Blog two of five, in a series by Dr Chrissi McCarthy.
TLDR: Diversity alone does not produce good outcomes. Without inclusion, diversity can co-exist with exploitation, precarity, and harm.
The problem with the business case narrative
It is incredibly common to hear people talk about the business case for diversity. How diversity improves businesses, brings teams together, and solves problems; in short, it is spoken of as if it were a silver bullet. I’ve always had a hard time with this, and not because I’m resistant to EDI, quite the opposite, it’s because I have devoted the second half of my life to finding out what works in this area, and in short, Diversity is an outcome, not the solution.
A personal lens: the most diverse workplaces I ever knew
Hear me out, catering and cleaning are two of the most diverse industries I’ve ever worked in. I spent eight years in various roles: office cleaner, pot wash, waitress, and bar staff. Fortunately, no one ever called on me to cook anything. I worked with men and women, people from all over the world with differing religions, family makeup and sexualities. We were a melting pot of differences with one key similarity. We needed money to pay our bills. Things might be different now, but back then, these were precarious jobs with few there for career progression.
When diversity co-exists with harm
I had a few excellent hospitality experiences over the years, but mostly the experience was challenging, reflected by a lack of power, autonomy, and choice. Diversity was not a tool for innovation and collaboration; it was often an exploitative choice.
We were people who needed work to pay bills and had little other opportunity. So, people took advantage of that.
Exploitation behind the scenes
In my time in these roles, I experienced expectation to work without pay, long hours without breaks, unsafe working conditions, abusive and sometimes violent colleagues, outright sexual harassment and on occasion a failure to pay as a company went under.
A few stories that stayed with me
When I was a 16-year-old waitress, a group of office workers in their 30s came into my restaurant (more of a pub with a separate eating area) to celebrate a birthday, two hands and, inexplicably, a sex toy found their way up my skirt as I served the food. My manager said, It is what it is, and I understood the assignment.
At 17, I worked with a chef who had a penchant for rage and used to throw pots at us when the order was wrong. Don’t worry, he was a terrible shot; we all survived unscathed.
As a pot wash at a fancy event, we were made to open the champagne bottles all day, leaving our hands blistered so severely that no one returned the next day. No safety gloves or treatment were provided, and minimum wage was not yet in place.
Why these experiences matter
These events are a speck in a sea of shared experiences. If you take nothing else from this, thank those who serve and support you.
However, this is not the point I’m trying to make.
The point is, there was a lot of diversity in these environments, far more than in any other area of my life before or after, but there was no inclusion. There was no support. There was no respectful environment.
Diversity does not mean equality, and that is a very important thing to understand.
Why this paper matters
Mor Barak et als paper does a wonderful job of putting some science behind these feelings. Showing how diversity is not as effective as inclusion in creating positive organisational outcomes, and that’s why I think it’s an incredibly important paper.
