Why A Diverse Workplace Matters?

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.

The way in which an organization tackles diversity determines its negative or positive outcome. All the 5 companies agreed that diversity has contributed to their success. Some barriers were identified in managing diversity like the difficulties faced by women in managing the work and family, fear of discrimination, resistance to change, diversity is not seen as an organizational priority, resistance to change and unsupportive working environment for diverse employees. Diversity contributes to more productivity but if not properly managed could hinder success.

A diverse organisation is one in which people can learn new things from different perspectives and cultures and their experience will be enriched and therefore the organisation will work better due to the learning that takes place such a new and improved ways of doing things. Both the employer and the employee in this instance will benefit. Employers will benefit as they will have a team which is better equipped to work effectively and the employees will benefit as they will learn new skills and ways of working meaning their career prospects will be enhanced.

To identify and and explain at least 3 organisation benefits of attracting and retaining a diverse workforce

Cultural diversity continues to become more common in the workplace. Diversity refers to qualities and features that are different from our own. These differences include race, gender, age, personality, talents, and nationalities. Diversity includes how one identifies themselves as well as how others perceive one. The ability to appreciate the qualities that make us individuals and embrace those who are dissimilar can help increase performance within an organization and prevent conflict.

Looking at this as a whole, many advantages arise from a diverse workforce. Companies cannot only succeed in creating a dynamic, rich experience for a company, but also create an environment that is mature but also is youthful

Many organizations are beginning to view diversity as an organizational change. This could possibly mean changes in the power dynamics and organizational structure, the way decisions are made, and the way an

Organizations with wide range of diversity face a lot of challenges. Some of those challenges are:

Organizations are increasingly emphasizing group work or teamwork as a source of competitive advantage in a diverse workforce" (Aghazadeh, 2004). The success of an organization depends on the workforce of the organization. By using demography, managers can learn how to handle the needs or concerns of people of different genders, ethnicities, etc (Schermerhorn, Hunt, and Osborn, 2005). "Cultural diversity has an impact on the interaction process and performance in teams" (Saji, 2004). A diverse team or workforce gives companies a competitive advantage by enabling them to better meet the needs of their customers, successfully compete in the global marketplace, and hire from an expanded labor pool. Managing diversity involves the creation of an open, supportive, and responsive company in which diversity is acknowledged and valued by

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)

How do you define diversity in a workplace? Do you fall victim to a non diversified workplace where everyone seems out of place? Many people have different views on this the topic of diversity, but do not necessarily understand it fully in a workplace. If your job has numerous age groups, races, religious beliefs, and equal amount of gender, then your job is practicing diversification. A lot of companies are making it more known that they enforce diversity in their workplaces. Three top companies stand out the most because of their name, relevance, and image they portray. Target, Kraft Foods, and Johnson & Johnson are all household names that are gender, race, age, and family friendly. The question is how diversified are they behind the scenes, and how effective are they? In this paper research was done to give insight on job diversification and its effectiveness.

Research has indicated that a diverse workforce can lead to several benefits. A varied group of employees provides the organization with access to a larger pool of knowledge and to differing points of view. Additionally, the creativity and productivity

In a world that has grown increasingly smaller due to mass media, world travel, and readily available information, the workplace has grown increasingly diverse in both gender and cultural aspects. Individuals no longer live and work within the confines of their geographic locations. At almost any position with any company the individual employee is a part of a larger world economy that harvests assets from the ends of the earth. Because of this, companies seek to capitalize on diversity to become more creative and flexible in their business models.

There are some advantages and Disadvantages that come with managing a diverse workforce of which management must be aware of to guide them in the decision making processes in the organization. They also reflect on the findings on the research conducted on the case companies.