DC Velocity - August 2009

basictraining

BY ART VAN BODEGRAVEN AND

KENNETH B. ACKERMAN

the hard work of managing diversity

TIME WAS WHEN DIVERSITY IN OUR WORLD meant that a woman had snagged a job customarily performed by men. But our world has changed—a lot. It is a commonplace to find women running distribution operations—big ones. And it is not rare for a female executive to have complete responsibility for a corporate supply chain.

We won’t pretend that all the battles have been won, but we can look back to see how very far we have come.

Now, there are newer and more complex diversity challenges in supply chain management, as we have had to acquire workers and supervisors from non-traditional sources.

Those sources are, themselves, varied and diverse.

One is a pool of older workers. As people retire later in life, or can’t afford to retire, or find they can’t stand hanging around the house after they retire, they become natural supplements to the work force. Distribution center operations are an obvious place for many to land. While they tend to bring an admirable work ethic to the job, they present challenges to management in strength, stamina, realistic expectations for sustained performance levels, technology literacy, and health issues.

Another is a population of physically and mentally challenged individuals. In general, they make productive, loyal, and appreciative workers. But we can’t all go as far and as fast as Walgreens did in its South Carolina DC, where workers who fall into the differently abled category are managed to the same productivity and quality standards as employees without mental and physical limitations. Sometimes sheltered work environments can be a good answer; sometimes selected tasks/functions within a larger facility can be assigned to specific individuals. Whatever the solution, it’s likely to make routine management tasks like planning, scheduling, training, and day-to-day, hour-to-hour supervision all the more complex and demanding.

The new diversity

A major component of the new diversity, though, is concentrated in immigrant populations, with complicating factors of culture, language, religion, life experience, and history.

Spanish-speaking immigrants in particular are critical components of solving the labor availability equation. But it is an enormous mistake to lump all Spanish-speaking workers under the descriptor “Hispanic.” Cultural practices vary widely among different Hispanic nationalities. And, by the way, they don’t speak exactly the same Spanish, either. So, management can’t make blanket assumptions or manage mixed groups as if they were all the same. Add Portuguese-speaking Brazilians to the mix, and you’ve complicated the challenge.

Language can be a trickier issue than it might first appear. Many of us have been sensitized to the importance of maintaining linguistic and cultural identity, Hispanic and otherwise. Well-meaning companies have developed training materials in, for example, Spanish and subsidize (or offer) English-as-a-second-language classes. Some offer and promote the option of performing jobs in the worker’s native language.

But in many cases, that’s not what the folks want. Workers often prefer to work in, and learn, English. Further, when line managers and supervisors are of the same heritage as the work force, they often disapprove of this type of linguistic coddling, believing that the workers should instead be encouraged to learn the prevailing language the way they themselves did.

Beyond Central and South America

Language issues are one thing. Matters really get dicey when cultural and religious practices that are incompatible with “normal” Western business activity are part of the package that comes with the immigrant work force. Management has then got some serious thinking to do about how much pain is tolerable for the sake of getting enough headcount in the door in order to get customer merchandise out the door.