It’s Time to Make Workplace Diversity Meaningful
Embrace strategies that truly move the needle on equity and inclusion in the workplace.
The Black Lives Matter movement taking hold across the country calls for real and enduring racial equity. Yet, companies across the country still fall far behind when it comes to equity in the workplace. While few companies actually report their diversity numbers, among the Fortune 500 companieswho do, less than 4 percentare racially and ethnically diverse.
In her new book, Authentic Diversity: How to Change the Workplace for Good (CRC Press, Sept. 9, 2020), recognized organizational diversity expert Michelle Silverthorn describes how to make equity in the workplace actionable, not just aspirational. Silverthorn explores how, for decades, corporate efforts have provided mere lip service to workplace diversity. She offers 5 New Rules of Equity to truly transform organizations into places of inclusion. The rules center on one simple truth: people matter.
Authentic Diversity shares tools that allow leaders to successfully transform their stalled diversity efforts. From instituting cultural shifts, to holding honest conversations, to revamping talent development, Silverthorn presents operational strategies for giving workplace equity traction.
Real-life stories from Silverthorn’s personal experiences and those of her clients reveal the individual and institutional harm inflicted from oppressive norms in White-dominated business cultures.
Proposing realistic strategies for dismantling the stranglehold of systemic racism in our organizations, Silverthorn addresses:
• How Whites have been the beneficiaries of societal structures that perpetuate inequality
• What worn-out rationalizations have kept organizations from doing the important work of equity and inclusion
• Why making the business case for diversity fails to bring about needed change
• Why we must get past allowing unconscious bias as an excuse for maintaining the status quo
• How to create environments where any individual or group can feel welcomed, respected, supported, valuedand able to fully participate
Silverthorn reveals the organizational and societal arguments for undertaking authentic diversity. Following her new guidelines can make it possible for all employees to bring their authentic selves to work, and to no longer have to leave their true identity at the door.
