Sodexo and Principle Financial Group Case Study
Tyrell Hall, Michelle White, Markea Walker-Brown, Kristopher Watkins,
Kathryn Shanosk, and Tatesha Thomas
MGT/312
February 23, 2015
Armand Di Cianni
Sodexo and Principle Financial Group Case Study
The demographics of organizations are rapidly changing as more growth occurs globally. Sodexo and Principal Financial Group are among the top 50 to be recognized as being able to manage diversity effectively. It is important for organizations to grow in the global market to keep up with the economy. The growth of the company increases the importance for all levels of employees to interact with people different from themselves. The companies have adopted various training methods
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There are many reasons, as well as many benefits, which give this such importance. Companies like Sodexo encourage this upon their managers so they may gain an appreciation and understanding of their differences and experiences (Sodexo: No. 2 in the DiversityInc Top 50, 2015). It also allows the manager to understand how it feels to be different within a group, which helps them to make the employee feel more comfortable about their environment. This solution creates a working relationship that allows the very different employees to work together efficiently.
Encouraging the managers to work with diverse employees will allow the manager to obtain an understanding of the worker’s strengths and weaknesses. This process will allow the manager to place them better in the company by knowing where they will perform best. Working with diverse employees can even help to bring attention to issues the company may not have been aware of currently. The differences in the employees may allow them to notice things you may not have noticed or gave thought to before due to diverse experiences, skills, and personalities. They can also help determine how to market products and services better to people different from you, by using knowledge of their culture to attract people similar to them.
Hiring diverse employees and providing them with the proper resources and opportunities promotes efficiency for both the employee and the company.
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).
This in turn can increase the creativity and innovation within organizations. As well, individuals from diverse backgrounds are able to provide companies with insight into foreign business practices, translation assistance, and offer detailed information to assist in market penetration. A diverse working team can also improve decision making by providing different perspectives on problems. Individuals embrace working alongside other cultures, as it is a personal learning process that will prove useful in the future.
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
Benefits of a high workplace diversity environment is it not being stuck to conformity in group thinking, or being narrow-minded with similar thoughts and having preference to only be around people who think like you do which is known as the “diversity paradox”. According to a quote stated from Friedrich Nietzsche, Hackett (2014) “The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently” (p. 415). Instead, it reiterates the importance of having a diverse workplace because it constructs better ideas, coming from different minds, and build upon each other through brainstorming. However, a poor workplace diversity can also adversely affect one’s motivation, which leads to overall job dissatisfaction and demotivation. When there is poor workplace diversity, you can see less communication barriers and cultural resistance, but it also makes it harder for individuals to get used to working with others that aren’t the same as them. This can become a form of adversity for businesses if their employees cannot develop a strong skill set to adapt with not only coworkers but also customers in the environment. Therefore, better communication and interaction skills are essential to promoting a business and making it successful.
Diversity in the organization can affect the employees and their behavior in many ways. The effect can be positive and negative in the same time. The positive effect is, it will wider employee knowledge, skills, and attitude which will allow the organization to become more competitive globally. Higher diversity of employees mean higher diversity of knowledge, skills and abilities. Sharing experience inspires innovative thinking (Claudia Quaiser-Pohls, 2013, p. 41). Today in the modern workplace, most organizations will have
First off, the population of the world isn’t just one type of people therefore having a diverse work group will allow for business to be conducted with a wider segment of the population. Being able to provide a goods or a service to a wider segment of the population directly impacts sales and company profits especially when starting to cut out its own niche’ in a new market. Having a diverse group of people working for you translates into a larger customer base and a larger language ability as well as knowing customs and traditions of other groups of people. Repeat business will increase as ones customer base increases. Being a diverse company is simply good
To identify and and explain at least 3 organisation benefits of attracting and retaining a diverse workforce
It is very important for leaders and managers to embrace a diverse workforce. Because diversity could possibly add influence to the market share, and could widen the talent in the recruitment process for the organization. In addition, the organizations could benefit from the various perspectives and experiences; for example, different races, gender, and age groups within the workforce. However, a diverse workforce might also be challenging; for instance, leaders and managers may spend too much time in promoting
Attracting and retaining a diverse workforce benefits an organisation in making the business successful. The following
The general line of reasoning is that if we learn to incorporate each other’s diverse traits and characteristics in the workplace, we can then use these differences to foster an innovative environment, which will give the company a competitive advantage over the competitors that do not accept workforce diversity. According to the Allied Academies International Conference, “Diversity is rapidly becoming a common practice among companies due to the increasing number of minorities entering the job market today. As these groups become more prevalent throughout companies, upper-level employees are facing numerous challenges when determining what changes must take place to create a positive working environment for everyone. Management is responsible for the development and implementation of effective policies directly relating to diversity to ensure the acceptance of minorities into the workplace and to aid in minorities’ success through equal opportunities and treatment.” (Marcia L. James, 2001, Academy for Studies in International Business Proceedings)
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.
With the changing demographics of the U.S. workforce (Ng & Burke, 2005) and the need for organizations to continually innovate their products and services to remain competitive, embracing diversity and the benefits its brings is going to be key to driving a successful organization
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 is full of unique people. To reach people that are from all walks of life, you'll need employees who are representatives of all these walks of life. Employees with different backgrounds bring different ideas to an organization. Because today's business environment is filled with people of all age groups, both male and female, and different cultural backgrounds, business' have the opportunity to take advantage of that and us it to benefit there company. You have the younger generation with wide varieties of nationalities that have different views and are able to assist with there knowledge and there background, educational and culturally. Take an
Businesses are recognizing the need and importance of investing in diversity and addition as part of their inclusive talent management practices and to frequently challenge their organizations to make the connection between those values and their group performance.. Diversity is especially fundamental in today’s global marketplace, as businesses cooperate with