Over the past decade, more people have begun to openly acknowledge that their identities don’t fit in with existing conceptions of gender, race, and ethnicity. The way we see ourselves has evolved to better reflect the nuances and complexities of being human. “He” and “she” are no longer the only acceptable pronouns. It is becoming more widely understood that racial and ethnic identities can change across time and place.
Employee Demographics Don’t Have to Be at Odds with Employees’ Identities
It’s time for organizations to rethink how they categorize race, gender, and ethnicity.
January 24, 2020
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Summary.
Over the past decade, more people have begun to openly acknowledge that their identities don’t fit in with existing conceptions of gender, race, and ethnicity. In many areas of the world, the culture is moving forward to reflect this change, and yet business remains behind. To better understand the current assumptions made about gender, race, and ethnicity, researchers collected and analyzed over 300 scholarly articles published in top management journals and found that an overwhelming majority of academic research (approx. 95% of the articles reviewed) conceived of demographic identities at work based on traditional ideas of gender, race, and ethnicity. They also found that employees who identify in ways that don’t conform to these categories are more likely to feel marginalized, and even threatened, at work. To support the autonomy and legitimacy of individuals with all demographic identities, organizations will need to take specific and deliberate steps to reexamine their approaches, like conducting audits and revising processes and systems to reflect identity multiplicity and autonomy.