Diversity, in a business context, means ensuring that the workforce mix is representative of the local population. It is achieved through hiring employees in alignment with business needs and including individuals from a variety of different backgrounds and identities into appropriate levels of the organization, and consistently investing in their development and promotion. Advancing diversity is believed to not only support equity in the workplace but also ensure the stability of the broader social infrastructure in which the business operates, by fostering inclusion, reducing societal tension, and strengthening community resilience. Diversity characteristics may include various legally protected groups, such as people of different religions or races, or backgrounds that are not legally protected, such as people from different social classes or educational levels. A business or workplace with people from a variety of backgrounds is called diverse, and one with individuals who are very similar to each other is called not diverse.
Proponents of diversity argue that businesses benefit by having diversity in the work force. The institutional catalyst for diversity stems from the progression of diversity models within the workplace since the 1960s. In the United States, the social justice model for diversity was originally situated around affirmative action drawing from equal employment opportunity initiatives implemented in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Equal employment opportunity was centered around the idea that any individual academically and physically qualified for a specific job could strive for (and possibly succeed) at obtaining that job without being discriminated against based on identity. These initiatives were met with accusations that tokenism, above other factors, was the reason that individuals from minority groups were being hired. The deficit model explains why dissatisfaction among minority groups led to a moral imperative for diversity efforts that extend beyond the idea of equal opportunities across the workforce.
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