A representative organizational diversity metric: a dashboard measure for executive action

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-04-2017-0076
• Date: 16 April 2018
• Published date: 16 April 2018
• Pages: 219-232
• Author: E. Holly Buttner,William Latimer Tullar
• Subject Matter: HR & organizational behaviour,Employment law,Diversity, equality, inclusion

A representative organizational

diversity metric: a dashboard

measure for executive action

E. Holly Buttner and William Latimer Tullar

Department of Management, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro,

Greensboro, North Carolina, USA

Abstract

Purpose –Workforce analytics is an evolving measurement approach in human resource (HR) planning and

strategy implementation. Workforce analytics can help organizations manage one of their most important

resources: their human capital. The purpose of this paper is to propose a diversity metric, called the D-Metric,

as a new tool for HR planning. The D-Metric can be used to assess the demographic representativeness of

employees across skill categories of an organization’s workforce compared to its relevant labor markets.

Design/methodology/approach –The authors present a real example and discuss possible applications of

the D-Metric in HRM strategic planning and diversity research.

Findings –The D-Metric is a statistic useful in assessing demographic representativeness in the

occupational categories of an organization’s workforce compared to the demographics of its relevant labor

markets. The methodology could be implemented to assess an organization’s work force representativeness

on dimensions such as race, sex, age and pay levels. When the labor market is unitary, without measurable

variance, a substitute metric, the U-Metric also presented in this paper, can be used.

Research limitations/implications –Use of the D-Metric requires publicly available labor market data

with variance across labor market segments.

Originality/value –There currently is no published metric that evaluates the representativeness of an

organization’s work force relative to its relevant labor markets. Many organizations seek a demographically

representative workforce to be tter understand their diverse customer segments . Monitoring the

representativeness of an organization’s work force, as captured in Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO-1)

forms in the USA, for example, is an important component of HR management strategy. From a legal

perspective, the D-Metric or the alternative U-Metric, could be useful in showing progress toward a

demographicallyrepresentative work force.

Keywords Diversity, Diversity management, Demographic representativeness,

Organizational demographic diversity, Organizational diversity metric

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

The evolving global population is creating increasing human resource (HR) challenges for

many organizations. Inter-and intra-country migrations, increasing representation of

minority groups, and declining White birth rates are leading to diverse populations in many

developed countries including the USA, the setting for this study. These demographic

trends inevitably will lead to changes in the demographic composition of the labor force and

thence, to organizations’work forces worldwide.

HR managers around the world attribute differing degrees of importance to diversity

management. For example, in Australia, Davis, Frolova and Callahan (2015) found that

diversity management is not well understood or appreciated. Besci and Hirt (2016) reported

challenges in the transferability of diversity management practices within the Austrian

organization they studied across the organization’s subsidiaries in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Other scholars have examined various strategies for enhancing diverse employee

distribution such as making the organization more attractive to prospective women and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 37 No. 3, 2018

pp. 219-232

© Emerald PublishingLimited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-04-2017-0076

Received 14 December 2016

Revised 14 April 2017

25 July 2017

27 September 2017

Accepted 24 October 2017

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/2040-7149.htm

The authors would like to thank the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful and

thoughtful feedback on earlier versions of this paper.

219

Organizational

diversity

metric