Diversity In The Workplace

Diversity is more than race or ethnicity. Diverse workplaces are composed of employees with differing characteristics including, but not limited to, religious and political beliefs, gender, ethnicity, education, socioeconomic background, sexual orientation and geographic location. Diversity in a workplace can be a really great advantage for a workplace, but if not handled the right way it can also be a workplaces downfall. Common problems are communication barriers, discrimination, and resistance to change.

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Some advantages to diversity in the workplace are greater productivity, creativity, a variety of viewpoints, and an increased adaptability. If the employees are comfortable communicating then you will be able to get a lot of

These include: communication barriers, discrimination, and resistance to change. “changes can cause stress among employees and contribute to negative working relationships and poor workplace morale, if not well-planned and managed.” (Kokemuller). If you don’t have a plan when you start to make your workplace more diverse then it is more likely to fail. Communication barriers are very important to think about. When you introduce someone who doesn’t speak fluently in the same language as everyone else, it is best to have someone who can understand them and interpret. Another important thing to think about is how some people resist change. “There are always employees who will refuse to accept the fact that the social and cultural makeup of their workplace is changing.” (Greenberg). This could eventually lead to discrimination of those who are different and new to the

A workplace needs enough funding because they will need to invest in training their staff in communication and company culture development, “A company must have the integrity and financial ability to back its commitment with the budget to execute consistently and credibly.” (Hamlin). In other words, if a company doesn’t have or want to spend money on fixing diversity problems that may occur, they will never be solved. They must be open to do everything in order to make diversity work in their workplace. It is also vital that the leaders of the company follow through with everything they are making their employees do. “Mixed signals are almost worse than no signals at all because they signify that the organization’s leadership isn’t serious.” (Rodgers). Basically an organization must be willing to put time, effort, and commitment into making sure everything runs smoothly, otherwise they will