Diversity, perceptions of equity, and communicative openness in the workplace

This essay broadly explores the relationship between workforce diversity and resulting perceptions of inequity in the workplace, presenting communicative openness as a solution to many organizational problems associated with increasing diversity. More specifically, it documents communication and inter-personal problems commonly experienced by organizational members who are perceived as being dissimilar, and it supports a two-pronged approach to fostering a more equitable workplace. This approach suggests that organiza-tions use mentoring programs solely as a long-term strategy and that they use discreet and consistent supervisory disclosures of task-relevant information as a short-term strategy for achieving real equity and fairness in business communi-cation. &dquo;Diversity&dquo; is a buzzword in popular organizational literature. Articles abound on how to manage and/or value heterogeneity among employees.... Increased attention to diversity stems partially from a report (funded by the U.S. Department of Labor) which predicts that by the turn of the cen-tury, five-sixths of new workers in the United States will be women, African