According to McCormick (2007), the first form of workplace diversity happened in 1948, when President Truman approved Executive Order 9981 whose main purpose was to advance equal treatment and opportuities in the armed forces. Therefore, scholars cite it as the origin of workplace diversity because President Truman the committee tasked to implement the executive order, used it to pursue desegregation in the armed forces. In the business world, many companies long held the belief that the assimiltion of new recruits in an organization required their socialization to adapt to the organization’s existent culture. However, over the last few decades, business organizations have realized that because of various reasons, the orgnizational culture must conform if it must attract and maintain a competitive workforce. This change has been steered by variety of workplace diversity initiatives. Despite the proliferation of such initiatives, the term “workplace diversity” is virtually never defined. Many attempts at defining the term are often in a circular or conclusory manner that does little to strengthen a collective understanding of this term. Mor-Barak (2011), takes a global perspective and defines workplace diversity as “the division of the workforce into distinction categories that have a perceived commonality within a given cultural or national context, and that impact potentially harmful or beneficial employment outcomes such as job opportunities, treatment in the workplace, and promotion prospects-irrespective of job-related skills and qualifications”. This definition provides a broad leeway by not including specific examples of the distiction categories, thus leaves open the opportunity to include relevant categories that match s... ... middle of paper ... ...ate its employees’ attitudes and their work with colleagues. This should be incorporated into their assessments and reviews, and any issues that are identified should be addressed promptly when delaing with their perfomance in their assessment. Such issues include an employee who only delegates work to specific individuals based on their race or an employee who disregards ideas from certain work colleagues due to their age. However, a manager who identifies diversity-related issues should not adopt a confrontational approach when discussing the issues with an employee. A good approach would be to encourage the employee to work with colleagues from different generations and backgrounds. The initiation of such interactions will encourage the employee to learn more about their objectives, talents, and communication styles and how they compare or contrast to their own.
Cañas, K. A., & Sondak, H. (2014). Opportunities and challenges of workplace diversity: Theory, cases, and exercises (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Workplace diversity includes the attributes, elements, and differences that set a person apart from others in the work setting. There are many factors that influence diversity including age, race, culture, gender, ethnicity, birthplace, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, education and work
Merriam-Webster defines diversity as “the condition of having or being composed of differing elements; especially the inclusion of different types of people (as people of different races or cultures) in a group or organization” (Merriam-Webster, 2016). With diversity including many different elements, the concept of workplace diversity also covers a broad spectrum of topics, and continues to evolve as many companies look to expand globally. This subject has become increasingly important among managers over the last couple of decades, and has helped to reinforce other concepts such as affirmative action and equal opportunity employment. While most people believe that everyone should have the same opportunities available to them, and that we
Diversity is a changing constant that is brought about by “race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, social class, disabilities, culture and cultural characteristics”. The recent issues between older and millennial employees throughout the department are due to these changing constants accompanied with changes in “global labor demographics”. Although focus can be placed on arising issues between older employees and millennial employees, a greater efforts should be placed on achieving cultural competency. Building a foundation for cultural competency for employees within the department will not only benefit the employee but also benefit the individuals we serve. Formulation of this foundation will transition if not help guide other departments within the organization as similar issues arise.
Jefferson P. Marquis, Nelson Lim, Lynn M. Scott, Margaret C. Harrell, Jennifer Kavanagh "Managing Diversity in Corporate America, An Exploratory Analysis" Rand Corporation. Web. 29 June 2015.
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.
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.
Diversity in the workplace can relate to having staff/employees from a wide rage and different backgrounds, this can include employees of different gender types, physical ability, age, preferred sex, religious belief, life experience, educational background, hardship, all of the above relate very strongly to diversity in the workplace. A workplace diversity policy is to create and manage a workplace environment that encourage
Within an organization, there are always people that think and behave differently, all dependent on their personal values and cultures. Efficient managing of the human resources is an art, and it is hard to find a perfect solution/combination. It is important that management recognize and understand that people work differently. This is why it is important to have strong cultural foundations that also guides how employees are expected to behave and work. Thereby it should be easier for management to utilize the work force diversity to something meaningful.
Moreover, this equivalent opportunity concept in workplace diversity is aimed for guaranteeing that business organizations make the most out of the difference from workforce varieties rather than to losing ability which may help the businesses to be more proficient and effective. Workplace diversity carries with the heterogeneity that should be sustained, developed and acknowledged as method for enriching organizational effectiveness in this modern society (Henry & Evans, 2007). In order to make sure organizations achieve the diversity goals, businesses should take the appropriate actions to boost culturally diverse employees. Thus, businesses need to gain progress toward multiculturalism, which should incorporates to avoid employees ' impression of the degree of separation and bias, the equal rewards and punishment, the openness of critical information, and the chances for employees to stepping up for their career goals in future (Brown, 2008). Truly, develop and implement multiculturalism in the workplace is not an easy thing to do for businesses. It needs a certain numbers of policy and regulations to follow and adjust before businesses or organizations are actually considering diversity. Also, work diverse group come from people that has different ages, ethnicity, and sexual orientation working together to form a multicultural workplace. There are some
Diversity issues will gain importance because of the effective interactions and communications between the people. Diversity is the reality of the business world. It can have negative and positive impact on the employee’s behaviour towards work and work results. This also depends on how the employees have understood it and grasps it.
Workplace diversity has become a growing concern within organizations. Managers are now challenged with learning new ways to effectively communicate the importance of embracing different races and ethnicities. Diversity encompasses many different characteristics including age, gender, ethnicity, religion and disabilities (Robbins). As of late, age has become more of a concern as the baby boomer generation begins to reach retirement age; many are not retiring early but instead are working well into their seventies. Unfortunately for those baby boomers, the number of retirees decreased during the 2008-2009 recession mostly due to economic struggle. People cannot afford to retire, perhaps because they did not save enough for retirement or had to dip into their retirement fund to survive earlier in life. In addition to age discrimination, gender discrimination is another common diversity issue. According to “Organizational Behavior,” as of 2000, more women are working full time, have more education, and have started to close the earning gap between men and women (Robbins). Most commonly, women are targeted in the workplace fo...
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The importance of diversity, advantages and disadvantages/problems that arise in the workforce will be discussed, as well as the key tools and strategies supervisors need to know about managing diversity in the workplace.