Supervisor Authority and Its Impacts on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in National Collegiate Athletic Association Athletic Training Environments.

Abstract

Context: The demographic landscape of the United States is changing daily, and the demand for representation in today's workforce is both a moral and practical imperative for creating workplaces diverse in thought, expression, and people.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate workplace culture and the direct and indirect influence of supervisors on inclusion of minoritized communities, including those who have experienced marginalization for race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, age, marital status, ability, sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity and expression, socioeconomic status, spirituality, political affiliation, literacy, or the intersectionality of multiple identities.

Design: Consensual qualitative research study.

Setting: Semistructured interview.

Patients or other participants: Eighteen participants were recruited through direct contact via their public domain email addresses that are located on college/university websites.

Data collection and analysis: Demographic data were collected through a web-based recruitment survey, which was also used to schedule a semistructured interview. We used the multiphased consensual qualitative research tradition to identify domains and categories representative of the data.

Results: Three domains emerged. The environment domain spoke to the culture each supervisor created through relationship building and intention; intention was further characterized as active or passive behaviors whereby almost all participants described both. Only one-third of participants referenced diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility policies and procedures within their organization. The resources domain represented the existence and awareness of organizational diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility resources, or lack thereof. The perceptions domain characterized the beliefs of the supervisors relative to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.

Conclusion: Structural efforts must include the creation and implementation of policies and procedures for employee inclusion, not just patient inclusion. The awareness and use of organizational resources is an important component to support supervisor efforts and should be leveraged from within the unit.