Giving Notice: Why the Best and the Brightest Leave the Workplace and How You Can Help Them Stay

4.8. Societal Costs: Workers, Jobs, and the Economy

When all of the personal costs and business costs of hidden bias and hidden barriers are calculated, we might conclude that this is "merely the cost of doing business." The annual compensation of many CEOs dwarfs the amount it costs companies to deal with the bias lawsuits, turnover, and other items that are inevitably going to turn up when bias is left unchecked.

But what about the intangibles? Current estimates from David Reibstein, professor of marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, indicate that 80 percent of a company's value is now classified as the "intangibles" tied up with people, in contrast to the 80 percent that used to be tied up in tangible assets such ...