INTRODUCTION
The world today has become very small, especially for the business world, owing to the globalization of markets. Workplace diversity has become essential for growth in this fiercely competitive global marketplace. Embodying diversity is now inevitable for those organisations, seeking to enter the global markets. Those that build diverse teams when they are just starting out are the staunchly successful and innovative companies. Diversity is considered a mindset and not a strategic necessity. Stephen Covey once said: “Strength lies in differences, not in similarities.”
This essay discusses the impact of diversity on employee motivation and morale, its effect on groups and teams and the relation of diversity to current theory, literature
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Humans by nature prefer validation of their views and opinions. However, in order to truly reap the benefits of workplace diversity, it is important to shake things up a bit. This creates an environment where truly meaningful innovation can take root.
• Cultivate an Organizational Culture that is Genuinely Open to New Ideas:
Even the most diverse team will not be able to inject innovation and creativity in an organisation if they sense that new ideas are not welcome. Companies with hierarchical culture take time to get to the point where subordinates feel comfortable exercising their creative problem-solving skills. To help facilitate this process, start out by lavishly praising and respecting your staff 's input, feedback, and suggestions.
Expect Conflict -- and Plan How to Overcome It:
The workplace diversity research tells us that great new ideas are often borne out of the clash of different perspectives. Although this collision of different worldviews and attitudes can often result in conflicts between employees, it is best to take a proactive approach to address the unique challenge of conflict in a diverse work place. (HCareers.
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Along with making decisions comes the challenge of resolving conflicts. Leaders must make conflict resolution plans to ensure things do not go awry. “For example, it may be beneficial to train your staff in the basics of effective cross-cultural communication. Also, agree on an organization-wide game plan for resolving workplace conflicts in a civil, compassionate manner.” (Soon Lee, Michael (2014))
MANAGEMENT ISSUES ARISING IN AN INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT
Geert Hofstede states “Culture is more often a source of conflict than of synergy. Cultural differences are a nuisance at best and often a disaster." He then went on to create some value dimensions that best deal with such issues. Here are some of them:
1. Power Distance Index: The world today has become more of an equality based one than the hierarchical type. Employees now would prefer to have decisions discussed rather than being ordered around. Each goal must be clearly expressed leaving no door open for misunderstandings.
2. Individuality: Cultures determine whether an employee is an individualist or a collectivist. Managing each differs as an individualist would get motivated with personal gains and group appraisals will not really matter to
Diversity is a term that we are familiar with. It describes the differences between individuals and groups in terms of culture, nationality, ability, ethnic origin, gender, age, religion, belies, sexual orientation and social class (Clarke, Mark, Pat etal.,2012). At place of work, understanding and valuing diversity makes individual to sees differences in people as valuable and potential assets, encourages open dialogue on diversity and shares personal, and writes and speaks in language that's respectful and sensitive, encourages open dialogue on diversity. Understanding and valuing diversity is fundamental to all the other desired behaviours. Learning about others, talking with others, reflecting on your behaviour, and looking deep into yourself to truly assess and modify your behaviours related to diversity.
In a world that is so diverse, we get to interact with so many people from different cultural background. But, even though we have different family cultures, we adjust most of the time for work. Every workplace has their own culture of which we abide to provide for our families. Management creates their own values and practices for us to follow and anything outside of that is considered an objection which might be unethical and cause us our jobs. To function effectively as an organization, we all must work as a team.
Importance and benefits of managing this diversity There is prescription that a company could apply to be successful, therefore it depends on the capability of the leader to sort out what is best to the organisation based on the level of productivity of the workplace. Leaders and managers should know and recognise skills that are vital in creating a positive and effective diverse workforce. One day session of training and programs is inadequate to change a person’s behaviour and styles, therefore the company need continuous development, implementation and maintaining trainings and awareness foundation. The welfare of having a diverse workforce is that it brings a unique standpoint to the company.
Organizational diversity is a concept where an institution upholds diverse values owing to the differences in race, experiences and religion, among others. The composition of people from different backgrounds constitutes diversity. In the contemporary society, institutions are required to respect and nurture diversity. Diversity helps in bringing exchanges between people with varying experiences and backgrounds. As such, it results in positive benefits that enable the society to live harmoniously.
The key is to understand the differences amongst people within the organization and employ them in a way that benefits the organization. Not understanding the differences can and most likely will lead to conflict within an organization or team. As an example, when forming a team that is predominantly collective and individual may not be an asset to the team achieving its
The ways in which diversity can impact on work and work relationships: Cultural diversity can affect the workplace in numerous ways. Negative impacts can include miscommunication, creation of barriers, and dysfunctional adaptation behaviors. Positive impacts can include building a sound knowledge base fellow colleagues, which can make for smoother integration of the organization into foreign cultures. Many organizations have recognized that the workforce is changing and they are working to create a work environment in which diversity and difference are valued and in which employees can work to their fullest. They are dealing with the problems that arise when people in the workplace communicate.
- Diversity brings a variety of ideas and viewpoints to the organisation especially when creative problem solving is required. - Diversity increases passionate workers and makes work fun and
Effective leaders must learn to embrace conflict because it is an inexorable part of human interactions and without intervention, it seldom finds its own productive solutions (Myatt, 2012). The failure to address conflict early on will likely lead to workplace acrimony, disengagement and poor communication and cooperation (Myatt, 2012). The story of the conflict between Cindy and Dr. Jones is an excellent case to analyze the elements of conflict and conflict management.
In today’s era managers are challenged daily with disputes like ethics, diversity, working in teams, privacy, sexual harassment, and handling differences. Furthermore, these issues are discussed because they are constantly the debatable topics in the workplace. More importantly, handling differences and diversity is the current situations in the workplace. Moreover, a few managerial concepts must be considered, including selection methods, training and development, performance appraisal, and diversity management.
Today’s most business primary concern is retaining workforce diversity. Recognizing the importance of diversity in the organization and effectively manage to ensure the organization and its valuable diverse employees are growing hand in hand. Rising of immigrants’ employment opportunity, joint venturing business globally has equally brought an opportunity for shared values, exchange of cultures and intelligence to widen the opportunity for business enterprise and also a platform for employees to reach target goal.
INTRODUCTION This assignment will focus on explaining the importance of diversity management, challenges of management diversity, give strategies and implementation of management diversity in the workplace. A diverse workforce is a reflection of a changing world and marketplace. Diverse work teams bring high value to organizations. Respecting individual differences will benefit the workplace by creating a competitive edge and increasing work productivity.
We live and work in a diverse world, consists of people with divergent backgrounds with different needs and preferences. This multicultural world brings out the potential on improvement and efficient, but also comes with that are the challenges. Workforce diversity acknowledges the reality that people differ in many ways, visible or invisible, mainly age, gender, marital status, social status, disability, sexual orientation, religion, personality, ethnicity and culture (Kossek, Lobel & Brown, 2005). The culture of an organisation plays a big role in the performance and sustainability of an organisation, and it is also important to the well-being of its employees.
There were times when we had group work and when I shared my ideas, they would never adhere to it, and most times I was right. Therefore I felt that I was being put in a category, ‘the black one’. The results proposed that it is important to understand diversity in the workplace. It also brought up the factor of being open to one’s views. Even
Successful strategies link diversity progress directly to business results. (www.diversityinc.com/diversity-management) Diversity in the workplace means bringing together people of different ethnic backgrounds, religions and age groups into a cohesive and productive unit. Advances in communication technology, such as the Internet and cellular phones, have made the marketplace a more global concept. In order to survive, a company needs to be able to manage and utilize its diverse workplace effectively. Managing diversity in the workplace should be a part of the culture of the entire organization As a group we discussed diversity management and realized that the world is a big place and there will always be diversity.
Age Diversity in the Workplace Diversity at workplace is one of the prominent issues in today’s world. It is the challenging issue that managers face to manage at the workplace. But it gives the highest output if properly managed. By managing the workplace diversity, companies can increase the overall efficiency that results in higher output. Besides, it enhances the image of the company to become ‘Employers of Choice’.