Introduction Diversity is an important component of team structure and forming. Planned or unplanned, diversity is likely an attribute in the overall team composition. Team diversity presents its challenges as teams are commonly assembled with members with different experiences, skills, talents and expertise (Smith, 2014). Organizational diversity has become an increasingly noticeable concern recently due to the modernization of the business culture. Virtualization, decentralization, globalization and a business requirement to create and innovate has forced organizations to explore more diverse teams to produce results. The variability will prove to be challenging and may trigger conflict that must be overcome internally by the team to move forward. This paper examines the importance of properly structuring and forming diverse teams to achieve high performance and success.
Formation
One of the critical issues that team-based organizations must resolve in order to perform effectively is formation. Formation involves establishing the team and environment in which they will work, giving it the support it needs to contribute to the organization and be most productive and prosperous (Forrester & Drexler, 1999). Team leaders need to have the latitude to identify and select participants from variable backgrounds. Diversity is a complex and multidimensional term and is defined by demographic variables, experience, attitudes, values, personality, or socioeconomic status
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).
The positive impact of cultural diversity on group behavior can contribute creativity to a high-performance team. Membership diversity offers a rich pool of information, talent, and varied perspectives that can help improve team problem solving and increase creativity (Hunt, J., Osborn, R., Schermerhorn, J., 2005). Cultural diversity contributes various group input and group dynamics to the team. These two factors are essential in the high performance of a team. Cultural diversity can develop a high-performance team by allowing the diverse potentials of a team to operate. The negative impact of cultural diversity on group behavior can develop numerous of conflicts between team members. Conflicting interaction can limit or decrease the effectiveness and efficiency of productivity. There should be an awareness of the diverse culture values in order to prevent these conflicts.
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..
Diversity within an organization is a blending of people from various cultural, religious and ethnic backgrounds. Diversity has challenged organizations to set realistic goals for its leaders as well as its employees. The organization must look at the moral, ethical and social responsibilities it has toward its employees and understand their legal obligations set by laws. It is important for
The next step would be to investigate each individual 's personality, learning style, skill set, attitudes and other key factors that would be diverse in relation to the team. Hubbard uses the term “behavioral diversity as encompassing work styles, thinking styles, learning styles, communication styles, aspirations,beliefs/value systems as well as changes in the attitudes and expectation on the part of employees. (2014, p. 27)” This explanation of behavioral diversity (Hubbard, 2004) expounds and gives additional insight in regards to deep-level diversity.
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
Teamwork also plays a significant role in a company’s communication structure, when leading or managing a team you will be diversity. Whether its gender, race, culture,
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 creators of this initiative will maintain responsibility for initiation and development of products to aid the diversity team with the overall process. The creators of this initiative will continue to coordinate daily after the initial discussion with, and delivery of the VSM to the SNCOA leadership on 19 Jan 16. The diversity team will assume responsibilities as the project POC from the initiative creators on 21 Jan 16 and lead four one-hour meetings to gather input from the instructor cadre to build talking points on the diversity initiative. On 24 Jan 16, and or upon receiving inputs from the instructor cadre, the diversity team will upload draft versions of joint and international diversity presentations to Blackboard for the Barnes Center curriculum team review/inclusion into ALE.
Diversity strengthens the team by recognizing the better ideas each person brings to the table. This brings about a lot of important benefits that help an organization in been a well-managed diverse workplace. Diverse work groups normally have better ideas, experience and a broader background. And tins enables ethnic and cultural diversity companies function at a global level with a better understanding of the global markets. Diverse teams posse’s cognitive flexibility because members have different education backgrounds. This involves a mix of analytical, and abstract thinkers, which enables the team to broaden their ability to handle difficulties smoothly. Having different point of views
Diversity is of the utmost importance to an organization, as it increases the organization’s ability to adapt to the ever changing environment of the modern world. Today, diversity is a requirement for success and long term growth. Diverse companies have a comprehensive understanding of their customer’s needs and better internal talent due to a more extensive search of the labor market for qualified candidates. Moreover, diverse perspectives lead to innovation, and innovation leads to prosperity. Inclusion of unique perspectives avoids barriers and anxieties that would otherwise stunt a company’s growth. Furthermore, Studies show that companies with diverse board members tend to have greater success than
Diversity in culture and demographic characteristics can be a negative impact or be one of the team's greatest strengths, depending on how the team as a whole functions and applies these different “routes to success”. A group can become a high performing team by understanding how cultural and demographic differences influence group behavior. The groups must realize that they can benefit from their diversity to their advantage and into a high performance team.
Diversity in the workplace can be beneficial for an organization if the team is managed properly. However, many challenges can be presented such as communication issues, discrimination complaints and resistance to change. Managers are prepared to monitor performance and provide proper training when applicable; managers are not prepared to work with the differences that can be presented between employees. A manager should always be prepared to handle employees with different cultures, religions, ages and sexual orientations. The discrimination complaints against managers and/or other coworkers have increased significantly during the past years. Managers can avoid discrimination complaints when managing a diverse team. Managers should evaluate and assigned tasks to teammates individually or should the tasks be assigned in a group setting. The management team needs to identify what management style is more effective while managing a diverse team. Manager need to understand how to address a situation when two employees are using racial comments against each other. Every Human Resource department for these companies has to provide the proper training and monitor managers according to diversity of the team. The Human Resource department of these companies has to be ready to handle these complaints. Must companies are affected and face monetary losses due to discrimination complaints and lawsuits. All this can be avoided and/or minimized because managers have the ability to make a
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.
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.