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Managing Diversity Essay

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Managing Diversity

No two humans are alike. People are different not only in gender, culture, race, social and psychological characteristics but also in their perspectives and prejudices. Society had discriminated on these aspects for centuries. Women and minority groups were denied of their due rights. But not any more. Since 1960s, when federal legislation prohibited employment discrimination, minorities and female applicants have become the fastest-growing segment in the work force. Diversity makes the work-force heterogeneous. The work-force diversity used in the corporate world today is the varied characteristics of employees working in same organization. Despite the magnitude of the ethical, legal, economic, social, and political …show more content…

Diversity can be broadly divided in two main types, e.g. superficial diversity (e.g. differences in gender, ethnicity, nationality) and deep-level diversity (e.g. differences in knowledge, skills and differences in values). Importance of superficial diversity can be reduced by increased amounts of interaction between individuals of various sexes, ethnicity and nationality etc thereby increasing the importance of deep-level diversity . For an enterprise to become diverse, it has to concentrate on its internal workforce. A worst practice in diversity is by initiating a corporate diversity effort focused on customers and external public relations. It leads to false expectations. Focus of diversity initially should be on internal culture. A dedicated and motivated diverse workforce will automatically lead an organization to diverse society. There can be many factors that motivate organizations of all sizes to diversify their workforces. Legal requirement of non discrimination is a major cause but then there are few organizations which make their workforce diverse taking it as a social responsibility. The diversity may be adopted for economic payback, particularly through initiatives like welfare-to-work, thereby effectively turning tax users into tax payers. Companies may be motivated towards diversity for many other reasons like resource imperative, or as a marketing strategy. It can also be used as a capacity building

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