Working in a Diverse Work Environment - Essay Example

Working in a Diverse Work Environment Working in a Diverse Work Environment The business world has encountered many changes as result of the rapid globalization that is taking place worldwide. Globalization has increased the need for people to depend upon one another putting aside their cultures, beliefs and originalities. Competition in the market has led to people abandoning the culture of living and working insularly and has made them adopt the policy of togetherness. Due to this reason, both profit oriented and nonprofit making organizations need to implement diversity that is more creative and change oriented. Management personnel need to maximize and capitalize on the diversity culture at their work places. Australia is among the world’s leading countries in terms of the number of races existing in the country and hence managers and supervisors of all the organization in the country need to be well updated on the issue of diversity in work places. Management of diversity is a significant challenge in many organizations in Australia and hence the managers and supervisors need to understand working efficiently in a multicultural work environment. The management should therefore be in the forefront in encouraging multicultural cooperation within their organization. Diversity is defined as the acknowledgement, apprehension, admitting, valuing and appreciating the differences among people with respect to their age class ethnicity gender physical and mental abilities(Daly,2001,p7). It can also be defined as the concept of understanding that every individual is different in his or her own way and exploring the differences in a safe, positive and fair way. Diversity involves tolerating each other and goes to the extent of embracing each other despite our differences. In Australia, diversity in workplaces is important for sustaining the economy now and it is more important for the future days since diversity is growing rapidly. An organization with different diversities has a rich pool of employees that has the potential and capability of productivity and has potential competitive advantage. A diverse workforce can be a situation where by the organization has people of many races all working together in a department. It can also be a situation where the organization does not deny a person a job due to his physical disability. A good example is the new farming for Australia (NFA) organization that is led by an African CEO despite the fact that it is in a white country. Diversity of the workforce can also be seen as employing both men and women to work together and not classifying jobs in according to gender. The Avis Company of car hiring exercised diversity by employing women drivers and it produced positive effects since the number of customers increased by 9% in a period of only three months(Sinclair, 2000, p.239). The issue of women involvement in work places should be emphasized since the number of single families has highly risen in Australia. Working in a diversified work environment has many advantages both to the employees and to the organization. A diverse workforce is beneficial to the organization and to the country as a whole since it increases the rate of economic growth. The sustainability of the human capital in any organization is enriched by the involvement of different races, women, nonages and even homosexuals in the work force. Each individual despite their characteristic has at least one factor that other people do not have and this small factor could be what the company is lacking for its success. People should not be judged by their sexuality, beliefs or race when being recruited into the job environment if the company has to realize this unique benefit. This benefits overflows to the economic growth of the country since the more revenue will be collected from the profits of the company. The involvement of all kinds of people in the workforce also leads to growth in the GDP(Cope and Kalantzis,2013, p.17). Bringing together people from different races, cultures and regions leads to more effectiveness in marketing of the products. Consumers find it easy to purchase a product just because it has a close relationship with them. The Avis Company in Australia experienced increased number of women customers because of employing women drivers. Diversification of the work force creates a market situation where each customer has a reason to get associated with company or their products and thus sales are increased. A company that recruits its employees from a pool of diversified people has more chances of finding a workforce that is more qualified and competent. They have the probability of acquiring the very best in the market( Leonard and Levine, 2006, p.550). The high levels of competition in the market require highly competent employees with talent and the only way to acquire such employees is by encouraging diverse people to come into your interviews. A diverse workforce reduces the chances of employee turnover in the business since with existence of a diverse workforce cases of discrimination are minimal. Without diversification, the minority individuals d o not fill comfortable and with time they tend to move to other companies where they can find comfort(Jayne,and Dipboye ,2004,p.411). Retaining employee helps the company evade expenses that would have been incurred in looking for a new employee if the current employee happened to leave the company because of not being comfortable. By practical means, it is also evident that boredom in the workplace is reduced by diversifying the work force. A diverse workforce fosters creativity and innovation due to the different experiences, backgrounds and qualifications that each individual employee has. The different characteristics in a diverse workforce makes it more reliable in problem saving. Diversity in workplaces brings together people if different cultures and thus ethnic hatred is minimized which leads to national unity. Entrepreneurialismis motivated by diversity since no group of people can coexist without the others. Australia is a country with diverse people leading mega businesses in the country(Ely and Thomas, 2001,p.240). A recent report showed that 12% of the leading business was under management of people of other nationalities, 16% by women and 0.7% were by physically challenged people. This shows that for economy to be successful, every person has to be involved and from the diverse pool, the country moves forward economically. For implementation of diversity in organization, the managers must understand various strategies in order to enjoy the benefits of diversity in workplaces. The first strategy is understanding the consequences that are brought about by discrimination among the employees. Discrimination of the employees leads to their potential not being fully used. An employee being discriminated will not work to his best since he lacks motivation to work. The second strategy is understanding the cultural biases and prejudice among different groups of people. With this understanding, they will be able to appreciate other people since each and every group of people has their weaknesses and strengths at the same time. Working together helps fills the gaps of weaknesses and expands the boundaries of strengths(Buchanan and Callus,2011, p.4). Another strategy is ensuring that the recruitment of employees is made from a pool of employee with diversity. This ensure that in the end the employees in organization will be diverse and the benefits if diversity will be manifested. The final strategy is educating the employees on the benefits of diversity. Most employees discriminate the others due to lack of understanding on the benefits of diversification and hence educating them on this benefits would help reduce the cases of discrimination. In conclusion, diversification is the only way to fit into the changing world in terms of economics. A diversified pool of employees increases the value of the employees and creates a more competitive group that is more innovative and problem solving. A diversified environment creates a situation of equality since fairness is upheld and there is an equal chance of opportunities as well as challenges. References Buchanan, J., and Callus, R. 2011. Efficiency and equity at work: the need for labour market regulation in Australia. Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol35 no4, pp.515-537. Cope, B., and Kalantzis, M. 2013. Making diversity work: the changing cultures of Australian workplaces.NASW Press. Washington,D.C Daly, A. 2001. Workplace diversity: Issues and perspectives. NASW Press .Washington, D.C Ely, R. J., and Thomas, D. A. 2001. Cultural diversity at work: The effects of diversity perspectives on work group processes and outcomes. Administrative Science Quarterly, vol46 no 2 pp 229-273. Jayne, M. E., & Dipboye, R. L. 2004. Leveraging diversity to improve business performance: Research findings and recommendations for organizations. Human resource management, vol43 no4, pp. 409-424. Leonard, J. S., and Levine, D. I. 2006. The effect of diversity on turnover: A large case study. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol 4 no 1 pp 547-572. Sinclair, A. 2000. Women within diversity: risks and possibilities. Women in Management Review, vol 5,no 4 pp.237-246. Read More