Diversity in the Corporate Setting - Assignment Example

Diversity Explain diversity? Diversity is extremely important part of life, especially in the present heavily globalized world. Because of globalization, the interconnections between the people of different cultures across the world have been increased substantially in recent times. Even though the term “diversity” is familiar to many, only few people know the definition of diversity or what is meant by diversity. According to Harvey and Allard any parameter or dimension that differentiates a group from another group can be referred as diversity. For example, people all over the world are different in terms of ethnicity, culture, language, verbal and nonverbal communication means, gender, age, nationality, abilities and disabilities, sexual orientation, education, and religion. In other words, the above mentioned parameters are some of the major elements that decide diversity. For an employer, seeking to manage workplace diversity, it is necessary to know all the dimensions of diversity. Nowadays, diversity model in the corporate world is giving more importance to inclusive diversity (Harvey & Allard). According to Ali Algahtani (p.53), “building an inclusive diverse culture is a difficult task that requires long-term commitment. Diversity programs are essential to cope with rapid demographic changes in the global marketplace”. Many of the people in this world are highly religious in nature. It would be difficult for them to accept the beliefs and cultures of people of another religion. Therefore, the formation of an inclusive diverse culture in a workplace, from the above cultural groups could be difficult. For example, Sundays are sacred days for Christians whereas Fridays are sacred days for the Muslims. Therefore, Christians may not be interested in working on Sundays and Muslims may not be interested in working on Fridays. An employer should be aware of these things while managing a diverse workforce in his workplace. He should be able to provide separate weekly off days for people of different religions, in order to make all of them happy, instead of insisting weekly off to all only on a particular day. Even though formation of an inclusive diverse culture is difficult, nobody has any doubt about the benefits of diversity in the communities and workplaces. Harvey and Allard mentioned that diversity helps the corporate world in innovation, outside-the-box thinking, better governance, enhanced decision making, and enhanced problem solving skills. It should be noted that the thinking patterns of one culture need not be the same as that of another culture. The blending of two different thinking patterns may create a better thinking pattern. That is why Harvey and Allard mentioned that corporate diversity enlarges the dominance of the business. In short, diversity has many benefits and drawbacks as far as an employer is concerned. It is necessary for the employer to manage a diverse workforce judiciously in order to reduce the diversity related drawbacks as much as possible and to increase the benefits. Harvey & Allard mentioned that leaders need special skills like effective communication, self-monitoring, empathy, and excellent strategies for decision making to be able to manage diverse groups properly. In what ways can immigration be useful for an organization? According to Harvey and Allard, diversity subjects are not fixed, but they will change over time according to the local and global dynamic conditions. For example, immigration is a controversial topic in many parts of the world. In western countries such as America and Europe as well as in the Middle East, immigration is a major social problem. It should be noted that many people from Asian countries such as India, Pakistan, Philippines and Sri Lanka are working in the above mentioned countries or regions. In fact, the number of locals in some of the Middle Eastern countries is less than that of the expatriates. As a result of that, many social and demographic problems are arising in these countries. At the same time, the contributions of the immigrant community in the development of Middle Eastern states as well as America and Europe cannot be undervalued. It should not be forgotten that these countries are struggling because of the manpower shortage. In fact majority of the people working in constructions sites, healthcare industry and in the educations sectors of these countries are from overseas countries. The manpower costs in these countries are extremely higher compared to that in Asian countries such as India or China. Because of that, many American companies forced to outsource or offshore their business to India and China like Asian countries. Under such circumstances, it would be illogical for America and European countries to argue against immigration. Immigration helps an organization to get cheap labour as well as diverse capabilities. For example, Americans may not accept jobs that are offering cheap wages whereas Indians or Pakistanis in America do not have problems in doing so. As a result of that, organizations in America can reduce the manufacturing costs of their products and services while employing immigrants at various positions. What is white privilege? Ely and Thomas (p.239) pointed out that different diversity perspectives govern how members of work groups created and responded to diversity, and these perspectives seemed to have important implications for how well the groups functioned. For example, white privilege is a controversial topic in the diversity management. White privilege refers to the notion that whites have more societal privileges than non-whites. For example, in many of the American workplaces, whites are getting more salaries than non-whites even though they are doing the same job. In other words, racial discrimination is prevailing in many of the workplaces of American organizations in the name of white privilege. White privilege is a socially construct rather than a natural construct. In other words, nobody can argue that the nature has created whites with more privileges than non-whites. In fact many of the American companies are presently led by non-whites. For example, PepsiCo is led by Indra Nui whereas Microsoft is led by Satya Nadella, both are non-whites and of Indian origin. Moreover, many of the American and European companies have already appointed non-whites in critical positions. It is necessary to understand the baselessness of the argument related to white privilege in order to manage the workplace diversity properly. According to Harvey and Allard, tensions can be developed in the workplace between the old dominant group (whites) and the new cultural diversity (blacks or non-whites), if diversity management fails. If there is a white privilege, privileges such as black privilege, non-white privilege, Asian privilege, African privilege etc should be there. It is impossible for a manager to allow any types of privileges in a modern day organization. In an organization, all the employees should have the same privilege. If privileges are dispersed based on skin color or culture, employees may not perform well. Diversity management is all about valuing individual differences and managing differences to enable all employees to contribute and realise their full potential. However, some organizations undervalue these diversity theories and principles and face a lot of problems. Special emphasize programming and protected class group Protected class refers to a characteristic of a person which should not be used for discrimination. Religion, race, skin color, nationality, age, gender, sexual orientation, disabilities etc are some of the major elements in the protected class. The Federal anti-discrimination law of United States prohibits the discrimination against the protected class. Skin color is often made use for discriminations in American workplaces. Not even big companies in America are free from racial discrimination. For example, Apple Inc. is world’s largest technology company. Moreover, it is second only to Exxon Mobile in terms of market capitalization. Yet, skin color discrimination complaints from Apple Inc. are common. There are many allegations against Apple with respect to racial discrimination in promotion policies. Middle managers of Apple are often accused for promoting employees of their liking. “Unfairness in promotions and overall treatment is a common complaint in Apple Company” (Qumer 15). It is necessary to complement employees based on their performances rather than skin colour. When an employee gets recognition for his outstanding performance, he will increase his productivity further. On the other hand, if an employee failed to get do so, he may reduce his productivity. In short, motivation is extremely important for the employees to bring out their bests. According to Olaniyan & Okemakinde, (p. 158), human capital theory is useful in diversity management. This theory says that productivity and efficiency of workers can be increased by increasing the level of cognitive stock of economically productive human capability which is a product of innate abilities and investment in human beings. Innate abilities of the employees will come out freely when the employees increase their trust with the organization. In other words, only the satisfied employees deliver the good to an organization. In order to make a diverse employee community satisfied, the CEO should formulate and implement suitable strategies. In short, a company should treat its employees based on their capabilities rather than prejudices such as while privilege or skin colour. Modern organizations are looking for the improvement of the worker productivity as well as efficiency at any cost. It is difficult for modern organizations to recruit more employees since such an effort would increase the organizations overhead expenditure. When overhead expenditure increases, the profits of the firm would decrease. Therefore, modern organizations try to reduce the number of employees as much as possible even though they try to acquire more projects. Proper diversity management is essential for modern organizations to draw out the bests from the employees. An organization should not give more importance to locals while deciding promotions. Same way, an organization should not give more importance to expatriates or blacks while deciding downsizing. Promotions and other types of recognitions should be done based on performances rather than prejudices. Works Cited Algahtani, Ali. “Diversity in the Corporate Setting”. International Journal of Business and Social Science Vol. 4 No. 14; November 2013. Print. Ely, Robin. J., & Thomas, David. A. “Cultural Diversity At Work: The Effects Of Diversity Perspectives On Work Group Processes And Outcomes”. Administrative Science Quarterly, 46(2), 229-273. Print Harvey, Carol. P. and Allard, June M. “Understanding and Managing Diversity” (5th Ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Education. 2012. Print Olaniyan. D.A & Okemakinde. T. 2008. Human Capital Theory: Implications for Educational Development, European Journal of Scientific Research, Vol.24 No.2 (2008), pp.157-162. Print Qumer, S.M, “Apple Inc’s Corporate Culture: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”, ICMR Center for Management research, 2009. www. Icmrindia.org. Print Read More