Diversity in the Corporate Workforce: Challenges and Advantages

Over the past several decades, the corporate workforce has seen an exponential rise in diversity (Fischer, 2011). America has always been known as a “melting pot”, and this is to say that as a people we come from a wide breadth of backgrounds and global combine cultural differences. Women have also become a much larger staple within the corporate structure. There are several advantages to utilizing a more diverse workforce, but those advantages do not come without difficulty.

Challenges to Diversity The role of corporate leadership is to establish a vision and implement processes that will enable success. Those processes must empower management to focus on motivating their employees. As this workforce becomes increasing more diverse, this task becomes more difficult. Good leaders are able to identify key aspects of their employee’s personalities and strengths (Bond, 1998). When creating work teams, leadership needs to be able to match those diverse individuals so that their perspectives and personalities contribute in stood of creating contention. Often times, perceived differences can lead to

Men and women are interacting on a much different level then they have in the past, and management must be able to identify any issues and resolve any conflicts before they develop. (Lawrence, at al, 2014).

Advantages to a Diverse Workforce

In order for a cooperation to succeed, leadership must understand that their greatest asset is a diverse workforce, unified under a singular vision, empowered to succeed, and motivated to work together (Chambers, 2010). Having a diverse team enables members to approach problem solving from multiple perspectives. Employees, and management alike, must be open-minded to these unfamiliar perspectives and take advantage of the immense opportunity that a diverse workforce enables.