Change in my company

¶ … working for a small but dynamic firm. While the company is truly interested in progress, change and growth, it tends to ignore one or two key aspects in its pursuit for technological advancement and efficiency. I must admit that in the past few years, the company has focused on introduction of new technological innovations so much so that they partially ignored something that I feel strongly about i.e. diversity training in the firm. While speed and efficiency have increased somewhat, I feel team performance has suffered due to increasing conflicts among team members-most of whom belong to varying ethnic and social backgrounds.

Diversity training focuses on educating employees about significance of diversity and how it can be have a positive impact on performance, reputation and overall progress. It also tells managers how to best manage diversity i.e. how to minimize conflicts, motivate every individual and get results without unnecessary delays.

In the past few months, I have been noticing increasing resentment among employees and conflicts seem to be on the rise. Initially I couldn't understand why this was happening but now I feel it has something to do with technological changes that have been introduced in last few years. Prior to these changes, people were working harmoniously with each other and our workplace generated real positive energy. But over the years, things seem to have changed. People have become less tolerant of each other. There is cut-throat competition which has replaced positive working relationships with resentment and politics. It appears that everyone has something negative to say about others and all of a sudden, people have become less tolerant of employees of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

It was only two weeks back that Tom, our division supervisor got in a serious disagreement with Zain, our finance manager who is an Asian. We didn't take much notice of it but it all turned very ugly when Tom started using bad language targeted at Asians precisely. It hit us all very hard and we realized that company was in serious need of diversity training because for some odd reason, we had become highly critical of each other and minorities groups seemed to suffer the most. Sonya feels that it was because of technological advancement which had made people insecure about their jobs. This insecurity had created competition and everyone wanted to keep their job at any costs. Foreigners and people of minority groups were looked down upon and considered inferior by some who felt that if downsizing occurs, it should first hit these supposedly less skilled people.

I on the other hand feel that there are no inferior people in our firm. Everyone is selected after a painfully lengthy procedure that assesses a person's education, his ability to apply his knowledge, his expertise in given area, his past record and his temperament. For this reason, I am of the view that employees must be trained in diversity management. But before that can start, it is the management that must be provided adequate training in dealing with employee concerns. Management especially HR personnel are not making a serious effort in understanding the problems being encountered by employees. They are not paying closer attention to increasing conflicts and politics in the firm. HR people need to first take every single person into confidence about future plans of the firm regarding their jobs. Is the firm planning to downsize? If yes, how and when will the process begin and what percentage of employees is likely to lose its jobs? If not, why doesn't the firm tell the people about it so everyone can feel secure about their futures?