Diversity & the Economic Downturn - part one

Over the past decade, the public sector has been under increasing pressure to deliver greater efficiencies and value for money, and has also had to demonstrate an increased level of accountability to its stakeholders - and one could argue that this has been a good thing. However, within the current economic climate the sector is being forced to make some very difficult resourcing decisions and these decisions are likely to have a substantial impact upon our current and future workforce. Within the current economic downturn, many organisations have been forced to find their efficiencies through organisational restructuring and through reducing or reshaping their workforce.

Over the next three issues, Janice Joannou, the PPMA’s lead officer for diversity, explores the degree to which diversity issues are taking a back seat in the current economic downturn and explores some practical ways the sector can minimise the negative impact of the recession upon its diverse talent.

PART ONE: SOWING THE SEEDS OF SUCCESS
I ran a workshop a few months back for a group of public sector professionals whose jobs were ‘under threat’ following a large-scale organisational restructure. The first thing I noticed was that the majority of the group were women, but as most of these were HR professionals – I guess there was nothing very surprising about that!

We started with each person in the group describing how the restructure was impacting upon them – they described being ‘ring-fenced’; ‘deleted’; ‘displaced’; ‘made redundant’. Between them, they described a whole host of labels that more fittingly described objects than people. Of course, as professionals they knew that it wasn’t them but their posts that were being deleted or restructured, but being on the receiving end of a restructure for a change, felt very different to them. Clearly, knowing something and feeling something is not the same thing and despite all the rationalisation in the world, being one of the select group who have ‘been impacted’ still hurts.

What was also interesting in this particular organisation was the language being used by senior management to describe the restructure: sanitised business terms such as ‘gaining efficiencies’; ‘management restructure’; ‘downsizing’; ‘de-layering’; through to less guarded phrases such as ‘getting rid of dead wood’ and ‘weeding out lazy managers’ i.e. those managers who could not/chose not to work a 50 hour week (whatever happened to the concept of working smarter not harder?).

So what has any of this to do with equality and diversity you might ask? The organisation had done their equality impact assessment so, on paper at least, no one group had been disproportionately impacted by the restructure. But statistics are not the whole picture, are they? It is my belief that without sufficient regard to the people aspects of change, an organisation may create serious problems for itself in the future. Regardless of the recession, organisations still need to recruit the best talent and as enlightened customers, this talent will start to shop around for the best employers. In other words, the prevailing culture of your organisation and how you treat people now, will impact long into the future.

Of course as experienced change agents, we understand that during challenging times, we ignore the emotional impact of change at our peril. However, once in the thick of change, many organisations take their eye off the ball and so fail to adequately deal with the people aspects of change. This may, unfortunately, also be compounded by their inability to recognise the fundamental role that organisational culture plays in getting the best out of their diverse talent, even within a healthy economy.

It should come as no surprise to anyone reading this, that employees who are effectively managed, supported and developed are much more likely to deliver excellent services to their customers. Furthermore, your customers (who are, quite frankly, not interested in your organisational restructuring unless they directly benefit from it) will be critically evaluating the extent to which your workforce continues to reflect their own diversity.

Creating a culture in which people are fearful for their jobs does not make good business sense to me. A culture of fear and insecurity naturally impacts upon all employees, but I would suggest that the impact upon those who are already in more vulnerable positions in organisations is even greater.

STRATEGIC APPROACH
I have always argued that it is in an organisation’s interest to take a longer-term, strategic approach to equality and diversity rather than just following the ‘letter of the law’. For example, focussing on best practice for all employees will have a positive impact upon colleagues from underrepresented groups as well. In the past, when individuals complained to me about their experience of discrimination in the workplace, it did not surprise me to discover that there was also a deficit in the organisations’ overall people management policies and practices. It was also not surprising to find that the overarching organisational culture was not conducive to maximising the benefits of having a diverse workforce.

Clearly some organisations are still actively investing in their people during the recession and, as we can see from Stonewall’s workplace equality index, these organisations are not always from the public and third sectors (Lloyds TSB being the overall winner in 2009, with Hampshire Constabulary and Brighton and Hove Council following closely at their heels).

Perhaps such organisations recognise that investing in their talent now will create a stronger more productive workforce that will be loyal to them in more challenging times. Perhaps they recognise that they will reap the rewards once we move into a more healthy economy and perhaps they recognise that investing in diversity is just plain good for business!

So in answering the question: ‘do diversity issues take a back seat in times of economic down turn?’ I would say that for organisations committed to a long-term, sustainable and strategic approach to diversity, there will be the infrastructure in place to weather the storm. For other organisations, with their fragmented and short-term approach to diversity, I suspect that there will be an adverse impact upon many people’s experiences.

The effectiveness of diversity strategies hinges upon many things including the prevalent culture of the organisation and its existing HR practices. It depends on the extent to which equality and diversity has already become part of the very fabric of the organisation, it depends on the extent to which the organisation recognises the huge value that diversity brings to the business. It depends on strong leadership and an awareness of the business benefits of having excellent diversity strategies and HR practices. It depends on the level of diversity awareness across the whole organisation and the extent to which people understand the value of effective partnership working with both internal and external partners.

In the next issue, we will examine the current research on the impact of the economic downturn upon the different demographic groups in order to inform our diversity strategies both in the short and longer term.

Janice Joannou

Lead Officer for Diversity, PPMA
Director, Rainbow Consultants
Janice@rainbowconsultants.org.uk