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participants had a sense of outcome from the
focus group project.
Affirmative action was a frequent, but not
particularly comfortable subject in these
groups. They appreciate the goals of affirmative
action but it can produce a somewhat
uncomfortable paradox. All of the participants
believe that the firm hired them because of
their skill and experience. To these personnel
endorsing affirmative action might connote
that their hiring may have been the result of
some preference. Most of these people indicate
that if in a pool of equally qualified candidates
there is a minority, at this point in the
history of firm, the minority person should be
selected. Focus group participants emphatically
express the position that ‘no one
should ever be hired who cannot do the job’.
Discussants often mentioned the fact that
traditional methods of recruiting may not
reach many persons who could be in a qualified
minority pool. It was frequently noted
that investment banking is dominated and
staffed almost completely by white males.
The dynamic in the groups was stimulating
because participants were eager to make constructive
action proposals. The following is a
list of major suggestions made by the focus
group participants. They are included in no
particular order, but represent the major reactions
of the sixty participants:
1 Work to maintain respect, regardless of
gender, ethnicity, or race.
2 Maintain commitment to diversity and
work to increase heterogeneity.
3 To assume that the whole group has a
problem is not fair. Don’t try to fix what is
not broken. Get in with the workforce and
fix the real problems that are there.
4 Provide meaningful diversity training. This
should be a part of the orientation process
for new employees. Continually reinforce
the principles and behaviours taught in
the training.
5 Managers must be well and extensively
trained in diversity management.
6 The managers’ performance review
should include how well they manage
diversity. This task of reinforcement and
maintenance of effective diversity
management falls upon the managers and
the respective styles that they model for
everyone else in the group.
7 The firm needs to do a better job of
performance reviews. Managers need to
do a better job of letting you know what
to do to get promoted. Help us with what
we need to learn and accomplish so that
we perform more effectively.
8 In the interest of trying to promote
diverse people, don’t just promote people
because of their diversity status, forgetting
their qualifications. Don’t put someone
somewhere just to have a minority in that
position.
9 Career planning is important to everyone.
Career counselling and advising is important
and it should be done. This could
solve some of the problem we have with
a high turnover rate. The people we tend
to lose will be minorities who have excellent
opportunities elsewhere. What are
their opportunities here They need to
know.
10 As this unit grows we need to do more
mentoring. It is essential to have more
training and mentoring for those who
want to move up to management.
11 This unit must deal more effectively with
the problem of attrition. If we lowered the
attrition rate there would be fewer personnel
problems.
12 As a matter of course do exit interviews
and listen to them. Learn from the reasons
people leave.
© 2004 Sandra Oliver for editorial matter and selection;
individual chapters, the contributors