The opportunities and challenges of managing a diverse workforce

Introduction

Globalization has enabled many organizations to operate in more than one country.  The main reason for expansion is to exploit market opportunities, reduce the cost of operations and create global competitiveness. By crossing of geographical boundaries, organizations have a growing need to hire and maintain an exceptionally diverse and multicultural workforce.  With organizations becoming increasingly globalized, in-house teams become increasingly multi-cultural. A diverse workforce can yield greater competitive advantages for the benefit of the organization.

 It therefore, becomes necessary for organizations to embrace diversity and identify ways to become inclusive. Effective managers recognize the importance of employing certain skills to successfully manage a diverse workforce.  However, diversity also gives birth to intercultural issues. These Intercultural issues can interfere with the successful completion of organizational goals.   It is therefore important for today’s management to solve these problems that arise from managing the culturally diverse workforce. Understanding and Effective knowledge and management of diversity issues improves employee productivity and efficiency and enhances the competitive position of organizations. This paper discusses main issues in the management of a diverse workforce, new developments in the field and relevance to the workplace.

Main issues in the management of a diverse workforce

The workplace is made up of different people from diverse backgrounds, ages, cultures, ethnic, heritage, races, sexual orientation and other aspects of diversity. As a result, workplace diversity has become an essential concern as no organization can afford to unnecessarily restrict the engagement of different employees.  The management of a diverse workforce presents various opportunities and challenges.

Opportunities

High level of Productivity

Employees from the diverse background can offer a selection of diverse skills, talents, and experiences to the advantage of the organization. An organization’s competitiveness significantly depends upon its skills, talents, and experiences.  To realize the benefits, there is a need to embrace diversity and actively handling diversity issues. When management effectively manages diversity, it enables employees to feel that they belong to the organization irrespective of their cultural backgrounds. As a result, they are likely to put more effort and increase company’s profit and productivity.

Productivity also arises from teamwork and exchange of ideas. Individuals working on their own cannot perform at the same level as teams. A team allows each individual to contribute their ideas and offer a unique perspective specifically during problem-solving.  A diverse workforce also increases adaptability given that they can supply a greater range of solutions to problems.  Additionally, organizations that encourage diversity inspire individuals to perform to their highest ability. Organizational-wide strategies can easily be executed; resulting in high productivity, return on investment and profit.

Growth and Learning

A diverse workplace creates an opportunity for employees’ personal growth.  When employees are exposed to new culture, perspectives and ideas, they acquire a clearer insight of their place in the global environment.  As a result, diversity management is seen as the key to organizational growth in today’s fiercely competitive marketplace. No longer can organizations hide behind a lack of cultural intelligence. Seeking market relevancy involves embracing diversity in thinking, acting and innovating (Cullen & Parboteeah, 2014). Due to the function that diversity plays in organizational growth, its management is a time-sensitive business imperative. Additionally, diversity contributes to organizational growth by attracting and retaining talent that adds a competitive edge to any organization.

Effective Communication

Workplace diversity can significantly strengthen an organization’s relationship with its stakeholders by making communication more effective.  Organizations have adopted the practice of pairing up service personnel with clients that share the same characteristics. This makes customers feel at home with the representative and thus with the organization. It also increases organization’s language skills that propel organizations forward to effectively compete in the marketplace or increase its diverse customer base. A diverse workforce that feels comfortable when communicating varying viewpoints is a good source of experiences and ideas.  The business can draw from that pool to pursue business communication strategy needs and meet customers’ needs more effectively (Devine et al., 2007).

Diverse Experience

            A diverse workforce is a source of experience as employees come from diverse backgrounds. As a result, they bring to the table some unique experiences and perceptions during group tasks and teamwork. Pooling diverse skills and knowledge of a pool of culturally distinct individuals can greatly benefit the organization by strengthening the productivity and responsiveness of the team to adapt to the changing conditions (Yang & Konrad, 2011). The diverse workforce can also supply a greater variety of solutions to problems in allocation of resources, service, sourcing, and allocation of resources as they bring individual talents and experiences.

Improved Morale

Diverse culture in the workplace improves morale. The important advantage arises when diversity is well-managed, and individuals are trained on cultural awareness and sensitivity. The result is an organization where every person is validated and regarded as important regardless of their differences. Such affirmation of value improves employees’ morale and the collective positivity in the workplace.

Challenges

Individual versus Group Fairness

Diverse workplaces present a number of management challenges.  Trying to be fair to individuals may result in being unfair to a group.  Managers are faced with the issues of balancing between what is better and what is divisive.

Resistance to Change

The management of a diverse workforce is often characterized by resistance to change. When employees enter a different environment, they tend to suffer cultural shock, which is the disorientation and insecurity caused by encountering a new culture.  Organizational culture may be different from individuals’ culture. There are also cultural differences among employees.  A typical workplace is made up of employees from different walks of life with different experiences, cultural backgrounds, ethics, values, and personalities. With this form of diversity, there is bound to be a clash somewhere (Jamieson, & O'mara, 2000). Every workplace has a culture. Like people, workplaces differ in personalities. They have different moods and work atmospheres.  Workplace culture refers to core values, beliefs, rules of behavior, corporate ethics and attitudes held by employees in the workplace. Workplace culture defines how things are done. It guides how individuals in the workplace act, think and feel.  This gives rise to resistance. Employees may fear losing their face or not know how to act. As a result, they may become emotionally upset, often isolating themselves.  As a result, it is challenging to implement changes in organizations with a diverse workforce. 

Group cohesiveness and interpersonal conflict

Organizations are made up of a varied workforce. The workplace is filled with incredibly complex human beings with different personalities, values, and motivations. The sources of diversity in organizations may result from demographic factors, economic factors, and social factors among others. Inherent employee diversity is often linked to positive benefits to the organizations. However, it may also present some challenges. In keeping with this growing level of diversity, conflicts occur. Conflict is a product of non-functional diversity. Non- functional diversity presents a major challenge to organizations. The forms of diversity may cause harassment and hinder organizational effectiveness.  On the other hand, the highly stressful environment that characterizes workplaces is fertile ground that can promote the development of discrimination among employees.

Every employee at the workplace shares a certain relationship with other employees. It is human nature to relate to others and discuss ideas. Thus, a person cannot work in isolation; one requires other people around. In fact, an isolated environment will only negatively influence people’s motivation and spreads negativity around. It is critical that employees share positive relations with each other at the workplace.  When a work environment is friendly and efficient, the possibility of unproductive conflict within the work environment is minimized. Minimal conflicts result in the people being able to focus on the tasks at hand, hence becoming more productive. Conflict among employees may be expressed in the form of Passive Hostility and other forms of toxic behavior.

Retention

A poorly managed a diverse workforce may give rise to a hostile working environment that makes employees uncomfortable. Instances of discrimination or harassment may arise and jeopardize the victim's mental and emotional health. It may also compromise personal relationships, significant stress, and anxiety. In the short-term, employees will likely be irritated and dissatisfied with their job (Bassett, 2005). They are likely to be less productive in their position as much effort will be made replaying the harassment episodes and avoiding the harasser. Employees may begin leaving early, calling in sick more often or showing up late in efforts to avoid the harasser.  Harassment often alters employees’ confidence, making them less likely to speak up suggestions or new ideas. Employees may also feel that their organization has failed them. As a result, they may start resenting their jobs and searching for other organizations with accommodative policies.

New learning: Diversity management

Organizations are recognizing the need and significance of investing in diversity as a component of their general workforce management practices. The payoffs touch in all areas of the organization by potentially resulting in increased productivity, increased creativity, global understanding, new attitudes, new language skills, processes and new solutions to challenges. Organizations that effectively manage diversity record stronger customer loyalty, greater agility, innovation, better market insight and improved employee recruitment and retention.  Businesses that fail to see the significance of diversity might find themselves unable to attract and retain the kinds of employees, customers and stakeholders that constitute the changing world in the long-term.

Diversity management is an evolving concept. At the beginning, theories and models were developed from the need for pragmatic strategies to meet the objectives of civil rights movements. Today, global diversity management recognize the importance of implementing, planning and coordinating strategies for a growing number of organizations with global, transnational and international business activities. Central to this concept is the belief that businesses stand to benefit from having a diverse workforce. Therefore, it is in the best interest to understand and cater to the needs of individuals (Myers & Dreachslin, 2007).

Incidents that facilitated learning and understanding

Given that discrimination was a reality in the past, the need for constitutional protection increased. This led to the enactment of laws that prohibited different acts of discrimination, thus the birth of anti-discrimination legal frameworks. This formed the basis of the implementation of diversity management practices in organizations in order to meet legal requirements. Today, the need for diversity management largely arises from the need to achieve a competitive advantage particularly for organizations operating in the global marketplace. Organizational change, specifically as it relates to organizational culture is another reason for increased diversity management. Organizational change calls for a commitment to diversity as management make both implicit and explicit changes to bring about the organizational change necessary to competitive advantage.

These incidences call for valuing of diversity. Obtaining management commitment is critical for the realization of diversity objectives. This involves reflecting diversity in the organizational mission, vision, and strategy.  Further, management should demonstrate leadership behaviors that promote inclusivity. Additionally, they should commit resources to foster an organizational culture that values diversity and ensure effective implementation of resources. Some organizations go further and hire director of workforce diversity to manage and coordinate companywide diversity efforts. When diversity is valued and managed, it can be a useful tool for organizational success and growth.

Developing and implementing an organizational culture that supports diversity has some challenges that require management knowledge, commitment, skills, and efforts. It also requires a type of organizational culture in which every employee is encouraged to succeed and grow without being inhibited by gender, race, age, religion, nationality or other factors that are not related to performance. HRM is required to develop a culture that helps people to embrace diversity and unify them in order to augment organizational performance and effectiveness. In addition, they endeavor to promote a positive work environment that promotes a positive working environment that enhances satisfaction, commitment, and satisfaction of diverse people. However, the effects of diversity can also be negative or neutral depending on how well it is managed. Hence, a successful diversity management program must address culture in order to create an environment where diversity is nurtured and valued.

Diversity management and cultural practices

Many organizations are now working with the motto that their workforce characteristics should mirror customers’ characteristics. The need to manage diversity, therefore, arises from the need to satisfy the requirements of diversified customers. What’s more, dynamic companies are implementing essential Human Resource strategies. There are various diversity management practices that human resource departments implement including diversity related recruitment, managing workforce diversity, diversity-related selection, diversity-related training, and diversity-related rewards programmes.

Diversity-Related Recruitment

 Recruitment programs that are diversity-related help organizations gain competitive advantage by recruiting diverse people. Many international organizations hire people with diverse characteristics to mirror the nature of the diverse market. Such programs have been important in realizing the importance of gender diversity.  Achieving greater diversity calls for recruitment strategies to attract diverse potential employees. Diversity recruitment is in line with increasing collaborative and team-based structures of the modern organization.

Managing Workforce Diversity

There are various workforce diversity practices that organizations carryout. They include aligning diversity goals and objectives with organizational goals and missions. Others include developing recruiting strategies designed to augment diversity and advertisements. For example, an organization can advertise positions through media that can reach a diverse audience. An effective diversity management program should promote respect for individual differences and encourage members of the organization to see their differences as benefits rather than disadvantages. It also involves creating a good environment where employees support one another and communicate. This way, employee can be comfortable with diversity reflected in the work environment. Management should also clearly identify and outlines organizational beliefs and values in relation to diversity.

Diversity-Related Selection

Selection programmes for effective diversity recruitment are implemented by human resources based on diversity sensitive criteria.  Selection-related programs include selection process based on job-relevant duties, the presence of managers in committees, competencies, qualifications, experience, and one that complies with anti-discrimination laws.

Diversity-Related Training

Diversity-related programmes refer to a systematic process in which employees are well-informed about the socio-economic, cultural, religious and racial differences among employees. It can be separated two categories: skilled-based and awareness-based. Skill-based training is focused towards promoting change in behavior while awareness-based is focused in enhancing employee knowledge.  Training programs may be in the form of seminars, workshops, and experiential exercises. Benefits of effective diversity-related training programs include the development of latent skills and talents among employees, the realization of innovative potential and employee empowerment.  Often, individuals may feel unable to move forward in an organization owing to factors such as gender, race, and cultural differences. Training allows these individuals to realize their innovative potential as they may feel valued and more willing to get make extra effort and increase their knowledge and skills for the benefit of themselves, their teams and organizations.

Diversity-Related Rewards Programmes

Promoting diversity may also necessitate the use of reward programs. Many organizations unambiguously provide incentives to managers based on their performance in diversity management. These programs are meant to help minorities in organization advance through their career. 

Applications and relevance to the typical workplace

Managing diversity involves effective planning and implementation of organizational practices and systems to manage workforce with the aim of minimizing potential disadvantages and maximizing potential advantages. Diversity management provides a distinct advantage in an era when creativity and flexibility are keys to competitiveness.  Diversity management begins with an understanding of how various dimensions of diversity affect motivation, performance, interactions, and success of the organization and its members. Organizational practices and structures that present barriers to some dimensions of diversity are challenged examined and removed.

Besides being ethical and social, cultivating a diverse workforce demonstrates a good business-oriented approach. Effective diversity management does not only involve effectively and efficiently accepting and accommodating individual differences, but also supporting, nurturing and utilizing these differences for organizations. A shared responsibility between human resource managers and top executives is critical to learning and recognizing these differences. Valuing diversity is not enough. Managers must develop an organizational culture that supports diversity initiatives.

Conclusion

It has become necessary for organizations to embrace diversity and identify ways to become inclusive. Effective managers recognize the importance of employing certain skills to successfully manage a diverse workforce.  Diverse workplaces present a number of management opportunities and challenges. The payoffs touch in all areas of the organization by potentially resulting in increased productivity, increased creativity, global understanding, new attitudes, new language skills, processes and new solutions to challenges. Challenges include conflicts and resistance to change. It is therefore important for today’s management to solve these problems that arise from managing the culturally diverse workforce. Understanding and Effective knowledge and management of diversity issues improves employee productivity and efficiency and enhances the competitive position of organizations.

References

Bassett‐Jones, N. (2005). The paradox of diversity management, creativity and innovation. Creativity and innovation management, 14(2), 169-175.

Cullen, J.B., & Parboteeah, K.P. (2014). Multinational management: A strategic approach (6th ed.). Mason, OH: Southwestern

Devine, F., Baum, T., Hearns, N., & Devine, A. (2007). Managing cultural diversity: opportunities and challenges for Northern Ireland hoteliers. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 19(2), 120-132.

Jamieson, D., & O'MARA, J. U. L. I. E. (2000). Gaining the Diversity Advantage. Workforce, 15.

Myers, V. L., & Dreachslin, J. L. (2007). Recruitment and retention of a diverse workforce: challenges and opportunities. Journal of Healthcare Management, 52(5), 290-298.

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

Carolyn Morgan is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in nursing research paper writing service California. If you need a similar paper you can place your order from nursing paper writing services Pennsylvania.