New studies show workplace diversity has little effect on employee retention rates and minority actors are possibly being discriminated against as the majority of acting roles are specifically available to Whites.
Workplace Diversity Has Little Effect on Employees
A new University of California-Berkeley’s Haas School of Business study concludes that employing workers of diverse races has little effect on average turnover in a retail workplace, although Black and Hispanic employees are more likely to remain on the job when there are other Blacks and Hispanics.
In an article called “The Effect of Diversity on Turnover: A Large Case Study” that appeared recently in the journal Industrial and Labor Relations Review by professors Jonathan Leonard and David Levine, the article contradicts an argument of some diversity consultants, who claim that having a workforce that is both gender- and racially diverse reduces turnover.
After studying more than 70,000 “frontline” employees at more than 800 workplaces owned and operated by a national retailer, the authors also failed to find support for the argument that non-diverse workplaces experience more friction and thus require special training.
“The most important takeaway is that diversity itself doesn’t matter much in terms of turnover for most groups of workers,” says Leonard. “It suggests that people are, at least in this sector, pretty tolerant.”
Other results of the study include women were slightly more likely to quit when the gender breakdown of their workplace was closer to 50 percent female and 50 percent male, and less likely when their workplace was less diverse, with either mostly female or mostly male employees. Black and Hispanic employees in particular were less likely to quit in heavily Black and Hispanic communities, respectively. There was evidence that Blacks and Hispanics preferred each other to White coworkers. Black exits were particularly rapid when more of their coworkers were White or Asian, while Hispanic colleagues did not increase Black employees’ exit rate.
