British Gas Crisis

Diversity is a wonderful asset to an organization and brings with it many benefits. Employees bring in their own personal experiences and knowledge to the team (Burns & Kerby, 2012). Having diverse teams allows for the possibility to fix a problem or perfect a process by using different employee’s experiences and past knowledge to find solutions. A diverse workforce can drive economic growth and capture a greater share of the consumer market (Burns & Kerby, 2012). With diversity as a core value, the recruitment pool is widened to find the most qualified candidate and reduces employee turnover as a result. An organization can be highly competitive with a diversity initiative by adapting to a changing environment (Burns & Kerby, 2012).

Having a diverse workforce is a serious matter to our business. We need a variety of opinions, ideas and perspectives to make sure we maintain our own performance and represent our marketplace globaly. When the customers reflect the communities that we serve, it improves the way we connect to our guests, consumers and audiences. We work together toward an inclusive environment that encourages creativity, innovation and camaraderie throughout all of our companies.

For the criteria of measuring the effectiveness of the diversity within MasterCard, I will research different aspects that reflect their commitment to having a strong diversity image. I will assess their various diversity programs and analyze how they are benefiting the organization, in terms of capturing market share and retaining and attracting diverse employees. I will also look at their hiring practices, and search for statistics on how many diverse employees hold executive positions. I will also research their supplier diversity commitment and see how their

Cox and Blake (1991), maintained that cultural diversity would impact six areas of organizational effectiveness, including the capability to attract human resources, cost, innovation, creativity, and problem solving, marketing, and flexibility. The revealing fields studied were innovation and creativity, problem solving, and structural flexibility, this was accomplished through information and decision making processes. Creativity and innovation can be supported by "diversity of perspectives and less emphasis on conformity to the norms of the past" (Cox and Blake, 1991, p. 47), which will increase the ability of the organization to create and innovate. The problem-solving contention maintains that better decisions would be produced through additional perspectives developed in various problem solving groups (Cox and Blake, 1991). Finally, the flexibility argument designates that multicultural management practices would result in changes that meant "that the system will become less determinant, less standardized, and therefore more fluid" (Cox and Blake, 1991, p. 47). These fluctuations are likely to increase the

Organizations who make a commitment to diversity can see a significant impact on business in many ways. Diversity “requires a significant commitment for change to occur” (Delong, 2007, p.9). It is extremely important that leaders understand the commitment and embrace it in order for a positive impact to occur. Employers with diverse cultures and leaders can build positive and successful relationships with customers, suppliers and vendors. They can better attract and retain top talent. All of these equal more financial gain for the company.

Before we go any further, it's important to have a working understanding of the word "Diverse."

Organizations must stop visualizing diversity as an issue and start seeing it as a benefit for the organization. There are several reasons why a diverse workforce will add value to a company. Most businesses, either large or small, work on a global scale; the information age has brought the entire world a lot closer. Having associates that can deal with different cultures around the world is crucial to an expanding business. A diverse workforce will help to build more rounded individuals with experience they will gain from a mixed environment. Customers will benefit from the diverse workforce because a company that makes a choice to be open and flexible with its associates will more than likely be easy to work with in a business relationship. Probably the most important aspect of having a diverse workforce is the vast knowledge gained by pooling the different life lessons, cultures and experience together thereby allowing everyone the chance to learn new and different business practices (Sappal, Pepi, 2002).

Diversity and inclusion are hot topics in today’s business world. While treating individuals fairly and equally is a social imperative, it is also extremely important to the success of a business. With the changing demographics of society and its affect on the American workforce, organizations must truly embrace diversity and inclusion. “For companies to succeed in the global marketplace, they must make the most of the full range of their people. Companies must attract and retain the right skills, the best minds, all the required resources – and that means diversity” (Royal Bank of Canada, n.d.). There are a number of compelling reasons companies should adopt the core values of diversity and inclusion. This paper sets out to

A 2013 survey of Fortune 1000 companies found that 78 of the best performing companies that had taken significant efforts to diversify their management and board of directors had consistently outperformed their peers (Expert pg1). Diversity has a thorough impact on everyone’s life and it has been a part of humanity since the beginning (Div Mgmt pg 3). With the population becoming more diverse than ever, so too has the workforce and the need for organizations to provide opportunities, incentives, privileges, and facilities to attract and retain diverse employees (Div Mgmt pg3). In a statement released by Catalyst Census in 2013, Ilene Lang, president, and CEO, said: “Diverse business leadership and governance is correlated with stronger business performance,

Nowadays, diversity is not just defined differently by culture, race, and religion and so on, but is becoming a more and more important factor to most companies, due to the advantages it could bring. I think the success and competitiveness of an organization depends on its capacity to involve diversity and be aware of its importance and superiority. A diversity workforce is able to offer a better variety of solutions for problems, and employees from diverse backgrounds bring their individual experiences and talents in advising thoughts, so company can satisfy the demand of customers more effectively. And in my opinion, creativity and innovation now are the two keys for

Nurture a diverse workforce: Diversity must continue to be a point of emphasis for AA. As a global company, your workforce must reflect your customers base. If a company is not tapping into the global talent pool, they are doing themselves a disservice. “In the midst of ongoing global expansion and a worldwide shortage of critical talent, companies are stepping up efforts—at very different speeds and levels of investment—to recruit and retain a workforce diverse in both demographics and ideas.” Scandura, Terri A. (2015-07-02).

Companies today are looking to create a diverse workforce not to have the best staff, but also the right mix of cultures as companies expand globally. Diversity is a collection of many attributes that a person, group or culture has, and how they interact together offering these individuals strength to grow a company’s business. As companies grow globally they need to pay special attention to how they market their business, offer their services in different parts of the world and having a diverse workforce helps meet those demands and achieve a competitive edge over its competitors. For one company, MasterCard, having a workforce that is diverse and a culture of inclusion is vitally important, and ‘to compete in today’s ever-changing global

In a world that has grown increasingly smaller due to mass media, world travel, and readily available information, the workplace has grown increasingly diverse in both gender and cultural aspects. Individuals no longer live and work within the confines of their geographic locations. At almost any position with any company the individual employee is a part of a larger world economy that harvests assets from the ends of the earth. Because of this, companies seek to capitalize on diversity to become more creative and flexible in their business models.

Organizations have been becoming increasingly diverse in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, and nationality. This diversity brings substantial potential benefits such as better decision making, greater creativity and innovation, and more successful marketing to different types of customers. But, increasing cultural differences within a workforce also bring potential costs in higher turnovers, interpersonal conflicts, and communicational breakdowns. The utilities of diversity training and the essential managerial skills required for effectively managing diversity will also be discussed.

Diversity in workforce “include, but are not limited to: age, ethnicity, ancestry, gender, physical abilities/qualities, race, sexual orientation, educational background, geographic location, income, marital status, military experience, religious beliefs, parental status, and work experience”(Thomas 1992). Diversity in the workforce is initially perceived as a response toward the increasing diversity of the consumers in the market (Agocs & Burr, 1996). From there, it has been observed that capitalizing on existing differences among the employees provide benefits to the organization. Diversity in workforce fosters and encourages