Diversity : Digitalization And Globalization

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).

Organizations are made up of people who are tasked to work together towards a wide range of goals and a good manager organizes and leads them to succeed while effectively managing the conflicts using cultural awareness. Mangers in organizations that embrace the conflict constructively can enhance innovation using different viewpoints, increase creativity, better competition and reduce the chance of group think. When I took the Personal Diversity Maturity Index one of the questions was “What is the most important reason to respond to diversity effectively?” The answer with the highest score was “It will make my company more competitive” which was the answer I chose because of what I learned during the research for this class. The success in making diversity an asset for an organization is understanding and learning from our differences. Studies have shown that conflict handling styles influence innovation, product performance and economic outcome (Gunkel, Schlaegel, & Taras, 2015, p. 568). Everyone looks at the world and interprets it through their own life experiences so the members of an organization have to strive to understand other perspectives and support diversity an inclusion of all team members’ ideas.

In today’s economic environment everything changes rapidly not only the economic indicator but also people’s life-style or pattern of consumption. In such a rapidly shifting milieu, creative ideas, knowledge, and innovation are the only stable sources of capital (D. Oliver, “Achieving results through diversity: a strategy for success,” Ivey Business Journal Online, vol. 69, no. 4, 2005.) So developing a more diverse workforce can make the business full of creativity and vigour and the most important thing is that creativity and innovation are the indispensable factors in social

According to Ozbilgin (2008), diversity is one of the top global issues and requires management attention. There are both benefits and challenges in managing diversity. However, Golnaz and Hoa (2002) stated that most organizations agree that diversity is a reality and while managing the same, it can be either an asset or a hindrance towards goals (Gleason 2004). Diversity helps the organization become proactive and flexible to new aspects and scenarios (Pwc 2011). To manage a successful diverse workforce, organisations need to promote self-awareness, openness, clear-headedness, adaptability, candour and egalitarianism. This can be a challenging task due to complex human behaviour and biases (Parkin 2009).

Diversity in our nation and workforce continues to increase each year. People with different backgrounds, degrees, and experiences are coming together to build strong teams, oriented around creativity, innovation, and productivity (Kerby, 2012). A greater emphasis is being placed on acceptance within diverse workforces. “Diversity represents all the ways in which people are unlike and alike— the differences and similarities in age, gender, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, capabilities, and socioeconomic background” (Williams, 357). Understanding these differences are the key to creating a strong company culture. Within an organization, diversity should be seen as a positive—where each individual’s experiences and talents can better

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

Diversity today is seen not only as the aftermath of the globalization process but also as the driving force of progress and an integral part of success of modern organizations. Ethnic, racial, gender, and religious diversity makes each one of us a unique citizen of this globalized world. An organization that brings together employees with such different backgrounds, benefits from the vibrancy of thoughts and varied viewpoints, brought to the company by multiple cultures and unique experiences of its employees. Distinctive capabilities of such workers and their individual skill sets and talents allow them to come up with creative solutions, new ideas and proposals, which increase efficiency of a team. While working together employees of such

Although, cognitively diversity is necessary for a company’s success it is not often implemented as it is difficult to find, people tend to hire those individuals that are like them, and that people are often scared to voice their different perspectives. Therefore, focus on getting rid of these barriers as a means to help the organization

Over the decades, diversity in the workplace has started to become a business necessity. But what does diversity actually mean? In broad terms, diversity encompasses a group of people with different biological characteristics such as age, race, gender, ethnicity disability and so on. However, the true definition of diversity in the workplace is about ensuring that every single person that goes to work everyday have the freedom to bring along their full self to work and it is not just about welcoming but it is about embracing and harnessing the diversity of thought, the diversity of background, the diversity of experience, the diversity in education, and not just the traditional aspects in diversity. Even so, one of the major challenges that

Workforce Diversity defines the visible or invisible differences among employees of an organization and could be divided in to three major components such as Primary, Secondary and Organizational and Community. Factors such as Age, Gender, Sexual Orientation, Ethnicity represents Primary while Appearance, Educational Background, Marital Status, Work experience represents Secondary and Job position, Specialization, Nationality, Life stage represents Organizational and Community. In recent years, organizations spend more in diversity management as most of the organizations consist with employees from different backgrounds. Further, diversity in an organization is a significant factor that may affect the performance of an organization positively or negatively. For example, it can create innovation, empowerment, information sharing, and productivity when well managed and can cause discrimination, power play, miscommunication and control when managed poorly.

In order to investigate that what will it take for organizations to reap the real and full benefits of a diverse workforce, a research effort taken by the article author’s team. In order to understand three management challenges for Diversity, it conducted its research over a period of six years. The challenges undertaken were:

Management must promote the contribution of each diverse perspective as well as to recognize and appreciate wide-ranging cultural differences. Another reason organizations are embracing is the fact that the diversity in their employees has a direct impact on the diversity of their consumers and customer base. However, there are also issues managers must contend with such as a lack of cohesiveness, interpersonal conflicts, difficulties in decision making and communication, and lastly resistant to change (Nelson, 2013, p. 53). Finally, managing and placing value on diversity in the workplace is not as much changing in company policy as it is changing mindsets and attitudes. Diversity should be a corporate value, a top priorityfor managers, and a vital objective for any organization along with becoming a foundation to the organizations strategic blueprint. Diversity does have its advantages; the benefits of diversity include attracting and retaining the best employees, as well as improved marketing efforts, superior problem solving, and enhanced flexibility within the organization along with the obvious creativity and innovation diversity brings (Nelson, 2013, p.

It is important that the issue is addressed since having a diverse workplace has it’s many benefits. Recent studies have shown that groups of diverse problems solvers are more likely to outperform high-ability problem solvers. According Harvard Business School, multicultural networks also promote creative thinking (Walter, 2014, para. 1). Diversity always for more innovative solutions to business problems, which is one of ways it can benefit the company, and there for is an essential issue to address and solve.

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.

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.