Managing Diversity Essay

Introduction

The diversity management program is one the strategy that intended to foster and maintain positive work environment. This program was conducted in an organization to encourage employee to be comfortable with diversity in workplace and develop an appreciation for difference in gender and sexual orientation. Without a proper program to handling problem such as glass ceiling in workplace, this situation makes female employee felt unappreciated in workplace. As for Ernst & Young, they set a new course by introduce a diversity management program for its female employee to minimize the turnover among female employee company and avoid losing skilled employee.

1. Is gender diversity valuable? (1 mark)

Gender diversity is valuable as it

What are Ernst & Young’s top 2 arguments for managing diversity? (4 marks – 2 marks per reason)

i) System flexibility

As Ernst & Young in their mission to keeps woman employees on the path of partnership, one of the important arguments to managing gender diversity can be view in term the flexibility of their systems in the organization. Based on the case, E&Y had implemented several programs to help their employees especially among those woman staff. This initiative include improvement in five targeted areas related to woman which are life balance, mentoring, flexible work arrangements, and women networking in business community and inside E&Y itself.

The reason behind this effort is mainly to helps the woman to fulfilling their personal life. It is important to gives opportunity for woman to balance their career with family life in order to maintain their performance in any job given.

Other than that, flexible systems in an organization ensure that woman employees have their freedom to voice out their ideas and opinion in any decision making. It is crucial for the organization to have “diverse-ideas” from both male and female employees so that the best decision can be made in different point of view. By having a clear picture of the reason to help those woman staff in the company, hence, Ernst &Young need to implement various programs to ensure the system flexibility really benefit

As mentioned in the case, E &Y face high turnover especially among their female employees and it became worst when higher number of woman in the organization does not contributed to the percentage of partnership. E & Y had implemented some of the program to managing this problem which includes a three-day Women 's Leadership Conference that held every 8 month, and designed a partner as an individual that assist the career progress of particular woman employee. To managing the problem related to gender diversity, those programs should not be great on the documentation, but also to ensure that the programs achieve the objectives and solve the problem as