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The Impact Of Diversity In The Workspace
The impact of workplace diversity in an organization
How diversity affects individual behavior in the workplace
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The Cause and Effects of Diversity in the Workplace
As companies began to offer workplace principles of independence, out of the box thinking and open-door policies; wouldn't it be even more important to have a cultured workplace. Workplace diversity is the here & now and also the wave of the future as markets expand into global territories. Setting the legal obligations asides a company should want to maximize its potential by reaching out beyond its current marketable persons and into other bodies of people. The cause of having such a diverse foundation shows growth and understanding to support the "changing of the times" of the modern workforce. The effects are how diversity impacts the company's personnel, economy, and global markets.
Diversity: Definition, Laws, Protected Groups
Within an organization, diversity is considered a having a population of people that are of different races or cultures working collectively. From this collection of people, a variance of perspective is formed and talent is fostered in order to maximize performance. These great minds work
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towards the common goals of the organization's mission statement; as well as meet needs of the organization. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was a commission to administering federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a person or persons in the workplace. EEOC identified these protected individuals as age, social class, ethnicity, gender, physical and mental ability, race, sexual orientation, spiritual practice, and public assistance status. The following laws protects an employee or someone applying for employment against discrimination: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) This law makes it illegal to discriminate against someone on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex. (EEOC) Sections 501 and 505 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 this law makes it illegal to discriminate against a qualified person with a disability in the federal government. (EEOC), The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) This ruling safeguards people who are 40 or older from discrimination because of age. (EEOC) Diversity in the Workplace Diversity in the workplace changes how an organization approaches its mission; despite employees work interdependently of each other in the workplace.
Respecting one's individual differences can increase productivity. Diversity in the workplace can show value in marketing, talent acquisition and staffing, nurturing creativeness, and the overall business image. Creativity is the key to healthy workplace competitiveness, diversity is critical for an organization's success. Employment of the protected groups (age, social class, ethnicity, gender, physical and mental ability, race, sexual orientation, spiritual practice, and public assistance status) is what causes diversity in the workplace by law. Anyone from the protected groups and the employer has the right to file a claim of discrimination with the EEOC. The claim is then addressed by the EEOC to the organization through a litigation
process. Having a diverse workforce can not only affect the day-to- day life within the organization, but managing can have its challenges as well. Negative attitudes and behaviors can effect of a diverse workplace by impacting employee morale, productivity, and interdepartmental relationship. The effects on the workforce can be a struggle with discrimination or exclusive protection of one race of another. Managers with an organization are often challenged with the loss in staff and company production due to bias and discrimination; which in turn could lead to complaints and legal actions against the organization. It's the role of an effective manager and leadership team to remember diversity does not focus on just a protected group, but the individual within each group. Fair practices of policies and equality are essential in a diverse workplace in order to increase work performance and customer service. Diversity: Economic and Global Impacts "Not only is it fundamentally wrong to deny everyone the same basic opportunities, it is also a widely acknowledged fact that diverse groups produce better, more innovative ideas than groups who look, talk and ultimately think the same." (Pollitt) Both the economic and global impacts of diversity are in itself a cause and effect action. When an organization shows not only diversity in its' workforce, but also in leadership appears as a company that is for all people. It is also important for the organization to appeal the culture of its consumers. This drives consumers to invest in the company by not only purchasing its product but creating conversations about its goods. Often times this can spark the interest of someone looking for employment opportunities within the organization. On a global scale, the organization must relate to the culture it is seeking to attract both a consumer and employee. As an employer seeking employees outside of the U.S, its corporate culture is just as important as its' diverse workforce. Both cultures will need to harmonize in order to speak the language of the organization's values, mission statement, and practices. "Employees learn the culture through training and by observation. Corporate culture may include practices such as integrity, frugality, and giving back to the community. Chevron, for example, requires all employees globally to adopt its culture of ethics, safety, and personal leadership." (SHRM) Since we do not always think, respond or interpret information the same its key of the organization to set expectation everyone can understand. Diversity more than just about the "bottom line" of an organization's pockets; it affects its workforce, its consumers, the stakeholder and organization's image. In some cases, it could more harm than good as discontent and conflict amongst employees; which can draw negative attention. Diversity alone does not guarantee; tangible improvements in organizational, group, or individual performance. Nevertheless, achieving a diverse workforce and effectively managing this workforce can yield huge benefits for employees and employer alike.
This document will explore what a company can do to foster diversity in the workplace. The business case highlights the development and implementation of organizational initiatives that could:
The impact of diversity in the workplace is contingent upon several factors. Across companies diversified workforces are becoming increasingly common. To successfully manage a diverse workforce, organizations are ensuring that employees understand how their values and stereotypes influence their behavior toward others of different gender, ethnic, racial, or religious backgrounds; are gaining an appreciation of cultural differences among themselves; and behaviors that isolate or intimidate minorities are being improved (Noe et al., 2010, pg. 302).
Diversity is defined as acknowledging, and valuing differences among people, including age, class, race, ethnicity, gender, and disabilities (Clark. L. J., Farnsworth. D., Green. K., Kepner. K., Lopez. M., Wysocki. A.). Many companies if not most are being met with a diverse work environment, to adapt and move forward one should evaluate our mind frames surrounding diversity. Being diverse in our thinking when it comes to diversity, will benefit the company, the workers, and management.
With the implementation of diversity into the place of work there will be barriers and challenges that would be faced by the organisation and its employees. Diversity needs to be managed effectively by the organisation and when done so will benefit the organisation immensely and promoted harmonious relationships in the workplace.
In a world that has grown increasingly smaller due to mass media, world travel, and readily available information, the workplace has grown increasingly diverse in both gender and cultural aspects. Individuals no longer live and work within the confines of their geographic locations. At almost any position with any company the individual employee is a part of a larger world economy that harvests assets from the ends of the earth. Because of this, companies seek to capitalize on diversity to become more creative and flexible in their business models.
Cultural diversity is increasingly important due to higher globalization and the ease of movement from one industry to another, and throughout the world; organizations that embrace this diversity have been shown to have a better internal culture, higher creativity, better relationships, and resistance to groupthink mentalities (Grivastava & Kleiner, 2015). Diversity is often thought of as ethnic, but diversity can cover things ranging from diverse religious views to different perspectives on how work should be accomplished. Diversity is not a weakness, quite the opposite, diversity can build a competitive advantage for organizations that make the effort to understand and cultivate it. Diversity is increasing, not decreasing, and this is evidenced
In recent years, organisations are much more reliant on diversity teams to develop products, make decisions and also gain the business success (when and how). Therefore, diversity teams are becoming a very important element for the organisations. In USA, diversity usually refers to demographic characteristics such as age, gender, and ethnicity, however, diversity is not only refer to demographics, it also means the diversity in psychological characteristics like skills, personality, abilities, and education backgrounds (book diversity). During the decision making process, different team members can bring their different perspectives and stimulate the debates.
Workforce diversity is a new term in business and industry. It is a term that is still uncommon in various areas of the world. Diversity can be considered by taking two different perspectives. Firstly, there are those fundamental individual attributes that make everyone on the earth unique for example disability, personality among others. Secondly, there are those differences that exist based on group membership for example race, ethnicity, and cultural differences among others (Barak, 131). Diversity is being an associate of either an indiscernible or discernible groups that are believed to be mainstream in the society (Barak, 131).
As the organizations are becoming increasingly global and diverse in nature, leaders must create environment in the organization, which allows cultural mindset to thrive among diverse employees (Smith & Victorson, 2012). Hiring diverse employees is becoming a norm for today’s human resource departments of various organizations for getting the competitive edge in the global market. Diverse employee bring different perspectives and cultural mindset into the workplace. To reap the maximum potential of all of the employees’ knowledge, leaders must create an inclusive culture to integrate varied perspectives (Vora, 2004).
People from different backgrounds can bring fresh ideas and perceptions, which can make the way work is processed more efficiently. Individuals from different cultures observe, generate ideas, collect, and exchange information. Understanding different people’s cultures increase and develop balance and improvement in their essential roles. There are differences in diversities among individuals; however it is beneficial to focus less on the differences between workers and more on what will bring them together. In the workplace some organizations lack diversity and experience deterioration of employees moral and a drop in productivity. A company needs a diversity plan that details the policies and relies on every member of the workplace to implement and adhere to its strategies. Working in an environment among peers with negative attitudes can cause people to become less motivated and a decline in their performance. When there is an excessive amount of tension, individuals are unable to focus on the importance of their performance. Managing diversity more effectively makes good sense. The diversity of organizational environment, workforce can be a form of competitive advantages which strives to make people of all socioeconomic backgrounds feels comfortable working within the
Diversity, when concerned with a workplace, is about more than just equality, it’s about working and ensuring there’s variety of different people, cultures and practices for the advantage of the organisation (Learning At Work, 2011). As mentioned above there are diffe...
“Rapid internationalization and globalization has enhanced the significance of workforce diversity”. (Shen, 2009) There is now a growing need for diversity management and interlacing cultural differences into the company’s core values. Within the last couple of decades human resource management has tied in diversity management with compliance to the EEOC and affirmative action. Going forward into the future, companies need to start looking at diversity in the workplace as an individual focus to utilize. “Less attention has been paid to valuing, developing and making use of diversity”. (Shen, 2009) The marketplace is changing rapidly, for a company to be successful the demographics in the work setting must be similar. “Diversity management does not only recognize but also values and harnesses workforce differences, such as individual characteristics, backgrounds, orientations, and religious beliefs, so that individual talents are being fully utilized and organizational goals are met”. (Shen, 2009)
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.
In the climate of the not only the United States, but arguably the world, diversity is becoming ever more important and prevalent in the way business and corporations function. This includes diverse environments within the workplace. For example, the finance department and the human resources
Many executives and scholars believe that the managing diversity in an organization is an important organizational function. Every organization is approaching to change their work force accordingly competitive globalized market to achieve better outcomes. People are now part of a worldwide economy than ever before. The globalization of business world has influenced much interest in the areas of diversity management among management scholars and experts. An organization needs diversity to become more creative, flexible and open to expanding the globalized market. Hence maximizing and optimizing on workplace diversity has become a essential role for diversity management today. Managers are well aware about managerial skills and multicultural work environment and their impact on the business world. The assay will discuss about diversity in an organization, diversity strategies, demography, and prevailing conditions. Furthermore, the assay will guide readers to understand the theory in practice in the Microsoft organization as an example.