Managing Workplace Diversity
With the ever-changing business environment, employers are adapting diversity guidelines and schemes that appeal to their employees, clients, vendors and suppliers. Diversity in the workplace brings with it a host of potential benefits, as well as potential conflicts for employers to manage. Diversity is about learning from each other in spite of our ethnic background and combining those differences into the workplace to gain experiences and enhance understanding Managing diversity in the workplace should be an essential part of the background of the entire organization. Successful organizations focus on instilling and embedding the values of diversity in their culture and management systems. These organizations
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For an example, a diverse workforce increases economic growth. This is proven with McKinsey & Company study, where they found that the more number of women in a workplace contributes higher GDP in United States. The studies prove that women have more capability in making wise decision. Other than that, diversity creates a more creative and innovative workforce. Recruiting employees from various background, qualification and experiences will help to create a unity among employees which will contribute to effective problem solving. More creative idea can be generated which brings to an effective decision making. According to Forbes study in 2011, around 85 percent participant strongly agreed that diversity is vital in fostering innovation in the workplace. Another important reason for increasing diversity is because it helps to avoid employee turnover costs. Failure of organization in designing an attractive work place results in higher number of employee turnover rates. Having a diverse, friendly and non-biases work environment helps many employers to avoid these costs. Furthermore, when an employee leaves the job, the cost and process of hiring equivalent candidate to replace the position would be much higher and consume more time in providing training for new …show more content…
The main difference between equal opportunity and managing diversity is the force for change. External forces like human rights and government legislations is tend to foster the equal opportunity while the external forces within the organizational structure tend to foster managing diversity. The objective of equal opportunity is more on social justice and amending mistakes that have been made in the past: “to correct an imbalance, an injustice, a mistake”. On the other hand the main objective of managing diversity is to treat employees as individuals, recognize that each of them has inimitable requirements which need different types of support in order to succeed. Equal opportunities approaches focuses on combined efforts, equal participation and shared responsibilities apart from gender, ethnicity, sexuality and disabilities. Employees and customers have legal rights to be treated fairly and equally since they are protected by law (Kirton and Greene, 2005).In contrast, managing diversity is a voluntary hands-on course of learning and change. Effective diversity management creates a comprehensive culture where all employees are treated with dignity and respect; their contributions will be acknowledged by management and thus aid in establishing a competitive advantage. According to Lawler (1996), managing
Generally when someone begins speaking about diversity in the workplace, thoughts of Affirmative Action, racial diversity, or even sexual equality are usually foremost in our thoughts. However, diversity in the workplace really is so much more than this, we must also consider aging workers, handicapped workers, those with alternative lifestyles, and even physical traits to name others (For the sake of simplification, throughout this paper these will usually be included in the term, minorities). Gender, racial, and ethnic diversity means different things to different people. Some believe that diversity is about quotas, and affirmative action.
Diversity is a composite of racial, gender, ethnic, nation origin, cultural, attitudinal, social-economic, and personal differences. With the many legal implications and issues surrounding every aspect of the Human Resource function, the human Resource department must be prepared to resolve issues in a timely and cost efficient manner. With the saturation of laws surrounding personnel, nearly every decision made by the Human Resource Department has the potential for legal suits. Even if the Human Resource department has done everything that is required of them, it can still be costly to defend it. That is why supervisors, managers and workers must be trained on managing diversity in the workplace.
According to researchers Frances Maher and Mary Kay Tetreault, “Privilege, in its root meaning, pertains to a law--in this case often silent and unseen--that works for or against individuals and groups” (2009). In other words, although privilege is not an object, it is real. Privilege has been demonstrated in various forms of inequality and prejudice all throughout the United States’ history. From not allowing all races to become citizens of the U.S. prior to the Fourteenth Amendment to controlling who got to vote, privilege continues to impact societies. Currently, racial privilege has had a large effect on young adults, such as those in the workforce. Here, privilege negatively affects young people by limiting their hiring opportunities,
Businesses that promote diversity in today's global marketplace are better able to attract and retain the best talent. Employing a diverse workforce allows a company to utilize the potential within the job market to its fullest and contributes to overall economic growth and prosperity. Differences among co-workers should not divide a workplace. Rather, differences among co-workers should be used to foster creativity and innovation, thereby driving profitability and business success.
A diverse workforce more closely reflects the global marketplace that the organization competes in. With the growing number of Asian, Hispanic and other minority populations, it makes sense for companies to promote and strive for diversity in the workplace. By doing this, businesses create the very conditions needed to produce more creative outcomes to the problems and challenges they will be faced with.
Workforce diversity has become a reality in organizations. More organizations have written workforce diversity policies or programs. Although there is still no consensus on how to define workforce diversity, diversity policies and program are producing positive effects in organizations. Diversity in the workplace is a way of defining acceptable behaviors of employees. Diversity represents all the ways in which individuals are both similar and different. It involves a variation of characteristics such as: age, sex, color, religion, national origin, disability, or any other differences. Although diversity initiatives are common in the workplace today, this is due mainly to the federal government use of constitutional amendments, legislation, and executive orders, along with court decisions to interpret the laws for equal rights (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart, & Wright, 2010). The way an organization defines diversity and how it manages its diverse workforce may determine its effectiveness.
Living in a country where it was founded by immigrants, diversity is everywhere you go especially in the workplace. There are many types of diversity; ethnicity, gender, religion and age just to name a few. Working in a diverse organization it can give you a taste of the real world, and what you will deal with wherever you go. There is so much diversity in the world today so it is a benefit to experience it in the workplace as well. You are given the chance to learn so many things from different cultures, why wouldn't you want to work in a diverse organization?
Companies such as Buzztronics are leading the way in the global economy because of their dedication to diversity in the workplace. In order to build a diverse and successful workforce, a business needs to recruit, train, and retain capable and talented minorities.
Barak, M. E. (2005). Managing diversity: toward a globally inclusive workplace. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.
Diversity in the workplace is important for employees because it manifests itself in building a great reputation for the company, leading to increased profitability and opportunities for workers. Making sure all members, students, parents and guarding’s are welcomed at all times in a well-mannered environment Workplace diversity is important within the organization as well as outside ensuring all different are put aside and everyone can come together and work well as a great team.
Diversity in the work place and the ideas from all its unique employees is crucial to enhancing the work environment and to boosting the company’s growth. Having a male dominated work place gives little room for outside ideas. In the article, Diversity - The Gift That Keeps Giving states that “According to Professor Roy Y.J. Chua, “The more your network includes individuals from different cultural backgrounds, the more you will be creatively stimulated by different ideas and perspectives...Importantly, these ideas do not necessarily come from the network members who are culturally different from you.” Having different perspectives give a company the upper hand when compared to other companies that only have similar minded employees working together.
Diversity is a highly important issue in today’s business, especially in a globalized company. Workplace diversity helps to get better solutions to business problems (Schawbel, 2012). When you have a group of individ...
The researcher believes, in this fast-changing era, any kind of company or organization should be able to improve the quality of workplace diversity by having some important main factor to boost the new paradigm of a diverse workplace, such as:
The importance of diversity in the workplace that it can aid in a competitive framework
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.