The company that I work for has a diverse workforce. Most would not look at our facility and think that we may have a discrimination issue taken at face value. I may be inclined to disagree however. I am not talking about racism or any intentional or malice action by the company or it’s employees but more of a legitimizing myth.
Recall that legitimizing myth refers to a belief becoming part of the culture (PSU WC, L13, p. 8). I noticed that my facility is about sixty percent Hispanic. Almost all of these individuals work on the sales floor in general labor positions however. About forty percent of the work force is female, again almost all on the sales floor. The majority of the management team of the facility is made up of white males which is actually one of the least populous ethnic groups on the sales floor. The clerical jobs are almost all Caucasian as well.
I began to think about this. In fact I asked my management team about it. There response was that women and other ethnic groups rarely bid or apply for other positions with in the company. I started to wonder why that might be. I came to the conclusion that the image or the legitimizing myth is that the company isn’t interest in hiring the aforementioned groups so associates are not even putting in for them.
I went back to management and asked if they were concerned about the lack of diversity in particular positions within the organization. They basically said they were but if no one applies what are they to do.
I remembered our reading of Lesson 13 in which Social Dominance Orientation was covered and the idea of the legitimizing myth. The first step in correcting the issue was to acknowledge it. The facility had never really thought of it as a problem before since no one complained and/or even put in for the positions. After looking at it in terms of the legitimizing myth we were able to move forward with trying to correct the issue.
Luckily legitimizing myths are “malleable” (PSU WC, L13, p. 8). The company pushed through a program to explain the benefits of the positions that were not diverse and explained why having diversity in those jobs could better enhance the working environment and the jobs themselves. Furthermore, the company encourage anyone who was interested in such jobs to please put in for them.
The company confronted the legitimizing myth head on and began to change the internal culture of the facility. We have added 2 female supervisors, 1 female manager, and 4 Hispanic supervisors. It was important that the leadership team understood the dangers of the legitimizing myth so that they were able to curb it. After all knowing is half the battle.
Resources:
Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2013). PSYCH 485 Lesson 13: Leadership and Diversity. Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/fa13/psych485/002/content/13_lesson/08_page.html
The legitimizing Myth is very real. Sometimes people can feel that they are not eligible for positions or do not know about the positions. Affirmative Actions are policies that have been put in place in order to reduce the incidents of Legitimizing Myths because they literally go out of the way in order to 1. Advertise to women and minority groups, 2. use hiring, trainging and internal promotion programs, 3. percentage of layoffs are placed to make sure that women and minority groups maintain a certain percentage of employment during layoffs. 4. extra consideration is used 5. given less stringent standards and points. These items are to ensure that women and minority groups have an equal chance at substantial employment opportunities. I also believe that not every circumstance the is unfair can be avoided. Sometimes the way in which we think can keep us from growth and success opportunities not only society itself.