Introduction
Diversity is generally defined as acknowledging, understanding, accepting, valuing and celebrating differences among people with respect to age, class, ethnicity, gender, physical and mental ability, race, sexual orientation, spiritual practice, and public assistance status (Etsy,et al. 1995).
The idea of diversity emerged when globalisation came into the picture in 1990-91 (Bhatia, 2008). As globalization began to affect organisations, there was a coverage of workplace from diverse countries, cultures, values, and styles that presented tremendous opportunities as well as challenges (Bhatia, 2008). Organisations can have the ultimate lead in the market place if effective human resources are in place. Now in the 21st century,
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When “diversity management” was first introduced, the system was guided by the melting pot approach. Assuming that the minority will succumb to the cultural beliefs, values, and lifestyles of the majority but upon further observation, organisations begin to realise that employees do not set aside their lifestyles, believes, traditions or work styles regardless of what the dominant culture was in the organisation (Bhatia, 2008). Therefore, it is preferred to respect, understand and value cultural differences in an organisation instead of trying to change them. Through those difference, management has to practice and learn to adapt to the life of the diverse groups.
The task of managing diversity is to create a comfortable environment for all employees to work in so that they can be effective in their jobs. It is important for top managements to strongly emphasize on this diverse culture as a goal and include diversity initiatives in their business strategies.
With the digits of women, young workers and ethnic minorities joining the work force,
Managing Diversity in the workplace is more than just an acquired skill, it is "a way of thinking" (1). It involves creating an environment that allows all employees to contribute to organizational goals and experience personal growth. The key is to help employees reach their full potential by creating an environment that will allow them to be motivated and productive and ultimately, be beneficial for the organization.
Diversity means to value and respect the differences and individuality of people. This means to embrace the differences between people and to treat a person’s race, culture, religious beliefs, age, sexual orientation, gender, physical and mental characteristics etc. with respect.
The term ‘Diversity’ means the state or fact of being diverse; different or unlike. Within equality and inclusion it is the difference between individuals and groups including: culture, nationality, ability, ethnic origin, gender, age, religion, beliefs, sexual orientation and social class.
Diversity - is meant by acknowledging that each individual is unique and recognising individual differences, For example culture, ability, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, or any other individual characteristic.
Diversity is about respecting individual differences these can be: ethnicity, physical abilities, gender, age, religious, beliefs, sexual orientation, material status, politic, region, religion, disability.
Diversity can be defined as acknowledging, understanding, accepting, and valuing differences among people with respect to age, class, race, ethnicity, gender, and
Diversity acknowledge that people are differ in many ways, such as age, gender, social status, disability, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity and culture (Kossek, Lobel & Brown, 2005). Nowadays, diversity has increasingly become the most valuable aspect of HRM areas. Develop countries such as Australia and New Zealand hold multicultural workforce as one of the most important dimension of diversity, where there are a large number of international migrants with different cultural backgrounds (Shen, Chanda, D’Netto & Monga, 2009). Studies from McLeod, Lobel and Cox (1996) and Wilson & Iles (1999) point out that a diverse workforce has a better-quality solution to brainstorming task, display more cooperative behaviour, and can raise organizational efficiency, effectiveness and profitability. Hence, utilization of diversity allows organization to increase the organization cooperative behaviour and competitive advantage (Cassell 1996). However, in groups where people from different cultural and ethnic background are working together, differences may occur in management styles, attitude towards hierarchy, approaches to group work, and ways of expressing
The concept of diversity encompasses acceptance and respect. It means understanding that each individual is unique, and recognizing our individual differences. These can be along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, age, physical abilities, religious
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
management is the effort and process to build a set of value which considers the differences
By definition, “the concept of diversity encompasses acceptance and respect, understanding that each individual is unique, and recognizing individual differences, along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, political beliefs, or other ideologies. It is about understanding each other and moving beyond simple tolerance to embracing and celebrating the rich dimensions of diversity contained within each individual (Fairbrother, 2016) ”.
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.
Globalization has become the root of changing the demographic diversity of the workforce in an organization throughout the world. Diversity does not only imply race and gender, but it shows that every person is different and that their culture is characterized as individual. Individuals in an organization have their own different customs, values, and perspectives; employers must be mindful of all of these differences. Successfully managing cultural differences would allow organizations to be more competitive in recruiting individuals from diverse ethnic individuals, which will generate a cultural and friendly working environment (Grivastava & Kleiner, 2015). By adapting a multicultural organization, the organization will be characterized by a culture that fosters and values cultural differences equally amongst its employees. According to Rawat & Basergekar, (2016) achieving cultural diversity amongst companies rarely occurs, however it is important to understand and create a vision for effective diversity management. Diversity can be seen from different paradigms, which forms a company’s philosophy on diversity. Rawat et al. (2016), examines the two different paradigms that forms a diverse culture in an organization. The first is the moral paradigm a belief that discrimination is wrong, illegal and immoral. The second is the social need paradigm which believes that our solutions to diversity for a country must be different from the rest. These two paradigms bring a
Managing diversity within organisation is about ‘recognising this range of differences in people and valuing people as individuals, respecting their differences and their differing needs. It is also about accommodating differences wherever possible so that an individual can play a full part in the working environment’ (Daniels and Macdonald, 2005)
In olden days, the managers considered culturally diverse workforce as a dangerous aspect of the organization, because at that time they could not properly manage the diverse workforce. But still now if the diverse employees are not effectively managed, they would provide serious disadvantages to the organization.