Chapter 4: Contextualised Discrimination

Issues of workforce diversity, equity, and inclusion have been, and remain, some of the biggest challenges facing countries, communities, organisations, and individuals the world over. Psychological barriers, behavioural barriers as well as cognitive barriers, coupled with a fear of loss of relevance and privilege, too often define the behaviour and interactions of many and serve to sour workplace relationships, as well as societal engagements through acts of discrimination. Additionally, workplace systems and processes, allegedly designed to encourage human performance and innovativeness, are riddled with built-in biases and, according to Tapia et al. (2021, p. 8), even though those biases ‘may have been introduced unintentionally, that has not stopped them from undermining the progress of traditionally under-represented talent at a deep and systemic level’, for example, regardless of industry across the globe and everything else being equal: