Diversity At Big Business Is Not Only Positive For A Company

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 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..

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.

As diversity and inclusion gain more attention in the society, more research has been done on their impact to organizations. Not too long ago, organizations implemented diversity management initiatives, such as affirmative action and equal employment legislations, just to fulfill their legal requirements (Jayne and Dipboye, 2004). However, diversity and inclusion have since then become a business imperative.

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 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 United States is one of the most diverse nations on the earth, originally conceived so, and often described as a great melting pot, as “all nations are melted into a new race of man, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world” (St. John de Crèvecoeur, 1782). Yet, despite the country’s diverse population, the workplace remains a place of inequality as women and minorities continue to earn less than their white male counterparts (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2011; U.S. Census Bureau, 2009) and advance less in managerial and professional positions (Kinicki & Kreitner, 2008). The question of workplace diversity is a polarizing debate with proponents of diversity measures arguing the business benefit of

Harvard Business Review September, 1996 / October, 1996 HEADLINE: MAKING DIFFERENCES MATTER: A NEW PARADIGM FOR MANAGING DIVERSITY BYLINE: by David A. Thomas and Robin J. Ely; David A. Thomas is an associate professor at the Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts. Robin J. Ely is an associate professor at Columbia University 's School of International and Public Affairs in New York City. Their research and teaching focus on the influence of race, gender, and ethnicity on career dynamics and organizational effectiveness. ABSTRACT: MAKING DIFFERENCES MATTER: A NEW PARADIGM FOR MANAGING DIVERSITY DAVID A. THOMAS and ROBIN J. ELY Diversity efforts in the workplace have been undertaken with great goodwill, but, ironically, they often

The first thing to acknowledge about diversity is that it can be difficult. In the U.S., where the dialogue of inclusion is relatively advanced, even the mention of the word “diversity” can lead to anxiety and conflict. Supreme Court justices disagree on the virtues of diversity and the means for achieving it. Corporations spend billions of dollars to attract and manage diversity both internally and externally, yet they still face discrimination lawsuits, and the leadership ranks of the business world remain predominantly white and male.

With the changing demographics of the U.S. workforce (Ng & Burke, 2005) and the need for organizations to continually innovate their products and services to remain competitive, embracing diversity and the benefits its brings is going to be key to driving a successful organization

So why should businesses choose diversity now? The main reason for businesses to actively develop and promote diversity is because of the changing demographics. Traditionally, the corporate environment was dominated by white males, but according to Pollar & Gonzalez (2011), by the year 2000, women were expected to be almost two-thirds of all new entrants into the workforce, one out of four people were African-American, Hispanic or Asian-American and roughly ten percent of the population was projected to be gay or lesbian. By learning the new perspectives brought by a wider range of employees, businesses can provide better services to clients and customers as well as departments within the business itself. Also, there are local, state and federal laws that prohibit discrimination based on race, sex, religion and other factors, so from a legal standpoint, it would be in a company’s best interest to promote and accept diversity in the workplace to avoid expensive lawsuits, as punishment for organizations found guilty of discriminative acts are required to pay damages, attorney fees and court costs.

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 discrimination-and-fairness paradigm is considered the “dominant way” of understanding diversity by most organizations. It attempts to remove discrimination and create employment equality by seeking to increase diversity among employees. Progress is measured by how well the company is able to meet its diversity number goals but avoids looking deeper at the reality behind the numbers. (Thomas & Ely p. 81)

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