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