Managing Diversity In The Workplace Essay

The Challenges of Managing Diversity in the Workplace In Today’s highly competitive and dynamic market place, it has become extremely important for companies to use diversity in the work place for their competitive edge and strategic advantage. Workplace diversity is great people factor that accommodates the similarities and people bring to a company. In the past few years, there is no organizational issue that has attracted this great attention as workplace diversity. This is a result of the fact that the U.S labor force will experience a profound change in its composition within the next decade. There will be older workers, minority group and women, a more homogeneous workforce which is greatly different from the largely homogenous workforce of the past.

DIVERSIFIED MARKETS

Customer is supreme in total business strategy and with business shifting its focus from domestic to global arena the challenges to succeed in business have multiplied. Not that these challenges did not exist for businesses of yester-years, these have become very intense due to diverse markets and global competition. Either we perform (serve diverse market better than competitors) or we perish. The business therefore has to be done differently today keeping eyes and ears open to the diverse markets and global competitors. The customer today is better exposed, better informed and hence more demanding. Due to the very exposure, he takes no time to shift his loyalty. This exposure can be half-baked truth. Most of the time, customer really does not understand what he wants. Maybe, he is clear (to a large extent) as to what performance to be expected from the product or service that he is looking for. How, when and at what quantity and cost, are not easily answered questions. Business leaders have to obtain it from the customers with due deliberation. For this purpose, a very detailed