Diversity in the workplace as a corporate competitive advantage

¶ … Diversity in the Workplace a Worthwhile Goal for Corporations?

The American workplace has been changing over the past decade. This change has moved from the Anglo-white male population to diverse segments of the population. Diversity includes the growing number of women in the workforce, people of different religions, people with diverse education background, Aging workers, and people from different ethnic groups as well as handicapped individuals. Companies and organizations must use and understand the human potential of workers of diverse qualities. Only those organizations that recognize people of diverse cultures will retain the best talent in the market. Diversity in workplace is a worthwhile venture for organizations due to numerous benefits including improvements in performance, organization image, productivity, and competitive advantage.

When one speaks of diversity in the workplace, thoughts of racial diversity, sexual equality, and affirmative action begin to emerge. However, workplace diversity is more than that since there are other important aspects to consider. For the case of prosperous corporations consideration have to be made on the contributions of women, aging workers, ethnic diverse workforce, handicapped individuals as well as people with diverse educational backgrounds. Therefore, diversity is an important goal for organizations in order to achieve corporate goals (Victoria, Stevens and Jeffrey 121). Diversity relates to language, ethnicity, cultural background, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, as well as gender.

For employees in an organization to feel their needs are equally addressed by the management, the following aspects need considerations: all people in the workplace need to treat one another with respect and dignity, decisions are to be made genuinely and fairly, the corporation should provide a safe and healthy working environment and management should avoid discriminating against any individual. Diversity in organizations is the quality of being unique and different. Every employee has personal characteristics that distinguish them from the rest, and this is what the corporation needs to consider (P; Ilmakunnas and S; Ilmakunnas 223-228). Moreover, work diversity considers the basic principles of Equal Employment Opportunities. This principle maintains that employees are entitled to the same treatment in an organization despite their personal or physical qualities.

In the Australian Public Service, the work diversity related plans involve measures related to disadvantaged women, people with disabilities, and those of non- English language speaking backgrounds. The service is concerned with legal compliance of the corporation as well as their levels of fairness. There are laws and regulation set up by the service for organizations to follow in their process of recruitment and promotions (Bassett-Jones 169-175). Despite all the efforts and set backs of these policies, the aim of the service is to go beyond promoting equality in the workforce and rectifying past mistakes. The purpose of diversity in organizations is to improve the productivity thus remain competitive in the market.

It is a notion that the term diversity is associated with the need to have economic and social fairness and morality, but the real need of diversity is to increase productivity of corporations as well as creating an edge in the global arena. The need of diversity must stem from awareness of corporate implications relating to the needs of workforce teams, satisfying the needs of the community and maintaining a competitive stand. Organizations gain a lot from diversifying their workforce. It is a worth venture for any organization to diversify their workforce. However, corporations have to promote awareness of diversity within the firm, maintain, and develop skilled and effective workforce, where employees are provided with the opportunity to develop their potential by way of encouragement. Further, organizations need to have a supportive organizational culture that allows employees to juggle between work and personal living. Corporations also need to embrace harassment and discrimination free environment, as well as apply fair principles while recruiting and selecting workers.

Benefits of Workforce Diversity

There are many benefits in diversifying workers in corporations; these benefits not only benefit the corporation but the members of the community and employees. The benefits of diversity is not limited to efficient decision making, greater creativity, better innovations and improved decision making. These qualities lead to an improvement of product developed and even improved marketing. Therefore, an organization that promotes diversity of the workforce has a better global dimension. By linking up a variety of talents from unique individuals, the corporations provide better products and expand their markets with ease. Recognition of talents goes a long way in cultivating a culture of commitment within workers allowing them to contribute in a unique way (Bassett-Jones 169-175). According to the theory "Standpoint," marginalized groups of employees bring a different perspective to management of the organization. These individuals have unique characteristics, which challenges the status quo within organizations from that of dominant workforce.

Although this influence on the status quo may lead to conflicts, leaders should be in a position to give guidance to all teams involved. One should not ignore the fact that diversity may be a challenging task for corporations. Therefore, organization's management teams need to foster and include corporate environment that caters for divergent ideas and thoughts. The management needs to avoid prejudice and stereotyping, develop frameworks for decision-making, increase morale of teams, and improve communication channels. The organization need to increase its utilization of skills, abilities, and talents; provide a flexible schedule for family, work, and personal responsibilities. The team managing affairs of the organization need also to promote a fair and equitable staff selection, and provide a friendly and supportive work environment.

Strategies for Working with Diversity

Corporations must provide members of staff with skills to operate in a diverse environment. This means an employee must understand their personal cultures as well as other cultures. Through awareness and other forms of communications from the corporations, employees understand their values, attitudes, beliefs, weaknesses, strength and behaviors, as well as those of colleagues and communities. There are strategies to employ in creating a diverse working environment. Some of these strategies that corporation can employ are; offering educational and training facilities, creation of organizational policies that promote equity and fairness of employees, creation of programs for minority groups and develop performance appraisal programs that are non-discriminatory. However, application of these programs will not yield the desired outcome if there is no commitment from the management. Therefore, diversity is a worth venture for organizations since it leads to better management of activities, ensures creativity, and promotes innovations.

Gender Diversity

Results from empirical studies suggest that diversity may have a positive effect in the workplace. In respect to this, women have contributed a lot to the growth of economies in the world. In the past women held low responsibility tasks or temporary jobs in organizations. During this period, women's first responsibilities were that of taking care of families. Married women were likely to quit after becoming pregnant while unmarried women were likely to quit after being married (Barreto, Michelle and Michael 28). In addition, it was a belief that women were not either capable emotionally, physically or mentally as men. In today's workplace, there has been a growth in the number of women holding positions. Women no longer take temporal assignments and are seen as equals to men. This cultural shift in the workplaces has a great advantage to corporations. Gender diversity in workplaces provides an opportunity for learning; assists in achieving better performance and assists in connecting to a large range of consumers

Like men, women have the right skills, talent, and creativity. Organizations have to adjust to these changes where women hold high positions in organizations unlike in the past. Laws and policies to cater for women needs in the organization, and to control acts of discrimination against women are in practice in many organizations, however, there are women who still value their family first and this has made organizations strategize on handling such cases. Research by Barreto et al. suggests the creation of a program named "Mommy Track" (28). In this program, women whose families' are a first priority get flexible working hours that require them to work for lesser time in exchange for limited growth and lesser pay. This system recognizes the diversity of women employees and incorporates their needs in organizations.

However, feminist argue that the program licenses corporations to discriminate against women. They argue that women employees should be entitled to flexible working hours while having unlimited level of advancement. In corporation, women need to have equal opportunities as men, homosexual couples given the same treatment as their heterosexual counterparts. In Germany, gender diversity is a practice of big, medium, and small sized corporations. This trend in Germany is due to encouragement from other European countries that have practiced gender diversification (Barreto et. al. 32). In Europe diversification of the workforce, has resulted in an increase in productivity, improvement of corporations' image, raised employee motivation, and cause an improvement in customer satisfaction. Gender diversification in a corporation, therefore, promotes creativity, innovation and motivates employee towards achieving organizational goals.

Ethnic Diversity

Ethnicity in the corporation can help link the organization with its goals and customers. Ethnicity is a crucial aspect of organization since ethnicity relates to psychological and attitudes of workers. Studies show that in various organizations there are individuals of ethnic groups with minority representation. Workers like to associate with members of their ethnicity since they can share their experiences and attitudes. In the United States of America, studies reveal that Latino and African-American workers seek linkages. These linkages may be either of a friendship nature or networks of communication with other members inside or outside their working unit (Pitts 615-621). The study further argues that the more a worker interacts with members of their ethnicity the more their job satisfaction improves.

However, the study did not consider the other scenario where there is a high representation of African-American and Latinos workers. Analyzing this varied scenario proves that there is a direct relationship between concentration of ethnic groups and low performance. The low performance associates to poor working conditions, a situation which has negative impacts on the psychological well being of workers. In contrast, many corporate managers and workers argue that ethnic diversity has little impact on organizations. Considering the Australian labor force, a large proportion of managers thought that ethnic diversity had a positive impact on organizations. Authors of this topic suggest that ethnic diversity is a norm than embraced (Poster 321). The argument supporting this is that employees have a positive attitude towards ethnicity in corporation. However, there is variation in feelings about the extent of its benefits.

Ethnic diverse workforce had positive outcomes, and there was a positive attitude towards ethnic diversity in organizations. Therefore, there is a need for leaders, to create favorable environments to cater for this diversity than resisting it. Unilever a corporation, which embraces ethnically workforce, is already benefiting (Pitts 619). The company has a lower turnover rate, and it has increased its profit margin. Organizations that invest at the ethnicity of workforce add knowledge, new skills, and new talents and generate innovative ideas.

Embracing diversity means that a corporation will be able to interconnect at a global level with ease. The benefits of managing ethnic diversity include the following; growth of business in relation to cultural, networks and market intelligence, increased rate of productivity and innovation, increased level of motivation and increased number of ideas generated. Workforce, which is multicultural, has an advantage in different market segments. For example, the knowledge of a foreign language will be of advantage in cases where one has to do business oversees. Unilever has outlets at various locations all over the world. Its diverse workforce has made the organization penetrate markets once unattainable.

Diversity in Educational Backgrounds

Various human resource scholars say that diversity in the workplace has a number of benefits. Some of the benefits include a clear understanding of the market place, improved problem solving ability of groups and a better use of talent. Organizations have individuals with different classification of educational background. When one looks at the educational qualification of workers in a mining company, one will realize that they come from diverse educational backgrounds. There are various groups of engineers, technicians, and office staff. These groups of employees come from diverse educational backgrounds, and their interactions meet organizational goals. Organizations should avoid conflicts between groups, which can be a hindrance to goal development. Diversity in organization teams reduce work conflict, reduce absenteeism, and improve on productivity.

Diversity in Religion

Sixty four percent of organization report to having employees with religious diversification in the United States of America. Religious diversification includes those who have faith in a deity as well as those who do not belief in an established religious faith. Medium and large organizations can report employees with religious following. However, organization with multinational branches reports a greater religious variation than those in one country. Religious affiliation in an organization assists with its growth and performance. Therefore, accommodation of these diverse religious affiliations builds high performance in teams. Many respondents of various studies belief that, employees of various religious following work cooperatively.

Management should be accommodating to employees religious needs. Corporation should protect the rights of employees against religious discrimination. According to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, employers are required to observe employees religious beliefs sincerely as requested. The condition can however be neglected in cases where accommodation may lead to undue influence on the operation of the business. These protections however apply to where a person's religious beliefs are non-religious, religious or of the mainstream nature. Religious diversity in the workplace has been a rising trend in recent times. The situation comes because of migration of workers as well as globalization.

Human resource practitioners recognize that those organizations, which value the religious beliefs of employees, tend to benefit from high performance. A Survey of nearly 550 corporation show that religious accommodation is among the top priorities of organizations. These organizations took into account holiday events, allowed decorations of workplaces and offered flexible work schedules to accommodate various religious rights. The workforce of the United States of America has become diverse, and employers need to capitalize on this diversity to reach at corporate goals. According to the practitioners, employees' whose religious and cultural beliefs gain acceptance in organizations, tend to align their efforts towards the organization. Therefore, organizations and management need to recognize this far from a legal requirement (Kossek, Sharon and Jennifer 53-74)

Diversification in Age

Age differences have an impact on corporations. There is no direct link between age and performance. However, the indirect interaction between individuals of diverse age groups may result to negative emotions, which influences the overall performance of an organization. Age diversity triggers fears, anger, and sometimes disgust (Desmette and Mathieu 178). These negative emotions arise only because there are differences between an older experienced employers and a young employee. These groups of employees do things differently, behave differently, and have different preferences and different values. The difference can lead to group formations, which may result in misunderstandings or even discrimination.

Age diversity on the other hand may result in negative emotions if people are allowed to express their feelings. If the management teams and department heads can suppress these emotions, then the organizations will have fewer conflicts. As evident, there is no link between age and performance. The only problem that arises is on the fact that employees of various age groups tend to have negative emotions. Managers of highly age diverse corporation should develop strategies of suppressing emotions. These are one of the measures that they can employ in suppressing the menace; creating a complaint channel where members of the organization can express their feeling without involving supervisors or colleagues (Desmette and Mathieu 174).