Social Diversity Is Far More Advanced Than Organisational Diversity

Social Diversity is far more advanced than Organisational Diversity

LGBT Community

Not all aspects of diversity is discriminated both socially and organisationally, the main areas with the highest rates of discrimination both in social and organisation diversity are in the areas of the LGBT community, Race & National origin, Religion and the travelling Community.

The younger generations are growing up with the LGBT community making it more of a norm to them where as the older generations always felt like they had to hide being gay, lesbian, Transgender or Bi-sexual. This was for many reasons but mainly religious reasons with between 80-90% of Irish citizens being Catholic and the Catholic Church having a major hold over Irish citizens. Since the mid 1990s the Catholic church's reputation has been slowly eroding and they no longer have as powerful of a hold. Since then people have felt freer to talk up about topics that were once “forbidden” in the eye of the church.

We can see that Society is becoming more diverse and expecting of the LGBT community with the many reports done in the recent years and also with the legalisation of gay marriage in May 2015 and the passing of the gender recognition act in 2015.

Although Society is becoming more accepting, for some reason organisations are not becoming more diverse at the same rate. This discrimination exists in spite of legislation prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Although transgender people have not featured in many of the workplace studies, the little research that does exist highlights employment as an area of life which causes significant difficulties for transgender people in terms of experiencing discrimination, with many employers inadequately prepared to address issues of gender identity or expression.

There are many ways of improving LGBT treatment in the workplace such as staff awareness and education, promoting inclusion, diversity and equality, inclusive policies and challenging discriminatory practice. As a society trying to overcome diversity we must keep making milestones such as the marriage referendum and the gender recognition act. Uni Sex toilets seem to be the next advance to make society and organisations more diverse.

Race and National Origin

National origin discrimination involves treating people unfavourably because they are from a particular country or part of the world, because of ethnicity or accent, or because they appear to be of a certain ethnic background (even if they are not). Or even for being married or associated with a person of a certain national origin.

The rates of foreign nationals in Ireland was not high up until the boom. Once the boom began people from all over the world but mostly Eastern Europe began coming to Ireland.