Charles & Keith

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).

Diversity is vital in today's workplace. Having a diverse workforce opens up a wealth of possibilities and helps to encourage creativity and innovation.

Diversity is very important on a workplace because it create a respectful environment, reduce conflict, help business reputations, and avoid legal issues. This accepting and managing of these cultural differences has over the years become an important factor of organizational success.

The purpose of this paper is designed to introduce, educate, and promote diversity within your company. Your company will be shown the merits of diversity and how diversity within your organization can be a benefit. This paper will be broken down into three main areas: Benefits of Diversity, Challenges of Diversity, and Recommendations for an effective diversity within your organization..

Managing Diversity in the workplace is more than just an acquired skill, it is "a way of thinking" (1). It involves creating an environment that allows all employees to contribute to organizational goals and experience personal growth. The key is to help employees reach their full potential by creating an environment that will allow them to be motivated and productive and ultimately, be beneficial for the organization.

Workplace diversity is when there is diverse culture of individuals in the workplace. It is when there is a value placed on the variety of ideas, race, ethnicities, religion, gender, sexuality and orientation, which is flourishing in an environment. Depending on your employer and workplace, workplace diversity can vary based off several different factors. Usually, there is a preferential standpoint taken on the matter and it can be either display a high or a low context culture of diversity. According to Mason (2013) Workforce diversity has been described as “a double-edged sword; it has the potential for positive and negative outcomes” (p.659). Workplace diversity is important in a business setting because it carries forward a combination of different types of people to work together in unity, encourages uniqueness, innovative, creative approaches, and supports interesting divergent ideas to accomplish tasks or goals.

Chern’s also has a history of promoting from within, thus viewing employees as long term investments. With the autonomous nature of each store, the company must put a certain amount of stock in the acceptance of other ideas and best practices. Knowing this, and wanting to maintain the culture that has built their success thus far, the staffing strategy starts to come into a clearer objective and focus. The HR Strategy and challenge to acquire, develop, and retain an employee base that has long term career goal and is diverse based upon the demographics of each of the markets that the corporations has stores located. The Staffing Strategy to recruit and hire based upon the model of looking for employees that will be invested with the company on a long term basis and diverse based upon the various market demographics, will require at minimum some form of centralized HR administration to oversee the corporate objective, legal compliance, retention of top performers and mentoring at all levels within the organization. All of this to be done naturally while holding a high ethical standard and treatment of its employees on a fair and consistent basis.

Diversity in the organization can affect the employees and their behavior in many ways. The effect can be positive and negative in the same time. The positive effect is, it will wider employee knowledge, skills, and attitude which will allow the organization to become more competitive globally. Higher diversity of employees mean higher diversity of knowledge, skills and abilities. Sharing experience inspires innovative thinking (Claudia Quaiser-Pohls, 2013, p. 41). Today in the modern workplace, most organizations will have

“Diversity may be the hardest thing for a society to live with and perhaps the most dangerous thing for a society to be without” _William Sloane Coffin Jr_ Over the last decade there has been massive rise in level of workplace diversity within all the organizations. As a result of it majority companies achieved higher performance and according to all the researchers, it shows heterogeneous groups are more inventive than homogenous groups. It is not only about those heterogeneous people bring various type of figures their different type of thinking benefit organizations to bring out their best outcomes throughout the process

Diversity is what makes people different, not just culturally but in human differences. Having a multitude of differences in the workforce gives an organization the ability to use many ideas to reach a common goal. A person could say that a diverse group of people together in one room can accomplish greater achievements than a room filled with the same types of individuals. Managers understand the concept of diversity, and how important diversity is to the success of a company’s ability to implement programs that continue to develop a harmonious and diverse workplace. The recognition that diversity is a reality in the workforce has generated an enormous amount of activity over the years among leaders in business, government, and civil

The general line of reasoning is that if we learn to incorporate each other’s diverse traits and characteristics in the workplace, we can then use these differences to foster an innovative environment, which will give the company a competitive advantage over the competitors that do not accept workforce diversity. According to the Allied Academies International Conference, “Diversity is rapidly becoming a common practice among companies due to the increasing number of minorities entering the job market today. As these groups become more prevalent throughout companies, upper-level employees are facing numerous challenges when determining what changes must take place to create a positive working environment for everyone. Management is responsible for the development and implementation of effective policies directly relating to diversity to ensure the acceptance of minorities into the workplace and to aid in minorities’ success through equal opportunities and treatment.” (Marcia L. James, 2001, Academy for Studies in International Business Proceedings)

Today's workplace is more diverse than it has ever been in history. While the workforce has made strides in the direction of equality, it is still far from attaining total equality in the workplace. A company must value diversity. The main objectives of valuing diversity include awareness, education, and positive recognition of the differences among people in the workforce. Organizations are increasingly emphasizing group work or teamwork as a source of competitive advantage in a diverse workforce. It has been suggested that such organizations must target their recruitment efforts at applicants who are both diverse and amenable to working in teams ( Rau, Hyland 2003).

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.

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.

The world’s increasing globalization requires more interaction among people from a wide variety of cultures, values and backgrounds. People no longer live and work in a one-dimensional marketplace- they are living in a highly complex and competitive environment that has growing demands of innovation in order to perform successfully amongst other industries. Business and organizations need to respond to this new diverse landscape, and the best corporations increasingly align with it. A strong diversity initiative and inclusion in an organization is crucial in remaining competitive in the current business world. Diversity is in the workplace is claimed to foster and spark creativity and innovation in employees. On the other hand, it is perceived to increase conflict and communication in an organization. Thus, in theory, diversity is allegedly advantageous to worker productivity, though counterproductive in work-group processes and dynamics. However, there is a lack of validity and reliability in the empirical research conducted to support this assumption.