Dr. Luisa Amelia Dempere2012-2014 Past-Chair

President’s Council on Diversity

Academic Administrators Leadership Seminars:

New Administrators Orientation Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Managing for Diversity & Issues in Recruitment

AGENDA

• Historical Perspective on Diversity

• Issues in Recruiting

• Managing for Diversity

• President’s Council on Diversity

Defining DiversityThe full spectrum of human differences and similarities, including immutable and mutable characteristics yielding unique perspectives.

Other way to “see” it...

Society for Human Resource Management

<<<1960

1960

1965

1975

1980

1985

1990

>>2005

Historical Perspective 2014

Issues in Recruiting

LAWS~

COMPLIANCE

LAWS~

COMPLIANCE

Executive Order 11246

Executive Order 11246

Age Discrimination in Employment Act

of 1967

Age Discrimination in Employment Act

of 1967

Vocational Rehabilitation

Act of 1973

Vocational Rehabilitation

Act of 1973

Equal Pay Act of 1963

Equal Pay Act of 1963

Immigration Reform &

Control Act of 1986

Immigration Reform &

Control Act of 1986Pregnancy

Discrimination Act of 1978

Pregnancy Discrimination

Act of 1978

Genetic Information

Nondiscrimination Act of 2008

Genetic Information

Nondiscrimination Act of 2008

Fair Labor Standards Act

of 1938

Fair Labor Standards Act

of 1938

Americans with Disabilities Act

of 1990

Americans with Disabilities Act

of 1990

Title IX of the Education

Amendments of 1972

Title IX of the Education

Amendments of 1972

Uniformed Services

Employment & Reemployment

Rights Act of 1994

Uniformed Services

Employment & Reemployment

Rights Act of 1994

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act

of 1964

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act

of 1964

The Law

Equal Employment Opportunity

Affirmative Action

The enforcement of statutes to prevent employment discrimination

The effort to achieve parity in the workforce through outreach and eliminating barriers in hiring

The Law

It is illegal to discriminate against an applicant or employee because of that person’s race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetic information.

It is also illegal:

To publish job advertisements that show a preference for or discourages someone from applying for a job based on the above-referenced reasons.

To make decisions about job assignments and promotions

based on the above-referenced reasons.

To discriminate against an employee in the payment of wages or employee benefits on the above-referenced reasons.

IT’S THE LAW!

SYSTEMIC DISCRIMINATION

Involves a pattern or practice, policy, or class case where the alleged discrimination has a broad impact on an industry, profession or employer.

Examples of systemic discrimination:

Discriminatory barriers in recruitment or hiring.

Discriminatory restricted access to management trainee

programs and to high level jobs.

Exclusion of qualified women from traditionally male dominated fields of work.

Disability discrimination such as unlawful pre-employment

inquiries.

Age discrimination in reductions in force and retirement

benefits.

<<<1960

1960

1965

1975

1980

1985

1990

Faculty Diversity

An article published in The Academy of Management Journal examined the impact of group diversity on academic performance.

For the study, the researchers defined diversity by cultural identification.

They created 19 culturally diverse groups and 17 culturally homogenous groups composed of white-Americans

At the end the diverse teams had surpassed the homogenous groups in overall performance. In fact, the diverse groups far exceeded the homogenous groups in the “Alternatives generated” (read: innovation) score.

Faculty Diversity

(Cultural Diversity's Impact On Interaction Process and Performance: Comparing Homogeneous and

Diverse Task Groups)

“Diverse groups of problem solvers — groups of people with diverse tools— consistently outperformed groups of the best and the brightest.

If I formed two groups, one random (and therefore diverse ) and one consisting of the best individual performers, the first group almost always did better.

In my model, diversity trumped ability.”

Pag

e, S

cott

E. (2

00

8-0

8-1

1).

The D

iffere

nce

: H

ow

the P

ow

er

of

Div

ers

ity C

reate

s B

ett

er

Gro

up

s, F

irm

s, S

chools

, and

Soci

eti

es

. Pri

nce

ton U

niv

ers

ity P

ress

. K

ind

le E

dit

ion.

Cognitive functioning is a term referring to a human’s ability to process thoughts.

Cognition mainly refers to things like memory, the ability to learn new information, speech, understanding of written material.

Identity diversity and cognitive diversity often go hand in hand.

Two people belonging to different identity groups, or with different life experiences, also tend to acquire diverse cognitive tools.

Pag

e, S

cott

E. (2

00

8-0

8-1

1).

The D

iffere

nce

: H

ow

the P

ow

er

of

Div

ers

ity C

reate

s B

ett

er

Gro

up

s, F

irm

s, S

chools

, and

S

oci

eti

es

. Pri

nce

ton U

niv

ers

ity P

ress

. K

ind

le E

dit

ion.

Cognitive vs identity diversity

Cognitive diversity doesn’t improve performance when it comes to routine tasks, like flipping burgers. Routine tasks are better done by individuals.

In dealing with complex tasks like engineering problems, or tasks requiring creativity and innovation, or managerial issues, cognitive diversity is a key explanatory variable in levels of performance.

Cognitive diversity has four dimensions:

Diverse perspectives: people have different ways of representing situations and problems.

Diverse interpretations: people put things into different categories and classifications.

Diverse heuristics: People have different ways of generating solutions to problems.

Diverse predictive models: Some people analyze the situation. Others may look for the story...

Pag

e, S

cott

E. (2

00

8-0

8-1

1).

The D

iffere

nce

: H

ow

the P

ow

er

of

Div

ers

ity C

reate

s B

ett

er

Gro

up

s, F

irm

s,

Sch

ools

, and

Soci

eti

es

(p. 7

). P

rince

ton U

niv

ers

ity P

ress

. K

ind

le E

dit

ion.

The best perspectives create landscapes with

a single peak— they organize the

information in such a way that a single, obvious solution becomes clear.

Pag

e, S

cott

E. (2

00

8-0

8-1

1).

The D

iffere

nce

: H

ow

the P

ow

er

of

Div

ers

ity C

reate

s B

ett

er

Gro

up

s, F

irm

s, S

chools

, and

S

oci

eti

es

(p. 4

6).

Pri

nce

ton U

niv

ers

ity P

ress

. K

ind

le E

dit

ion.

When people see a problem from the same perspective, they are likely to get stuck on the same local peaks.

Diverse Perspectives: Perspectives are ways of seeing the problem. They create different landscapes.

Diverse interpretations: people put things into different categories and classifications.

Watching shapes in the clouds...

Diverse heuristics: People have different ways of generating solutions to problems. Some people like to talk through their thinking about problems; others prefer to write out his solutions first and then talk.

The more productively a perspective organizes reality, the more heuristics people can create to work in that perspective.

Innovations can arise from rearranging the box with a new perspective or from exploring parts of the box that have been ignored with new heuristics.

Diverse perspectives are more likely to lead to breakthroughs; diverse heuristics are more likely to lead to iterative improvements.

Why is diversity vital for innovation?Comparing the solving of problems with climbing rugged landscapes.

People with different perspectives might enable a group of diverse people to do better than a group of like-minded experts who

think they know they are on climbing the highest mountain.

Mount Everest

Multiple Perspectives and Heuristics are Essential

We Now Work in Teams

…which shows the advantage of working in teams…

Making a Difference:

This does not imply the irrelevance of ability.

Ability still matters, but so does diversity.

And, once an ability threshold has been met, diversity matters more than ability.

Sco

tt P

ag

e, fr

om

A

cad

em

y o

f M

anag

em

ent

Pers

pect

ives,

Nov.

20

07

, p

ag

e 1

1

Galton’s Steer

At the 1906 West of EnglandFat Stock and Poultry Exhibition, 787 people guessed the weight of a steer. Francis Galton collected the data and found the average guess was 1,197 pounds. The actual weight of the steer was 1,198 pounds.

Wisdom of the CrowdInformation Aggregation

On Who Wants to be a Millionaire, the lifeline is correct 2/3 of the time.

The audience is correct:

9/10 times!

Goldcorp ChallengeIn 1999 CEO Rob McEwen instructed his geologists to release all geological records to the public. The “Goldcorp Challenge” offered $575k to anyone who could find the gold and drew 1,200 people from 50 countries.

Results: 110 sites identified 50% new,

80% produced gold. 8 million ounces found. Company value up from $100 million to $9 billion!

 

“… if a loved one requires open-heart surgery, we do not want a collection of butchers, bakers and candlestick makers carving open the chest cavity. We’d much prefer a trained heart surgeon, and for good reason.”Scott E. Page

MYTHS ABOUT HIRING A DIVERSE FACULTY

Relatively few qualified women or minority candidates are available, and these are highly sought-after, so we are unlikely to recruit them. Data (Ford Foundation) suggest that minorities are not sought-after:

Minority Postdocs: 54% never approached by any institution.

We only use quality as a criterion for hiring… adding diversity will therefore compromise quality. Hiring a more diverse faculty will improve quality, not compromise it.

More heterogeneous groups have greater creativity, bring wider

range of viewpoints to an academic endeavor.

We are doing everything we can, so the situation is already the best it can be. The problem is all due to older long-term faculty, so once they die/retire, things will automatically improve.

NON-COMPLIANCE LIABILITIES

Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) Authority to cancel, terminate or suspend federal contracts and

awards in whole or in part for failure of the contractor or

subcontractor to comply with the nondiscrimination provisions of the contract.

Authority to declare UF ineligible for further federal contracts

or extensions or other modifications of existing contracts.

U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Authority to award compensatory and punitive damages to a

complainant (depending on the size of the employer (over 500

employees – limit is $300,000).

An effective faculty diversity program fosters an academic community that reflects a diverse range of interests, abilities, life experiences and worldviews that enhance the academic mission

of the University of Florida.

An effective faculty diversity program supports the equality of opportunity which ensures that the University of Florida can fully utilize the intellectual resources embedded in our diversity and maintain our legitimacy as a public university receiving federal funds.

BUSINESS CASE FACULTY DIVERSITY

• A diverse faculty reduces the probability of ‘groupthinking’ where pressure to conform within a group can prevent good decision making as independent thinking is lost.

• A diverse faculty creates a greater engagement of a full range of differences in producing the synergies that leads to breakthroughs in productivity and innovations.

• A diverse faculty provides a broader pool of skills, talents and perspectives to draw from for problem-solving and organizational success.

BUSINESS CASE FACULTY DIVERSITY

Managing Diversity

Diversity Retention = Inclusion!

Inclusion

Diversity

Law

Diversity without inclusion, will not work.

Diversity and Inclusion Core Understanding

Potentially limiting concepts and strategies...

“Benchmarking” --- Not having to re-invent the wheel...

“A good fit”--- Fit what?

“Participation” --- Not necessarily inclusion

Problems of Diversity

Getting the benefits of diversity depends people being able to work together. We would expect that some people who are diverse in identity terms find it difficult to work together effectively.

Communication(Problem solvers with diverse perspectives may have

difficulty understanding each other)

Misunderstanding and Mistrust

Less comfortable atmosphere(We are all more comfortable with like-minded individuals)

If well managed, identity diversity can create benefits, provided it correlates with cognitive differences and provided the task

is one in which diversity matters.

Pag

e, S

cott

E. (2

00

8-0

8-1

1).

The D

iffere

nce

: H

ow

the P

ow

er

of

Div

ers

ity C

reate

s B

ett

er

Gro

up

s, F

irm

s, S

chools

, and

S

oci

eti

es

(p. 1

5).

Pri

nce

ton U

niv

ers

ity P

ress

. K

ind

le E

dit

ion.

If people do not believe in the value of diversity, then when part of a diverse team, they are not as likely to

produce good outcomes

Wisdom of the CrowdInformation Aggregation

Many corporations such as Apple, Toshiba, Texas Instruments, Philips, BASF, GlaxoSmithKline, Procter &

Gamble, the BBC and Nokia have embraced open innovation, realizing the benefits of harnessing

inventiveness from outside their corporate walls.

Final Thoughts from Scott PageOur individual abilities are not likely to

growth much anytime soon.

Our collective diversity can grow.

Diversity is our best hope to solve problems and to create innovations.

UF PRESIDENT’S COUNCIL ON DIVERSITY

DR. SHARI ROBINSONCHAIR PRESIDENT’S COUNCIL ON

DIVERSITY2014-2015

Two-year membership termFaculty, staff, administration, students,

community membersMonthly Meetings Diversity Action Plan – developed by

Council and reviewed by vice presidents, college deans, directors, and chairshttp://hr.ufl.edu

Committees

UF President’s Council on Diversity

1. Clearly define and publicize the University’s commitment to diversity.

2. Create a welcoming environment for individuals of all races, genders, nationalities, religions, sexual orientation, sexual identity & expression, viewpoints, ethnicities, & for those with disabilities.

3. Recruit and retain more women and individuals from diverse backgrounds in faculty positions.*

4. Recruit, retain & graduate more of undergraduate and graduate minority students and women (or men) in fields where they are not well represented.*

*These targeted outreach and recruitment efforts are undertaken to provide meaningful opportunities for all, including people from under-served groups, within the context of regular, broad-based outreach and recruitment.

UF Diversity Action Plan Initiatives

5. Provide incentives to academic units and academic support units for developing best practices and models for increasing diversity.

6. Provide high quality diversity education, orientation, and training available to all members of the university community.

7. Collect data and create databases to systematically and effectively assess progress to achieve diversity goals.

UF Diversity Action Plan Initiatives (continued)

Thank you!Questions?