The Kenexa® Research Institute (KRI) recently released results of a survey of American workers that explored employees’ feelings of equal opportunity in the workplace. In its 2008 WorkTrends™ Report, KRI found that in the United States, there are distinctions across certain job categories and management levels based on racial-ethnic origin.

According to the WorkTrends data, Asian Americans are more likely to occupy knowledge-based jobs such as professional, technical and managerial positions while African Americans are more likely to occupy clerical and laborer roles.

When responding to questions specific to their company’s culture, both Caucasians and Asian Americans feel more favorably than African Americans that their company enables people from diverse backgrounds to excel. For advancement and development opportunities within their company, Caucasians and Asian Americans also respond more favorably than African Americans do.

This research further indicates that the industry in which one works matters. While satisfaction with opportunities for advancement varies little for Caucasian Americans, for African Americans industry differences are significant. African Americans are most satisfied in the healthcare services industry (68%), but least satisfied in government (50%). Asian Americans in the education industry reported the highest level of satisfaction with career advancement opportunities (89%).

“These results also indicate that minority workers perceive the potential for equal advancement opportunity differently depending on the region of the United States in which they work. We found the widest range of opinion on equal opportunity for advancement in the Midwest. In that region, Asian Americans clearly report the strongest support and Caucasians are more favorable by a margin of ten percentage points than are African Americans,” said Jack Wiley, Ph.D., executive director, Kenexa Research Institute.

In terms of pay, more than half of all surveyed employees—regardless of ethnicity—feel they are paid fairly, but there are differences by ethnicity. Only 13% of Asian Americans feel they are paid unfairly, compared to 32% of Native Americans and 28% of African Americans.

Database Overview
The WorkTrends database is a comprehensive normative database of employee opinions on topics including leadership, employee engagement and customer orientation. 2008 comparisons are available for workers from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, The Netherlands, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Study Details
The report is based on the analysis of data drawn from a representative sample of 10,000 U.S. workers who were surveyed through WorkTremds. The survey participants were asked demographic and workplace diversity questions.

Survey Results
So much for equal opportunity—Ethnicities are still grouped into certain job categories and levels (see Figure 1).

• Ethnicity matters less when in the upper echelons of management, and has less distinction between groups in front-line supervisor and service role (service says ‘e.g., food service, cleaning service, health, protective service, barber/beautician, firefighter, police, service station, janitor’)
• There is a barrier at the mid-level manager level; Asian American have the highest numbers
• As a group, Asian American seem to have more upper-ladder and knowledge worker jobs.
• Latin Americans seem to be in people-facing, service (as opposed to production) jobs
• African American concentration is in clerical

Note that these job types will affect how they see career advancement. If ethinic minority populations are slotted into jobs through the educational system or society, then their advancement potential is decrease—a vicious cycle.

There are differences among ethnicities (see Figure 2):

• The leadership at my company is committed to diversity.
• Asians feel more favorable than Whites and African Americans
• My company enables people from diverse backgrounds to excel.
• Whites feel more favorable than African Americans
• Asians feel more favorable than African Americans
• All employees, regardless of gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and culture have equal opportunities for development.
• Whites more favorable than African Americans
• Asians more favorable than African Americans
• All employees, regardless of gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and culture have equal opportunities for advancement.
• Whites more favorable than African Americans
• Asians more favorable than African Americans

The differential in favorability is mirrored in negative workplace opinions. In other words, there are fewer people who feel neutrally (see Figure 3).

There are differential opinions on fair pay as well (see Figure 4). Asian or Pacific Island workers are the most satisfied with their pay and African American workers are the least.

How is Equal Opportunity Working Out?
When we look at equal opportunity results only (Figure 5), we see fewer workers in target-EEOC groups feel that equal opportunity for development and advancement exists. Advancement scores are lower across the board, indicating that, while organizations train and develop more equally, they are not promoting as such. For African Americans, the lower scores are striking, and this makes sense due to the higher percentage of African Americans employed farther down the ladder. Asian Americans seem to be struggling far less with EEOC issues—also intuitive, given the management and knowledge worker positions that more Asian Americans in this sample hold.

Ethnic minority groups report differential treatment in various U.S. regions (Figure 6). Equal opportunity results were more similar across groups, but followed the same general trend as equal opportunity for advancement. The West is seemingly more egalitarian, and South comes out slightly ahead of the Northeast and West as far as perceptions of equal opportunity for advancement, most notably for Native Americans. The largest difference of opinion on equal opportunity for advancement is in the Midwest, where there is a 24% differential between Asian and Native Americans, and a 10% differential between Caucasians and African Americans. According to ethnic minority workers, the organizations in the South afford them the most opportunity for advancement (74% of non-white workers said there is equal opportunity for advancement in the South, as opposed to the lowest number—70% in the Midwest).

What is the Most Egalitarian Industry?
Looking at a few of the major industries in the U.S. (Figure 7), workers in ethnic minorities report that education is the most egalitarian (83% favorable on equal opportunity for advancement), while the government is the least (56% of ethnic minorities were favorable). Fewer African Americans report advancement equal opportunity in Government and Manufacturing industries.

Why Less Opportunity for Advancement??
Despite the bleak outlook for the outcomes of EEOC initiatives, WorkTrends respondents of various ethnicities feel relatively similarly about their own opportunities (Figure 8). It may be that the perception is that the scale is still tipped, but if workers were to only reference their own experience, perceptions of equal opportunity might be more positive. That said, only about half of workers feel that they have a promising future.

They also feel as if they receive training opportunities to improve their skills within their organization, although Native Americans report training in lesser numbers (Figure 9).