Social Psychological Perspectives of Workforce Diversity and Inclusion in National and Global Contexts

The recent focus on diversity in themanagement literature takes on special urgency in the context of human services organizations. Human services organizations have traditionally served a wide array of communities with a high representation of diverse, disadvantaged, and oppressed groups. This diversity has not typically been mirrored in the workforce of those organizations. A recent study of a nationally representative sample of 10,000 social workers demonstrates that the profession is not keeping pace with the population it serves in terms of its ability to attract social workers of color (National Association of Social Workers, 2005). The study’s findings indicate that 86% of licensed social workers are predominantly nonHispanic whites. Both African Americans and Latinos are underrepresented relative to their presence in the U.S. population, with 7% African American social workers, compared to 12% in the population, and 4% Latinos, compared to 14% in the population. This workforce data stands in contrast to the social workers’ reports about the diversity of their client population: 83% report having black/African American clients in their caseloads and 75% report having Hispanic/ Latino clients. In the field of child protective services, agencies have been recruiting professionals outside of social work in order to increase the presence of underrepresented groups in their workforce (Clark & Jacquet, 2003). Despite advancement in the representation of women and members of minority groups in the human services workforce, there is still a lot to be done to make the workplace more inclusive. The extent to which workers from diverse Social Psychological Perspectives of Workforce Diversity and Inclusion in National and Global Contexts