Economist Questions: Diversity in the British workplace – are we managing?

The UK has come a long way since the early Equal Opportunities legislation of the 1970s, high-profile cases in the 1980s and 1990s identifying institutionalised discrimination, and the subsequent focus on celebration of diversity and promotion of inclusion. However, the #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter movements are reminders of how far we still need to travel. In this episode, Peter Urwin is joined by Emma Parry, Professor of Human Resource Management at Cranfield School of Management, to discuss how to further move the dial on diversity in the workplace. Asking whether research provides clear lessons for managers, they identify a number of similar messages across the economics and HRM literatures. However, whilst recent debates over the value of unconscious bias training caution against untested approaches, evaluation of “solutions” such as Inclusion present a real challenge. Peter and Emma debate these tensions, and consider possible ways forward. For an accompanying blog post on this issue, go to https://www.propelhub.org.