Cultural Diversity in the Workplace Essay

If your company actively assesses the handling of diversity, and develops and implements diversity plans, your organization will reap the benefits. Benefits of diversity can range from small to enormous, depending on how your organization plans, implements and manages diversity. Your company may increase its ' adaptability with your organizations ' diverse workforce supplying a greater variety of solutions to problems such as service, sourcing, and resources allocation. A diverse workforce

In recent years, diversity and inclusion have emerged as an essential business practice. Why are diversity and inclusion so critical to organizations nowadays? Do they really help organizations achieve better results? Why is it a unique issue in the 21st century workplace? To answer these questions, organizations should look into factors such as globalization. Globalization increases interactions around the world and diversifies the profile of the workforce, which also contributes to the changing composition of the current workforce. While globalization offers extensive opportunities for organizations, it also imposes many challenges that require new responses. Organizations are not only looking for ways to effectively manage a diverse workforce but also to leverage it to achieve better outcomes.

As times are changing, so is the world’s vision of normal. Discrimination and segregation were a huge part of history, but the fact is that in this modern society, culture diversity is the new norm. Companies and organizations incorporate culture diversity in the workplace due to the benefits of various experiences, language skills, and productivity. Employees are the face of the company, and if they have the mentality of prejudice and ethnocentrism, it can affect the success of the business. While most people understand that the world is a melting pot, discrimination still exists in this world and these people are at a disadvantage. Whether it is because they are living in the past, had a bad experience, or have not been exposed to it, the world is a melting pot of culture, gender, and ethnicity. Regardless of how we are different, once “we can learn to appreciate that differences do matter and that becoming aware of those differences will make interactions with others much easier” (Devry University, n.d.).

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.

In reality, as you can see from the positive argument produced above, diversity assist organizations a key advantage in the corporate world. Culture can help an organization to succeed, when diversity is taken into action, non-biased and properly managed can be greatly effective. There is no doubt after researching the arguments for cultural diversity that organizations should invest in a highly

Diversity in the workplace is a subject that has gained increased attention in the workplace over the past few years. After all, the impact of affirmative action and equal employment opportunity programs on the nation's work force is undeniable. Women and minorities were the first to dramatically alter the face of the economic mainstream, while gays, persons with disabilities and senior citizens followed not far behind. The result is a diverse American labor force representing a microcosm of our society - yet one that continues to struggle with its identity. Diversity as a social condition is not new to America. We were founded as a nation of Diversity. “America has always been a merger of cultures and, as such, has undergone periods of

In the book entitled, Diversity and Public Administration by Harvey L. White and Mitchell F. Rice , White and Rice (2010) stated challenges will form from changes in demographics which are affecting the demands of delivery and visions of products and services. Since 2000, minority population has increased dramatically. In result of minority population increasing, public organizations have a more diverse work environment. In the workplace, diversity can be a benefit. According to the article entitled , “Advantages and Disadvantages of Diversity in the Workplace” by David Ingram, Ingram(2015) stated that by have a diverse workplace allows the company to utilize their employees’ cultural difference to strengthen the organizations’ productivity. Another advantage of diverse workplace is that it increase employee’s personal growth. By employees being expose to cultural difference and new ideas, this allows employees to have global perspective on how to conduct business (Ingram,2015). Diversity can also have disadvantages in the workforce. One of the disadvantages is the ability of employees to respect each other cultural differences. Diverse workplace has to endure several challenges and issues.

The impact of diversity is a successful learning experience for companies, and is equally as important to a company as its mission statement because of the educational and work ethics of its employees. Awareness and knowledge of diversity in addition to the similarities that humans possess can build relationships between employees and employers. Diversity helps employees and employers to be well educated and informed as to what forms a person’s values, attitudes, and behaviors.

Diversity in organizations has become a huge interest within the workplace due to many factors such as globalization, migration, innovation and most importantly because it is morally correct. Generally, as businesses main goal is profit, and the “workforce diversity management is such a pervasive business practice”(Bowes, L. 2013) they need to keep up with global markets. Diversity in Australia is important, as it is one of the most culturally diverse in the world, with 27% of Australian population being born outside of Australia, however the “management of cultural diversity in Australia has only been mediocre” (Fenwick, M. 2011). With only “few Australian firms [having] established diversity management practices” (McCarthy, G 2009) and

To do this for staff in any workplace, it is the duty of every member to ensure that each other have a full understanding of cultural diversity. Approaches to ensure this can include the implementation of workplace policies that prevent discrimination of any kind. These policies would result in the full awareness of possible cultural issues and concerns that may arise due to the outcome of misapprehensions of different ethnicities. Along with the implementation of various policies in a workplace, it would also be beneficial to a workplace if they promote the benefits and advantages of having an equal and diverse environment. Also, to combat workplace discrimination and to promote an ethnically diverse nature, evaluations of a workplaces current status of cultural diversity would be of inordinate value (Greenberg 2013.) Nevertheless, the most crucial tool for combatting discrimination in the workplace and cultivating cultural diversity is the staff themselves. If a workplace has employees that do not comply with the standards of cultural diversity in a work environment, they are not creditable enough to be employed in an ethnically diverse

This research paper addresses the importance of diversity training in the workplace. Having realized how pertinent workplace discrimination is globally, this paper will give a broad look into the various ways that diversity is displayed in the workplace. The diversity issues involving gender, sexuality, race, age, culture and religion will be explored,

In today’s society there are many culturally diverse people in the workforce. Most organizations can no longer make the assumption that every employee has similar beliefs or expectations. When entering into the global marketplace, people are considered one of the most valuable resources to an organization’s success. A well-managed culturally diverse workforce has the potential to thrive if managed correctly; or if mismanaged, there can be devastating negative attributes. With great expectations, culturally diverse employees can foster positive outcomes in the workplace. A company’s acknowledgement to embrace diversity and change, and implement the value of management techniques are

Maya Angelou, a famous African American poet, once said, “We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their colour,” (Angelou & Johnson, 2014). This quote shows how cultural diversity is widely believed to be a benefit to society, but how do these benefits stretch to the context of a business? This review will be looking into literature surrounding the question, what are the key outcomes of creating and managing a culturally diverse working environment?

Culture and diversity has been an instrumental aspect of the business environment for a few decades now. While globalization is singled out as its enhancer, it is far from its inceptor. Managers have had to deal with diversity for years, through the contemporary environment has realized an influx in this particular phenomenon (Mor-Barak, 2011). In the contemporary business, environment has become more complex with the degree of diversity that is being witnessed. Managers have to deal with an increasing cultural spectrum in a single workplace, a factor that has both positive and negative impacts.

The workplace has become one of the biggest multicultural settings. Almost half of the work force in the United States is made up of minorities. There are many advantages to having this percentage of people from different cultures throughout our workplace. One is the increase in creativeness. Not only in products that are being created but in the developing of an approach to solving problems. "Other cultures can offer insightful alternatives" (EthoConnect). Another way in which the workplace is affected by this is in productivity and attitudes. When people of all cultures pull together to reach a common goal there are less limited boundaries and there are more global understanding that are used to help reach the world's market place; creating a larger market for products. With this change in productivity in the workplace is more desirable and enjoyable for all employees. The market place has become more global based that workers having a diverse culture base is very important to break down barriers in language and knowledge of certain markets. This affects our lives by more companies hiring more international job seekers.