“No more fiendish punishment could be devised, were such a thing physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed by all the members thereof...a kind of rage and impotent despair would ere long well up in us, from which the cruelest bodily tortures would be a relief ”
(James, 1890). James and others (e.g. Festinger, 1950; Maslow, 1954) believed that social needs such as the desire to be recognized and included were basic human necessities. Yet, the reality is that in today’s workplace many people feel excluded. For example, women and minorities in the United States often feel less than included as full members of the organization, not because of performance deficiencies, but because of differential access to opportunities and an inhospitable climate. Furthermore, social exclusion has been linked to a variety of effects including depression, hostility, jealousy, loneliness, and decreased self-esteem and motivation.

There is growing recognition that in order to create global organizations that are effective with a diverse employee base, the organizational climate must be appropriate (e.g. Miller, 1998; Thomas, 1990; Triandis, Kurowski, & Gelfand, 1994). And for diverse groups, that means creating an environment that fulfills important social needs of all its members. For this reason, the concept of inclusion is becoming increasingly important to organizations. Focusing on fulfillment of important psychosocial needs is an advancement in diversity management because this strategy moves the primary focus away from individual differences, which is frequently the aim of the most common diversity strategies (e.g., diversity training). In the words of Thomas, “The wrong question: How are we doing with race relations? The right question: Is this a workplace where ‘we’ is everyone?” (1990). This move also takes diversity management away from its roots in U.S. civil rights legislation and broadens it to apply to anyone, anywhere.

Organizations recognize that they must take action to effectively manage an increasingly diverse, global workforce to be successful (Jackson et al., 1993). In a survey of organizations, Hopkins, Sterkel-Powell & Hopkins (1994) found that the majority of Human Resource (HR) directors (89%) expect their organizations to become increasingly diverse within the next 10 years. In the context of an organization’s ever increasing demand to become more competitive and efficient, employers are not simply interested in ensuring the legal defensibility of their personnel policies, practices and procedures; rather, they are also interested in “managing diversity” to ensure that all employees reach their full workplace potential (Jackson and Alvarez, 1993; Jackson, Stone & Alvarez, 1993; Thomas, 1992). Organizations are interested in implementing diversity management initiatives in order to create an environment that supports and retains a diverse workforce while capitalizing on individual differences as a competitive advantage (Cox and Blake, 1991). Diversity management moves beyond the isolated implementation of programs (e.g., diversity and sensitivity training), to the development of a system-wide approach that involves alignment of organizational culture, reward systems, and policies and procedures. While organizations are hurriedly searching for effective practices, there is little concrete guidance on what works best, or at all (Armitage, 1993; Cox, 1990; Wentling and Palma-Rivas, 1997).

Organizations take a wide range of approaches and strategies to managing diversity, with diversity training as the most popular. While there are few who would argue that the efforts and expenditures have been in vain, most would agree that current approaches are insufficient. For example, Hopkins et al. (1994) found that 61 percent of the HR Directors surveyed felt they were poorly prepared to manage the growing diversity of their workforce. Rynes and Rosen (1995) surveyed 785 HR professionals about diversity issues and found that only 33 percent believed their diversity training programs were successful. The adoption and perceived success of diversity initiatives depends on the broader organizational context such as top management support. The implementation of individual programs helps to a degree, but is not the type of systemic approach needed for large-scale change.

Organizations need to adapt to meet the changing needs of the workforce. For example, most U.S. corporate cultures were established when the vast majority of workers were European white men (Wentling and Palma-Rivas, 1997) with Christian religious affiliations. Companies were originally patterned to mirror their values and experiences. Cultures were created to support the workforce’s needs as they existed in society at the time; they were created to be inclusive of the majority group. During this early era, most women did not work outside the home and minority roles were very limited in the workplace, although diversity did exist,
“those individuals who were different were expected to assimilate into the existing white male culture” (Wentling and Palma-Rivas, 1997). While the patterns and results vary across the globe, many multinational organizations are working to address increasing globalization and diversity of their workforces.

There is growing consensus that in order to create organizations that are effective with a diverse employee base, the organizational climate must be appropriate (Miller, 1998; Thomas, 1990; Triandis et al., 1994). As noted by Triandis et al. (1994), “managing diversity means changing the culture... it is more complex than conventional management but can result in more effective organizations.” “[The] goal is not to assimilate diversity into the dominant culture, but rather to build a culture that can digest unassimilated diversity” (Thomas, 1990). Creating inclusive organizations is arguably such a “more complex” approach.

In response, Kenexa has developed and globally validated a measure and model of inclusion in organizations. This approach provides critical data that identifies what populations within the organization may be feeling excluded, whether based on gender, location, country, job role, etc. In Kenexa’s model, inclusion in the workplace is defined as “an individual’s collective judgment or perception of belonging as an accepted, welcomed, and valued member in the larger organization units, such as a work group, department and overall organization.” This definition reflects what early theorists such as Festinger, James and Maslow believed were fundamental psychosocial needs of all humans. An inclusive organization is one that fulfills these needs.

Kenexa’s model of inclusion has been linked to turnover, which is the primary reaction to a lack of inclusion, or its opposite: exclusion. Perhaps most importantly, this approach provides insight for directing action plans and interventions to help build an inclusive organization. Inclusion has been shown to be impacted by representation of differences in leadership, work-life balance, peer and supervisor support, formal orientation programs, mentoring relationships, and the awareness and effectiveness of diversity initiatives.

Moving away from a U.S.-centric approach to diversity, inclusion provides an approach that applies to everyone, everywhere. Focusing on the creation of an inclusive organization provides a broad, systems perspective in managing a global, diverse workforce. If today’s organizations can create a climate that is inclusive of every member, they benefit by retaining and losing the varied talents and offerings of their most important asset.

References
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Paper presented at the Eighth Annual Conference of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, San Francisco.

Cox, T. H. (1990). Problems with research by organizational scholars on issues of race and ethnicity. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 26(1), 5-23.

Cox, T. H. and Blake, S. (1991). Managing cultural diversity: implications for organizational competitiveness. Academy of Management Executive, 5(3), 45-55.

Festinger, L. (1950). Informal social communication. Psychological Review, 57, 271-282.

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Jackson, S. E., and Alvarez, E. B. (1993). Working through diversity as a strategic imperative. In S. E. Jackson (Ed.), Diversity in the workplace: Human resource initiatives (pp. 13-29). New York: Guilford Press.

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Thomas, R. R. (1990). From Affirmative Action to affirming diversity. Harvard Business Review, 90, 107-117.

Thomas, R. R. (1992). Managing diversity: A conceptual framework. In S. E. Jackson and Associates, Work through diversity: Human resources initiatives. New
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Triandis, H. C., Kurowski, L. L., and Gelfand, M. J. (1994). Workplace diversity. In H. C., Triandis, M. Dunnette, and L. M. Hough (Eds.), Handbook
of industrial and organizational psychology (pp. 770-827). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.

Wentling, R. and Palma-Rivas (1997). Diversity in the workforce series - Report #1: Diversity in the workforce: A literature review. National Center for Research
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