Workforce Diversity

Introduction

Human beings can have differences in not only race and gender but also cultures, ideas, religion and many more. These differences make humans unique and special in varying ways. For instance, the unique and different traits in humans can lead to conflicts and can also lead to creativity in terms of cultures and beliefs. With the invention of technology, the world has become a ‘village’ where people from different places can meet on the internet and discuss work ideas. People from different backgrounds and geographical locations meet every day in the city and workplaces with the purpose of earning a living. Different people from different places have different beliefs and principles that may affect their co-workers in workplaces. Ethnic diversity is often good for any organization since it opens the organization to different markets, opportunities and ideas. However, the workers may not co-relate well in the organization since they all have a certain different way of doing things. This article analyses the challenges that organizations face as a result of workforce diversity and its implications.

Workforce diversity refers to the age difference and similarities among the employees, culture, abilities and disabilities, gender, religion race and social background among others. Having a diversified is an added advantage over the other organization but also a big challenge (Yang 2011). Managing a big organization with a diversified workforce is challenging especially for the managers and bosses since they have to balance all the interests and believes of many different people in the organization.

Workforce diversity is also of importance to the employees because it necessitates:

Mutual respect: Workforce diversities encourage mutual respect among the employees. Sometimes managers place employees in groups to work together. Employees will respect each other in the groups in order to work together. Employees will be used to working with people from different diversities and learn to respect their decisions.

Resolves conflicts: Conflicts in workplaces are inevitable. Employees can conflict with ideas, and every small issue in the organization. Workplace diversities preservers the employee respect and relationships with each other. This will help resolve conflicts among the employees in an organization since the employees understand and respect the different cultures of different employees in the organization. This minimizes employee conflicts in the organization.

Increased exposure: A diverse workplace exposes the employees to different ideas, cultures, and backgrounds. Employees can learn from their colleagues' different methods of doing something and adopt the method or improve their ways of doing something (Potsiandowlski et al. 2013). This will help the company increase their quality of products and open them to new markets in different countries (pits 2010). The traditional workers can learn how to operate modern technology machines and the modern day employees can learn how to operate old machines for the betterment of the company.

Job promotions: Job promotions can occur under different circumstances. A diverse workplace encourages promotions in workplaces since a person from a certain diversity can be promoted to lead a branch of the organization in his/her country. This will lead to promotion from an employee to a manager of a branch.

Increased creativity: Organizations with workforce diversities enjoy increased creativity since there is sharing of ideas among employees from different parts of the world to form a perfect end product (Kormanik 2010). They can all discuss the perfect way to perform the procedures and the methodology of doing something and agree on the best method to do it or come up with a new improved method which will be of importance to the company.

With a diversified organization, hiring new talents and maintaining the old quality talents is very easy since only the real and qualified personnel will apply for the job. Everyone needs to be associated with an international organization making the workers work harder to maintain their job positions in the organization producing a quality product.

Diversities in workforces have a reputation advantage to a business organization. Having employees from different backgrounds and countries will automatically increase the organizations' reputation from a local organization to an international organization (Jonsen 2011). Having an international reputation increases the market and profitability of the organization since people from all diversities will be interested in the organization’s doing. It will also increase loyalty from the customers since they believe a diversified workplace employs its employees fairly and based on qualifications and not race or tribe.

Workforce diversity increases productivity in an organization. Different employees and provide different solutions to a problem affecting the organization or the customers. With different solutions, the organization will be able to pick the best available solution to a problem and solve the problem. This is an advantage compared to ethnic-based organizations since they will have limited solutions.

Although workforce diversities has many advantages, disadvantages are also overwhelming. An organization with a diverse workforce must create a working environment that promotes and respect the differences of each employee(Garnero 2014).

Workplace diversities also has many disadvantages which include:

Language Barrier: Languages in the world are many and all involve different dialects depending on the culture and the geographical locations. There are universal languages in the world like English and French but not every individual understands or speaks the universal languages(Cascio 2018). In a diversified workforce, there are any workers who speak different languages since they come from different parts of the world. Communication is the key channel to a successful organization (Garnero 2014). There is the need for communication and understanding between the employers and the employees for an organization to be successful. With people from diverse backgrounds, this is a problem since they might not speak the same language. The language barrier can lead to the downfall of an organization.

Training: A diversified workforce involves employees from different parts of the world. An employee from Africa can be trained different from an employee from America and this can lead to differences in working styles and patterns of employees (Cascio 2018). An organization will have to spend other funds and train the employees for them to work well with each other in the organization. This is a disadvantage for the company since extra funds will have been used for the training instead of other company activities.

Accommodations: Employees need to be comfortable in order to work competently. In a diversified organization, containing people from all over the world will need stable accommodation which will be provided by the organization(Byars et al. 2011). Unlike the ethnic-based organizations, which the employees come from around the workplace and commutes to work, a diversified organization has to provide accommodations, inside or outside the organization for the employees to live.

Transitioning difficulties: Adjusting from one norm to another is difficult. Adjusting from living in one geographical area to living in another area is even more difficult. The employees from different parts of the world will find a problem in adjusting personal believes and norms in order to fit the organizational standards and the area in which the organization is based(Byars et al. 2011). This is a major disadvantage since some of the employees will struggle and some will not be able to adjust to the changes and this will affect their performance.

People from all over the planet can meet and will need to work together in an organization to ensure its success. The success of the organization will depend on how the workers will relate to each other and communicate on the issues affecting the organization. Workforce diversity has a great impact in terms of its advantages and its disadvantages in any organization. Upcoming companies need to adapt and diversify their companies since it widens the markets of their organization. When workforce diversity is adopted, different creativities and innovations are brought with it to the company increasing its productivity. Nevertheless, Workforce diversity also has disadvantages which are mostly to the company. The company has to spend funds to adjust its work environment to suit global standards and also the organization has to train its employees which are also costly. A diversified company attracts a global market encouraging investors from all over the world to invest in the business. A diversified organization also makes it easier to hire and maintain real and quality talent since people from all over will need to be a part of the organization. The purpose of having and managing an organization is to succeed. Organizations nowadays realize that diversifying workforce is important since it has worked with several other companies and they also need to be successful.

Byars-Winston, A., Gutierrez, B., Topp, S. and Carnes, M., 2011. Integrating theory and practice to increase scientific workforce diversity: a framework for career development in graduate research training. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 10(4), pp.357-367.

Cascio, W., 2018. Managing human resources. McGraw-Hill Education.

Garnero, A., Kampelmann, S. and Rycx, F., 2014. The heterogeneous effects of workforce diversity on productivity, wages, and profits. Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, 53(3), pp.430-477.

James, J.B., McKechnie, S. and Swanberg, J., 2011. Predicting employee engagement in an age‐diverse retail workforce. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 32(2), pp.173-196.

Jonsen, K., Maznevski, M.L. and Schneider, S.C., 2011. Special review article: Diversity and its not so diverse literature: An international perspective. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 11(1), pp.35-62.

Kormanik, M.B. and ChyleRajan, H., 2010. Implications for diversity in the HRD curriculum drawn from current organizational practices on addressing workforce diversity in management training. Advances in developing Human resources, 12(3), pp.367-384.

Pitts, D.W. and Recascino Wise, L., 2010. Workforce diversity in the new millennium: Prospects for research. Review of public personnel administration, 30(1), pp.44-69.

Podsiadlowski, A., Gröschke, D., Kogler, M., Springer, C. and Van Der Zee, K., 2013. Managing a culturally diverse workforce: Diversity perspectives in organizations. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 37(2), pp.159-175.

Yang, Y. and Konrad, A.M., 2011. Understanding diversity management practices: Implications of institutional theory and resource-based theory. Group & Organization Management, 36(1), pp.6-38.