ORGANISATIONS that openly discuss their difficulties fostering racial diversity in their workforces are seen as more dependable and dedicated to diversity than organisations that don’t, according to a study released by the American Psychological Association (APA).
Lead researcher Evan Apfelbaum, an associate professor at the Questrom School of Business at Boston University, said: “We suspect that many companies fear that revealing lagging diversity numbers will undermine their reputation and credibility, so they don’t disclose that information, but that strategy may be misplaced.
“Our research found that disclosing a lack of progress is a more effective way to signal that the company truly cares about diversity than suppressing this information.”
Several companies publicly pledged to enhance racial diversity in their workforces in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement, but few of them have made diversity information on their employees available.
The researchers analysed information from 30 large firms that voluntarily provided their racial diversity data in yearly reports to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Among the businesses were Apple, Facebook, eBay, and Verizon.
Overall, the surveys showed that the organisations’ workforces lacked significant levels of racial and ethnic diversity, with only three per cent of senior management roles being held by Black employees and four per cent by Hispanic/Latino employees.
Although participants’ perceptions of a firm’s racial diversity were not affected by the disclosure of diversity statistics, their views of the company were.
THE PERCENTAGE of disabled physicists in the UK has decreased by half in a year, a new study has indicated.
Lightyear Foundation’s (a charity for disabled children to engage in STEM) study also found out that the representation of people with disabilities is lower in physics than it is in the chemical or biological sciences.
The findings were based on statistics obtained via a freedom of information request made by the Lightyear Foundation.
While more investigation is necessary to determine the reason for this apparent decline, Lightyear’s STEM Lead and physicist Claire Malone hypothesises that the COVID-19 pandemic may have decreased one-to-one assistance from teachers and supervisors.
“This is particularly a problem for disabled students and scientists who require additional assistance to complete their studies,” she says. “I have experienced this first-hand in environments with limited wheelchair access that prevented me from directly collaborating with my peers.”
Lightyear has partnered with the Planet Possibility campaign, administered by the Institute of Physics and the educational non-profit charity Future First, to develop the role models programme in an effort to address the underrepresentation of women in physics.
To know more, click here.
*STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.
SHIFTING workers from rural to metropolitan centres is partially motivated by its diversity ambitions, a BT executive has claimed.
In order to prioritise investments in cities, Howard Watson, BT’s chief networks officer, informed colleagues that increasing diversity and inclusion was a “significant factor”.
Watson informed colleagues that BT will be able to “improve diversity [and] inclusion” by recruiting in “many more places”.
When asked about whether diversity and inclusion programmes affected where the corporation made investments, he responded: “That was a significant factor in the choice of the locations.”
BT’s workforce consists of 25.7 per cent women, 10.8 per cent people of colour, and 6.5 per cent people with disabilities. By 2025, it wants these percentages to be 32 per cent female, 13 per cent ethnic minority, and 10 per cent disabled.
As part of a “transformation” cost-cutting strategy that also involves closing or downsizing offices, BT is eliminating thousands of jobs.
From a staff of 130,000, BT has stated that it intends to eliminate 55,000 positions by the end of the decade.
In rural centres like Adastral Park in Martlesham, Suffolk, where it is reducing 1,100 jobs, it is eliminating positions. However, it is giving employees the option to relocate to a city location.
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