Diversity Management in Chile.

When reading the chapter "The Doing Perspective On Gender and Diversity" I could not help to notice the similarity between what was written and the actual Chilean scenario. This brought to my head the idea that, by studying the Diverse Management and the Inclusion in Companies, in the future I could make a change in the processes that enable this behaviors. This is why the reading was important to me and in the following lines I will explain what is the reality in Chile and what could be achieved by implementing the good practices in matters of inclusion and non-discrimination.

I should start by saying what do I mean with "the simmilarities". Chile, as Germany according to the book, has a conservative patriarchal culture in which the man is the "provider" of the house while the women is the one in charge of taking care of the family. But times have changed and the Chilean society claims to have changed too. Legislations for non discrimination between sexes have been proclaimed, and these days, women should work. Also the existance of laws of paternity leave for both, mother and father, leads to think that we are like the nordic countries where the difference in salaries is nonexistent. But this does not happen. In Chile the biggest labor discrimination is against women who receive the 73% of a man's salary according to UNIFEM. In the World Economic Forum's Competitive Index, Chile is ranked 106 in the category of “Participation of Women in the Work Force” and the participation of the female gender in Director's Boards is 2%. Finally, the biggest salary differences between sexes are in the professions that required more qualifications. Why does this happen?

As stated in the reading, the higher the position, the more time dedicated to it is expected. Women have to deal with the family duties, therefore, man have more time to spend at the office. This is erroneous, but it is a cultural fact in Chile. I saw this dynamic when doing an internship in a financial institution. One of the sub managers was pregnant and had another baby girl. Between the

doctor appointments and the upcoming pregnancy leave, she would stay extra hours in order to finish her work. Her collegues, mainly males, instead of approving her effort they would say that she should not have a job as demanding as hers if she was planning to have a family.

The ironic thing is that when one of them was doing extra hours, it would look like he was a hard worker.

The double bind presented in the book is also a reality in the Chilean market. I saw it in the same financial institution where no female students were accepted as interns, since they would not be able to handle the stress. The few women who worked in the area had to prove their worth in previous jobs and they all had the same strong personality, or as the book would say, they were all doing masculinity. It is known that internships are the first step to getting a job offer so now you can imagine what the proportion of man and woman in the area was. Not that I trust too much in the quota system, since I feel like in order to reach the goal, wrong hirings could be done.

The second similarity is the Homosociality. Currently, managers in Chile come from the upper classes and have studied in the top universities. It is a normal practice for them to select and recruit people who they feel confortable working with, probably coming from the same social class or the same academic institution. Therefore, homosociality is presented in Chile as a discrimination against workers with humble origins.

In an interview with Universia, the Professor of the Universidad de Chile, Javier Nuñez, states three reasons why this discrimination occurs:

The first one is the “Pure Homosociality”, managers like to work with people alike. They do not have to move from their comfort zone as they know how to interact whit them. I should highlight that socioeconomic differences in Chile are broad and noticeable in cultural aspects for this to make

sense.

The second reason is because managers may think that these candidates will not be able to perform their tasks in a proper way because the environment in which they will cope could be discriminatory itself. People who will be working with them (collegues, clients or creditors) may not legitimate them if feeling like they do not belong to the same status.

The third and last one, is that these candidates due to their background, may not have specific desireable competences as the ability to persuade.

As a conclusion, It can be said that Homosociality in Chile restricts the social movilization of its population.

Both of this situations have been taken under consideration by organizations in Chile. On one hand there are the multinational companies that import the Diversity Management and Inclusive Practices from their headquarters in Europe or in the USA. On the other hand, national organizations such as Acción RSE within the private sector, and the Ministery of Labor within the public one, are working in order to end with this problems. Acción RSE has launched the program +Diversidad, which seeks an inclusive and meritocratic working market by training 172 companies in inclusive practices with the goal of reaching indicators of diversity in organizations. The Ministry of Labor is promoting new legislations related to this topics and overseeing that existing laws as the anti-discrimination law are met.

I believe, as +Diversidad's CEO Ignacio Larraechea does, that the success of this programs could lead to increased productivity, better working environment and capacity to respond to crises, greater opportunities for innovation and more comprehensive work teams.