Workforce Diversity, Internal Labor Market Approach to

Abstract

For several reasons, securing an ethnically, nationally, and gender-diverse workforce and maintaining an inclusive environment for it are increasingly important objectives for many organizations. This entry offers an internal labor market view of organizational workforce diversity. The article begins by reviewing the core concept of an internal labor market and applies it to workforce diversity. The internal labor market approach is a data-rich approach that both describes organizational “talent flows” (such as hires, promotions, and attrition) and analyzes them through statistical modeling to identify the factors that most influence those flows and ultimate representation outcomes. Applied to workforce diversity, the approach enables organizations to better understand their internal workforce dynamics and provides the basis for prioritizing and aligning interventions to better achieve diversity objectives. A case example is presented to illustrate the approach.