Organization Diversity Analysis

1. Introduction (1/2 page):
This analysis will be of Hillsborough County an organization with offices in Tampa, Florida. This county of about 2 million people has 26 neighborhoods including those incorporated as Tampa, Plant City and Temple Terrace which covers a total area of 1,136 square miles. The county government has a total work force of over 10,000 people, about 0.51% of the entire population. Consistent with federal and state constitutions, and regulations, the County Charter mandates that it shall not deprive any person of any right because of "race, sex, age, national origin, religion, physical handicap, or political affiliation." I was hired as a Senior Engineer on contract to resolve a flooding issue affecting Carrollwood Village. Subsequently became full time as an Engineer II in the Planning and Development Management Department, and then moved to the Fiscal and Administration Department.

2. Description of Diversity (1 to 1 1/2 pages):
Surprisingly the senior County administration seems to have very little diversity at all. A majority of senior staff are white males, the classic "good ol' boys." The County Administrator is currently a white female so there are more females in the senior staff beyond just the secretaries today. Currently that is 17 women and 43 men, which is 30% female, while the total county population is 51% female. However, there are only a few "token" Black people, Hispanics and a few other races around the administration. They do have "diversity training" initiatives and even have performance ratings for diversity. They currently claim to have a 17% Hispanic population employed in the county, though most are not in the administration, but rather in Public Works maintaining facilities. One thing I did notice recently is that I helped get a Chinese Engineer into the Stormwater Infrastructure Section as I was leaving. He now has a staff of a dozen or so other Chinese people. If you went into his section staff meeting and never saw any other part of the County you would say there was no diversity but only Chinese people.

I recall the token Black man who worked with community outreach in the neighborhoods program while I was there. He was involved with all press events with the senior county staff. There were a few other minority staff, but nothing close to the proportion of the population for the county. Even the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) has seven people has one black man, one Hispanic and one female or 14% each while noted earlier women are 51% of the county. Their mission statement includes: "DIVERSITY - Organizational effectiveness can best be achieved by recruiting and retaining a workforce that represents the diversified population of Hillsborough County." This means the BOCC needs that 2.5 of the remaining white men should be replaced by females to match the county population.

I did take their diversity class while working there. It spoke about what Diversity was and what to watch for to avoid discrimination suits with other classes and races. At the time I thought it was useless, because all the staff I ever saw were the same class and race. There were a group of people who had a bible study at lunch in one of the lunch rooms who also only supported the white protestant work ethic as you find everywhere in government. What I found was that people tend to work with peers that match themselves.

Now I see the Chinese group in Stormwater was similar to the Hispanic group in Public Works and the Black group in Fiscal Administration. In each scenario the section leader was a member of the minority which soon resulted in all his staff also being from the same minority. This is very common, at least in Florida where we find similar "clicks" in the school systems and the neighborhoods. People want to be around there "own kind" they feel safer, trust each other and speak the same language.

3. Individuals' Reactions (2 to 2 1/2 pages):
I hired the same senior Chinese Engineer in another company as well. He is very specialized in stormwater modeling, having earned a doctorate writing models in the Northeast. We worked for a few years together and then both left when the job was done. When I introduced him to a manager in the county who trusted me, they trusted him as well and he was hired, which worked out great for everyone. Soon he was hiring more Chinese people into the county which I never noticed until taking this class. They all accepted me very easily even though I usually have a hard time understanding some of them speak. The trust and respect they have for me is styled from their section leader who I helped. I have noticed this before where people feel safe sharing or confiding in others of their same race, religion, culture but also acknowledge those others who are accepted by their leaders or other members of their group and families though not of the same race or culture.

I have felt lucky that the Stormwater Section knows and respects me and this has made it easy in my consulting practice where I need to contact them often. They respect and honor the special holidays and events associated with their religion and culture while fitting this into the guidelines and holidays designated by the county. When I noticed this it made more sense than ever why these groups congregate together. For the county to provide support for the holidays and traditions for each diverse group to coexist could be burdensome. However, allowing different sections and groups to evolve their own traditional celebrations provides the means for these groups to sustain and support each other directly within the county.

This also occurred in Public Works where teams of people were formed that had people speaking Spanish together. There was always one or two people on the team who could speak English, but I was surprised to find staff there who could not speak any English at all. Once again the grouping of these minorities together gave them common grounds to help and support each other. In this case it was more than supporting just the ethnic and cultural background. Some of these non-English staff could not function in any other part of the county where there were not any Spanish speaking people. In this case these staff must stay in these groups. I'm sure there are issues for them when the bilingual staff are absent, beyond simple bias or discrimination. This has also occurred with the Chinese staff where other engineers have trouble understanding them. However, with the increased use of technology this is not as critical an issue. The Chinese staff I've met do speak English, but their accents are so thick it's hard to understand them. Today, more information is shared through emails, where these speaking accents disappear, so the Chinese communicate fine through emails to complete their duties.

I did notice one Chinese woman who spoke very clearly is always getting the "administrative referrals," where she needs to meet with citizens about specific flooding issues in the community. This can be a tiresome and frustrating job since many citizens do not want to accept they might have caused the problem themselves. She will not have the language barrier, but being a female minority will give her other barriers dealing with the citizens who do not want to understand these issues. Here she will have to convince them that she is technically competent and then convince them that the flooding issues are caused by other things they do. I did this for a while. People would accept things from me just because I drove up in a county truck and said I was a "county engineer." The older generations with stronger biases will have trouble even believing a female is an engineer. She is petite and attractive which further makes it very difficult for being accepted as an engineer. The stereotype of an engineer is more masculine and robust like the "Engineer" who drives a train. The truck might help her, but I'm not sure if she drives one or not.

The only flooding problems the county will even look at now are "administrative referrals" where the citizen has complained to the County Commissioners who refer it to the County Administrator to resolve. This often takes years, and by this time finding the causes is very difficult. I could tell she is happy to be interrupted from "another referral" when I call to ask about some simple engineering issue. I feel sorry for her more now, realizing how an attractive petite Chinese lady will be stereotyped and perceived by an old Florida farmer who has been fighting with county staff for years trying to get some help with a flooding issue.

Not only will the farmer have a bad attitude toward any engineer, or county staff; but especially an attractive petite Chinese lady! I hope she does at least drive one of those big new county trucks. They only had small little S10 pickup trucks when I worked there, but I got it stuck so many times in the mud that it was easy to get the big F150 4x4 trucks approved.

4. Organizational Policies/Actions (2 to 2 1/2 pages):
The county government typically gets hundreds of applications for any open position. The application scoring procedures used by Civil Service greatly limit the applications that get through to management staff for review. However, staff often request applications from people they want to hire and these can be forwarded directly to them. This results in a Chinese leader hiring more Chinese to work on his team. Trust and respect are critical to public service operations. The benefits and freedom are really great and easy to exploit, but the salaries are very low. Therefore, it becomes more important to hire someone you trust to work and respect the county rules, regulations, property and resources than to hire someone more qualified. One priority supersedes the other. Training someone you can trust is better than having staff you can not trust who steal equipment or exploit their authority for private gains.

It is very difficult to terminate existing staff, so County staff have the tendency to remain employed forever. This brings an added impulse to hire someone you know, someone of your own race or culture. For example, the Veterans preference is given the highest priority in the application scoring. Veterans have already learned how to follow orders and easily fit into the "good ol' boy" culture of Florida government. Additionally, there have been serious problems with nepotism in the County since managers have so much independent discretion in hiring.

The applications ask about relatives working for the county however it is "only to ensure the enforcement of anti-nepotism laws, Section 112.313, Florida Statutes." This can be overlooked by hiring managers and their families who are asked to apply. The Civil Service uses these hiring preferences in scoring each employee application for education, work background, Veterans preference and language spoken; but rarely verifies these items. The county has used the scoring to hire more bilingual staff in all parts of the customer service sections. As the population of Florida and Hillsborough County gets more Hispanic overall the requirements for bilingual people has increased, which the County has been addressing.

The County has an equal opportunity officer who is listed with the other 60 directors in the county administration. This officer is a minority member, but only has a staff of 4 people as compared to the hundreds of staff for the other directors. Most employment duties are administered by the Civil Service, so this person has little or no real authority. When I first saw this it seemed like they had a minority directing human resources and equal opportunities precisely to avoid questions about minorities. When issues come up, or even lawsuits about discrimination and race, the county official who responds is a minority who would give the impression that discrimination and race are not an issue. Impression management is a key function of governments. Similarly to having one woman, one Hispanic and one Black on the Board of County Commissioners. It's all about managing the impressions given to the public.

These impressions are often more orchestrated than people think. For example, the redistricting plan to determine the community areas for electing each County Commissioner included careful evaluation of residential areas to guarantee that a Black minority member would be elected in only one area. This is another standard procedure for the "good ol' boys" which I considered unethical and even uncivilized.

My detailed knowledge of technology got me involved with so much, where many critical issues came across my desk. As with the hiring processes, I often witnessed procedures and methods that I considered unethical or dysfunctional. For example, the redistricting staff told me he had followed directions to do things the way "it's always been done" and moving into the new technology was not supposed to change any procedures, but only automate and simplify things. This is similar to the automated voting which became scandalous with Bush's reelection, both designed to only support what's always been done behind the scenes.

Further, it seemed like the Affirmative Action regulations filled the maintenance and support sections with minorities so that the "good ol' boys" could stay in the administrative offices while getting some reasonable diversity statistics that their token minorities directors could present to the approving ignorant public. But now with more diversity and cooperation between the races, the minorities are getting into places of authority. Recognizing how I have influenced and changed the staffing stereotypes in the Engineering Department through the trust and respect of my peers in Stormwater confirms that the County is slowly evolving and getting more diverse. I guess most people saw me as a Caucasian white American "good ol' boy" anyway and are usually surprised to learn I'm Hispanic; which helped me.

5. Recommendations (2 to 2 1/2 pages):
The County Administration needs to make more efforts to increase interaction and communication between the diverse community groups in this area. For the 2 million people here only 50% are white. Increasing staff interaction creates more trust and respect between these diverse groups evolving in the County. Individuals still maintain their "clicks" of separate races and cultures but enhancing increased communication between these groups is changing this. Once the communication starts new relationships and trust develop across these cultural boundaries. But breaking down these fundamental stereotypes will require basic cultural shifts like what has been happening with more interracial marriages. The County has sponsor more countywide events where all the staff are invited to participate together, like a luncheon during Black Heritage Month.

I was surprised the County had an event like this since it was specifically addressing a single race. They no longer allowed the Ybor celebrations for the Cubans and the Pirates, but this was largely because they wanted to get the alcohol out of all the County offices. This Black Heritage event they did sponsor was designed to increase communication and interaction between the staff and people in the county. Breaking down the walls between races can begin with a simple greeting that develops into a friendship where new people are trusted and accepted into the system. This is similar to how my friendship with the Stormwater Engineers helped bring the Chinese into Engineering at the County.

The hiring preference scoring is one method that has been successful in bringing more bilingual staff into the county. This has already enhanced the diversity as noted earlier with Public Works. Senior staff are usually only promoted from within, so over time as the overall staff gets more diverse the senior staff will get more diverse as well. The older generations in the senior administration have spent the majority of their careers only dealing with other senior white men in similar positions. As with all people they also tend to be more comfortable and trusting of peers that represent their own class, culture and ethnicity. As more of these older people retire, the younger generations seem more accepting of the diverse races, religions and ethnicities bringing a gradual change into the County over time.

Breaking up the "clicks" will not be an easy process. The Chinese group of engineers in stormwater have been able to work around the language barriers with the better use of technology. But having the single clear speaking woman drive around to inspect flooding problems seems dangerous to me, after I have met more than one irate rude "red-neck" farmer. If the stormwater group were more diverse, they might have an older white man on staff, who fits the stereotype of "the engineer," to do this job with her. Including more diversity like this on their team will alleviate problems with local farmers and citizens who are more biased and not as accepting of the diversity in our community yet. Many rural farming areas in this county still only have minorities as laborers in the fields doing very menial jobs where they get very little income or respect. For a farmer, who has spent his entire life dismissing minorities, it is very difficult to suddenly respect and attend to a minority engineer who shows up to try and explain how changes in farming practices can impact water flows.

Accepting greater diversity in the county teams and groups like in Stormwater will then demonstrate to other groups and citizens the advantage of diversity. For example, if the Chinese woman visited a farmer with another white male engineer in a county truck with her; the farmer would see directly how diverse the county is getting. Further, if she lead the meeting and explained the flooding situations on his property, with the support of the white male, the farmer may learn to respect and see the minorities in his own field in a different light.

Finally the minority directing human resources and equal opportunities, while the old white military "good ol' boy" running Civil Service really has all the authority, is really deceptive and underhanded in my view. If the County leadership wants to make real efforts at diversity it needs to start giving minorities more real authority instead of propping them up as puppets. All the county staff, who are conscious of diversity issues, know what's really happening there and will act similarly. This is really demonstrating how the leadership deceives the citizens. The leadership needs to enact diversity instead of placating to public opinion and then the other senior staff will begin to do the same thing.

6. Conclusion (1 page):
This analysis has demonstrated to me how much a single individual can do. I never noticed how the Stormwater Engineering Team has been dominated by Chinese people. As I have explored this more it really should not be any surprise at all, for each of us has an affinity for others like ourselves. In situations where commitment is so critical it is normal for people to more easily develop trust for others like themselves. Further, seeing a Chinese team in a system where others get into clicks and are very tight in separation; it seems obvious that my friend in stormwater was essentially modeling the same attitudes and practices of his leaders in the county administration. This has shown in specific detail how people mirror their leaders and therefore how much the county still has to do to escape the stereotypes and biases of past generations.

Another inspiring surprise was that I noticed another engineer who was an intern in the county when I first started there. I trained him and a Black student in stormwater modeling and now he's a senior manager. He is a White Caucasian but since I know directly that he was close friends with the other Black student we worked with, this demonstrates how the younger generations are moving up in the system and are more accepting of minorities. I don't know if this will mean anything now, but it shows to me that things are slowly changing and the diversity is evolving in the old guard county administration.

I did also learn about how much of a big deal diversity issues have become for this county. There is much more effort to increase the "appearances of diversity." In reading current information on the internet to verify some of my previous experiences, I came across an award the director of Public Works received for bringing so many Hispanics into this division. I had direct interactions with these minorities, primarily Mexicans. These people are treated little better than the migrant farm workers are treated by the "red-neck" farmers. Of course the news reports gets pretty pictures of the minority "leaders" bragging about the statistics and all the public things good of the elected White boys doing a good job. No one sees the Mexicans working long hours in the hot sun making minimum wage. I'm still surprised there are even some there who do not speak more than a word or two of English.

This has taught me a great deal about how far we still have to go as a culture to even get to the point of being civilized. It embarrasses me that I even wrote bigoted terms like red-neck, Black, Mexican and Chinese to describe the people I've seen and interacted with. However, these stereotypes are still so common and frightfully apparent that this report would not address diversity without them. Further it now is clear to me that my own heritage has been diverse and compassionate enough where even the use of such terms is offensive. I've never noticed so much bias and I hope that I never model any of this uncivilized hypocrisy to anyone.