Workforce diversity and discriminatory practices in organizations: A research on 4 and 5 stars hotels in Ankara

Although there are various definitions for illegal workforce discrimination, a comprehensive definition can be given as follows: Workforce discrimination is making distinctions between individuals or groups in employment processes like job advertising, selection, recruitment, training, promotion, performance appraisal, pay raises, termination by making employment decisions based on such factors as race, age, sex, religious belief, mother tongue, national origin, disability status, which are not necessary to perform the job successfully. Although there are various classifications of discrimination types in the literature, two of the most widely stated ones are disparate treatment and disparate impact. Disparate treatment occurs when individuals in similar situations are intentionally treated differently based on such factors as race, religious belief, sex, age, national origin, disability status. Disparate impact occurs as a result of employment processes or decisions that result in discrimination, although there is no such discriminatory intention. Discriminatory practices towards workforce result basically from prejudice against individuals or certain groups (women, black people, the disabled etc.) There are negative consequences of discriminatory practices for the organizations such as high turnover rates, decreased employee efficiency and motivation, increased absenteeism rates, increased failure rates in selecting the best people for the job, diminished competitive advantage and as a result of these, decreased overall efficiency and effectiveness of the organization. Although there are legal regulations concerning workforce discrimination, discriminatory practices continue to exist. On the other hand, changing world of today and globalization result in more organizations valuing workforce diversity. Diversity means that organizations are becoming more heterogeneous in terms of sex, race, age, national origin, thought, viewpoint etc. Globalization of markets, changing demographics in the labor market, new business strategies requiring team work and the shift from a manufacturing to a service economy are the prime reasons for workforce diversity. Diversity improves the organizational capabilities in terms of flexibility, creativity, problem solving and competitive advantage. Especially in the service sector, in order to gain competitive advantage, organizations need a diverse workforce for both understanding the diverse needs of customers and answering to these needs in a prompt and proper way. Today, workforce diversity is not only a legal requirement for organizations, but it is also a must to survive in a highly competitive business environment. The prime motive for this study is to investigate the relationship between workforce diversity and perception of discrimination. The basic hypothesis of the study is that as the workforce diversity increases, the perception of discrimination decreases. In order to test the hypothesis, a survey is carried out covering 421 employees in 16 four or five-star hotels located in Ankara. The results of the study show that there is a significant and positive relationship between nationality and perception of discrimination at a significance level of 95% and between income and perception of discrimination at a significance level of 90%. The analyses carried out show that there is not a significant relationship between perception of discrimination and any of the demographic factors other than nationality at a significance level of 95%.