At work, formal equality appears as a written set of rules that dictates the equal treatment of all people within an organization. One example happens when positions open to all (qualified) candidates available for hire. This means any person with a fair application has a chance of getting the job.
Formal equality operates on the idea that all people should be treated as the same, yet innate human behavior is flawed. All people operate with some baseline perspective about race, privilege, or age. It does not consider workplace privilege, which occurs when one person has advantages or realizes benefits over another, even unintentionally.
Even though formal equality and written rules are built with positive intentions, their applications to unequal groups have unequal results. Formal equality does not consider majority and minority groups, which means majority groups are often unfairly favored. The majority group is a group in a demographic with the most members in it. For example, it may seem like a fair rule to require all people on your team to wear their hair short and cut to the chin, but this does not account for employees with religious differences.
An advantage of formal equality is that it produces a written set of principles and rules that are followed for all business decisions. When applied universally and without prejudice, a blanket set of rules does not favor any party. The disadvantages of formal equality include:
- No deeper understanding of culture
- Feeling disadvantaged in the workplace
- Never reaching the root of inequality
- Encouraging a disjointed workplace culture
- Leading to uneven results in hiring practices
Substantive Equality
As stated earlier, substantive equality goes beyond the basics of recognizing the equality of all and identifies differences among groups of people with the long-term goal of greater understanding. Substantive equality attempts to remove the systemic advantages afforded to majority groups. An example of substantive equality in the workplace would be hiring protected status veterans or giving preference to other minority groups, like members of the LGBT community. On a small scale, cultural sensitivity training is an excellent way to promote substantive equality among team members. Instead of formal equality practices that lump everyone into one group, substantive equality makes an attempt to consider differences and then adjust for them.
There are positives to implementing substantive equality, and these include more equal outcomes for individuals and consideration to diversity. However, when implementing substantive practices, such as affirmative action, a number of disadvantages have the potential, and sometimes even likelihood, of arising:
- More burden on the company to hire a specific person based on characteristics rather than skills
- Decreased opportunities for individual accolades
- Increased internal scrutiny of your organization, which can contribute to a culture of fear
- Increased potential for abuse through the singling out of individuals based on characteristics that are out of their control
- Too much reliance on existing cultural values
A Brief Example
In a classic example of formal versus substantive equality, let's discuss hiring practices. A formal rule might state that no preference is given to any person based on certain traits. Without any intervention, a hiring manager may receive more qualified applicants from the majority group simply because of a lifetime of opportunity.
Because of this, substantive equality comes in. With substantive equality, a hiring manager may give certain favor to applicants coming from a disadvantaged or minority group. Substantive equality identifies a disadvantage and gives a benefit to those with the disadvantage.
Lesson Summary
Let's take a couple of moments to review what we've learned. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to equality, especially in the workplace. There are two types that are commonly encountered. They are formal and substantive equality. Formal equality is a belief that, for fairness, a person must be consistent or equal in treatment at all times. This form does not consider workplace privilege, which occurs when one person has advantages or realizes benefits over another, even unintentionally. Even though formal equality and written rules are built with positive intentions, the application of rules to unequal groups have unequal results. Formal equality does not consider majority and minority groups. The majority group is a group in a demographic with the most members in it. Substantive equality goes beyond the basics of recognizing the equality of all and identifying differences among groups of people with the long-term goal of greater understanding. Both forms have their own advantages and disadvantages, which is why it's best for an organization or office to strive to find a healthy balance between the two schools of thought without strictly adhering to one over the other.
