and sex cannot be hidden. Age can be disguised and sometimes put under cover. Sexual orientation can be hidden and put under the guise of assumed behaviour. The following quote was taken from a personnel manager from a large department store in a major city in the UK: “Our customers are mainly white middle class women. They would be uncomfortable being served by ethnic minorities and they would probably shop elsewhere. This is why we do not have black sales assistants and only have men in certain areas such as the electrical department. We have some Asian employees in the stockroom and doing some vital jobs behind the scene.”
The personnel manager appears rather limited in his thinking. Will the store only cater for middle class white women even in the future? Are there no other races or ethnic groups living in the environment who might want to patronize the store? It would be more accurate to enlarge the sales scope of the store and enable it meet the needs of a larger number of people. The UK and the world at large have become more diverse in nature.
Women are consistently taking a shot at shattering the glass ceiling in modern society. But gender based discrimination is still rather rampant in many occupations and circles that have hitherto been dominated by men. Janette Webb cites a peculiar example of this: “Women graduate engineers are aware that they have to fit in as “one of the boys”. The difficulty for them to be able sit down, like men would, map out a career and at the same time decide that at a certain time, you would like to settle down and have a family is often seen as a major challenge. Unfortunately, women are seen as a riskier kind of employee by managers. Managers’ perceptions of procedures and job requirements for accessing merit have too often been bogged-down with gendered assumptions. Feminists often argue that not all women get pregnant, but it seems very unlikely that those arguments will stop them thinking that “men never get pregnant.”
There are no hard and fast fixes for every manner of discrimination.
There are no hard and fast fixes for every manner of discrimination. Especially when it comes to ageism and colour where people are being put down because they are either deemed to be too old or too young for certain responsibilities; the other bit of course, is believing that the colour of the skin has anything to do with abilities to perform a function.
Here are some recommended practices that managers can adopt: Develop an equal opportunities policy covering promotion, recruitment and selection and training; set action plans that would help you train and readjust the thinking of staff about certain notions and perceptions; provide proper team and acceptance training for all staff; create a strong organisational culture which focuses on work and work processes as against the differences of people who will do the work; Consider flexible working/career breaks, providing childcare and creche facilities. Of great importance is your ability to have the image of the organisation in view at all times. If our discrimination is allowed to permeate and seep out of the workforce psyche to the sensitive public, it could ultimately damage the business for good.
*Ogundadegbe is a renowned management consultant. He trains managers and executives in the arts of Customer Service, Human Resources Management and Management strategy ([email protected]).
