Introduction
Companies in the 21st century are facing fierce competition, economic and global challengers. In the midst of challengers organisations should have distinctive competences to resist it. Survival depends on the maintenance of market share by having a good image, cost leadership, sound technical or service superioty, committed employees and speed of market. Organisations success depends on how well the use of resource are utilised in achieving the core competences. Human assets are becoming the most important resource because of the rapid growth in the service sector. Human resources hold valuable knowledge and information, which sets them a part as the source in creating intellectual capital that sets a firm a part from its competitors (Kamoche, 2001) The most important resource for successful organisation is its human resources therefore firms cannot treat human assets as commodities. To create value, management should try to find ways to utilise employees efficiently. The importance of human resource management to align with the business strategy is fundamental to the firm’s achievement of competitive advantage. As Bratton and Gold (1999: 08) describes human assets have the characteristic of creating value to the firm, be unique, difficult to imitate and substituted. In the past decade diversity has been the forerunner in the argument of human resource management. Workplace diversity is about acknowledging differences adopting to work practices to create an inclusive environment in which our diverse skills, perspectives and backgrounds are valued (Nicholas, 2000:14). This article will examine the benefits and the issues the firms would have in capturing diversity. The article will also concentrate on the central issue of the importance of integrating the human resource strategy with business strategy. Finally the article would conclude the problems faced by the HR managers in implementing practices and policies.
Diversity has been a competitive tool for most organisation because of the development of technology that results in the relocation of resources and people, increasing globalisation, aging of workforce, continued ethnic diversification (Hudson, 2002). Diversity is commonly referred in relation to ethnicity gender and culture but its scope is widened as far as age, disability, language, religouis beliefs, life stages and education....
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Diversity in the retail marketplace is something that is significant to the company’s success. Retailers are comprised of people selling things to people. Thus, the people that do the selling must be a good representation of the people that are doing the buying. Companies that are well diversified in their hiring practices, as well as organizational goals, are well recognized by the public. Likewise, companies that are unjust in the functioning of their company will be viewed in a negative light, which could lead to decreased sales and company accountability. Taking this into consideration, observing the diversity profiles for two major retail companies can lead to a firm understanding behind their success and company values.
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Diversity in the work place has generally been thought of as purely an employment equity issue. However, diversity is coming to be recognized as an asset which can, like any other asset that is well managed, contribute to the bottom line. Diversity is growing almost as quickly as the number of software vendors at an accounting convention (Talbot-Allen, 1995, p. 3)
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 emergence of diversity in organizations can be traced to the 1960s when legislation was enacted to prohibit discrimination against ethnicity, gender, national origin, race, and religion. Even though workplace diversity origins began in the aftermath of World War I, it was not until 1961, when President John F Kennedy established the President’s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO), which was to end discrimination in employment by the government and its contractors (Cañas & Sondak, 2011). Workplace diversity continued to be advanced through the years by Presidents Johnson and Nixon administrations.
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For the purpose of this paper, I will define what the term Diversity means, and then I will concentrate on the diversity as a result of geographic origin or ethnic diversity. I will look at how ethnic diversity is managed generally and then how my employer, deals with the diverse ethnic groups in its organization and what it needs to improve on.
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In many companies, employees feel diversity ix not an organizational priority. Diversity has to be apart of...
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Diversity is all around us and how organizations deal with the notion of diversity can be complex and quite diverse. We know that being diverse in the workplace is important to the organization's success, should be recognized, accepted, and embraced. It’s how the organizations live up to what they believe in and must go above and beyond legal compliance and requirements to promoting diversity and inclusion. Otherwise, employees may view the organization's vision and policies as lip service and only be tolerant of diversity because the organization said so.