Essay On Hiring For Diversity

M3 Analyse the effectiveness of the methods used by public services to promote equality and diversity in society and within the service

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

Diversity means different individuals valuing each other regardless of intellect, age, disability race or religion.

All Public services organizations are bound to follow a range of policies and procedures, to ensure that they have a diverse workforce, such as:

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 recruitment is vital to any organization, especially that of a law enforcement agency. Many police departments across Missouri are struggling to maintain a workforce that is equally as diverse at the community it serves. According to The Police Chief magazine, one of the most effective recruitment techniques to achieve a diverse police force is to generate a positive perception of police within the community. (Pearsall & Kohlhepp, 2016)

Viewpoints on how diversity affects today’s fire department vary greatly from the idea of instigating hardship

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 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 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.

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

While some may stop at race or gender regarding diversity, I would proceed a step further in showing the importance and benefits of diversity in the fire service. Our cities and communities are not cookie cutter. The cultural, socioeconomic, and backgrounds of our citizens can change from neighborhood to neighborhood. Simply put, “I am talking about having good firefighters that reflect the demographics of the communities that we serve” (Winston, 2014). Winston, the author of an online article, lists five reasons

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).

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 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