Drew Neal Chief D. Anderson FIRT 1301 September 05, 2015 Hiring for diversity in public agencies Hiring for diversity in the fire service is an important issue. Diversity can be thought of in many different ways. It can range from nationality to gender. Firefighters are people who are not limited to a certain ethnicity or gender. They are all individuals who have the same mission, that mission is to serve and protect. According to Johnny Winston Jr .,”In our profession, we are required to provide service to anyone who calls 911 regardless of the callers social, economic, or racial background. At the same time anyone who applies to our fire departments should know that our hiring practices are fair and equitable. Prospective employees (and volunteers) should be treated with respect. Having a diverse work force is ethically the right thing to do.” (Winston, 2014). Having worked for the community of Hutto for several years, I can agree to the importance of diversity in public agencies. …show more content…
Also it can make it stronger which can increase growth and profits. Diversity and inclusion need to be in line with the goals of a Department. Initiatives should be put in place to align goals and objectives of a company or organization. “Making diversity a part of your human resources recruiting policy can improve the quality of the employees you hire. You can reach a much larger pool of applicants if you’re open to hiring people from diverse backgrounds. Diversity in hiring benefits your employees just as much as it helps the company. When you hire only the most qualified staff member, employees can rely on each other to provide technical expertise and guidance when they encounter a difficult problem. All employees on a team benefit when the group easily meets goals and objectives because each member of the team is skilled and experienced.” (Leviticus,
in an attempt to increase the diversity the fire service have introduced methods such as appointing an equality and diversity officer to the community who is there to discuss and talk to women and ethnic minority groups about the career opportunities they would encounter if they joined the fire service. The service has introduced a 10 year strategy which has a goal of improving the way the workers treat each other across all parts of the Service but also the effectiveness of the relationship that they have with the public. The strategy has 5 different areas which the service aims to work on to improve diversity.The first is Leadership and promoting inclusion where they want individuals to ‘undertake their role in promoting equality and diversity and ensure any practice or procedure they have responsibility for is effectively equality impact assessed’. The second is accountability which will include the workers making ‘evidence available to the public annually on improvements to service delivery and employment practice, including progress against the employment targets through its website’. The third area is Effective service delivery and community engagement. This aims to involve community and voluntary groups in policy development including members of minority ethnic, religious, disabled, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, men and women, and all age groups more within the work of the fire
Hiring a diverse workforce is valuable in enhancing effectiveness of any manager or leader for many reasons, as outlined by Kerby and Burns (2012): (1) a diverse workforce drives
Diversity in law enforcement has grown to become a hot topic within the law enforcement community. The demographic of society has changed dramatically over the last 20 years and with that law enforcement has been changing, but have they been changing enough? Different law enforcement agencies have their own ways of implementing diversity in their practices and procedures, some of them are better than others, but with issues that happen today it is important that they do something.
From Hollywood to the the social sector, diversity, rather the lack thereof, has been a topic of conversation. Although many organizations have begun to advocate for diversity, more work must be done. Across the social sector,women and people of color remain severely underrepresented in leadership positions. Organizations must become intentional about creating a diverse workforce and implementing inclusive policies that foster positive work environments. When employees feel represented and included they are happier and more likely to contribute to fulfilling the organization's mission.
M3 Analyse the effectiveness of the methods used by public services to promote equality and diversity in society and within the service
All Public services organizations are bound to follow a range of policies and procedures, to ensure that they have a diverse workforce, such as:
Diversity means different individuals valuing each other regardless of intellect, age, disability race or religion.
In the article “Identifying Barriers to Diversity in Law Enforcement Agencies” by Carl F. Matthies, Kirsten M. Keller, and Nelson Lim the issue of diversity in the law enforcement workforce is brought to task. They show through the use of research that law enforcement agencies can do their jobs better if they resemble the population they are supposed to be protecting. Police community relations are negatively affected by the disparity of racial composition between agencies and communities combined with heavy-handed tactics. The intentions of this article is to offer a thorough analysis of a method intended to reduce this disparity. This method is known as “barrier analysis” which means it analysis issues or problems such as this (diversity in law enforcement) for specific obstacles. The intent is to use this knowledge to directly address these obstacles so as to increase diversity in the ranks of law enforcement.
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
Viewpoints on how diversity affects today’s fire department vary greatly from the idea of instigating hardship
Assignment Number or Topic Assignment 1 Practices in hiring for diversity in the workplace have been a topic of discussion for several years. While the fire service has not been without its own debate on the subject, there are some compelling reasons why diversity in the fire service is both important and beneficial. Diversity in the workplace has been described as “the extent to which the workplace is composed of individuals who are discernibly different. Discernible differences are typically those that can be seen or heard, such as a person’s hair, or skin color; or a noticeable accent” (Buckman, 2006, pp. 149-150).
Diversity is important to companies because with a diverse environment people can benefit and learn from others' ideas. Other reasons for the importance of diversity to many organizations are the recognition of differences as prerequisites for high performance and continuous improvement, enhancing the effectiveness and creativity of the organization, and valuing conflicts as opportunities for more effective decision-making and problem solving. Diversity has a major impact on our behaviors in the work place.
population. Companies need to focus on diversity and look for ways to become totally inclusive organizations because diversity has the potential of yielding greater productivity and competitive advantages (SHRM, 1995). Stephen G. Butler, co-chair of the Business-Higher Education Forum, believes that diversity is an invaluable competitive asset that America cannot afford to ignore (Robinson, 2002). Managing and valuing diversity is a key component of effective people management, which can improve workplace productivity (Black Enterprise, 2001).
In the article, “Making Difference Matter: A New Paradigm for Managing Diversity,” the authors David A. Thomas and Robin J. Ely state that the discrimination-and-fairness paradigm and the access-and-legitimacy paradigm are the ”perspectives that have guided most diversity initiatives to date.” (p. 80) Thomas and Ely took these two paradigms and came up with the learning-and-effectiveness paradigm, which combines the best of the discrimination-and-fairness paradigm and the access-and-legitimacy paradigm to create a paradigm that genuinely shows care to learn and understanding of diversity.
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