The Role of HR in Equality and Diversity in the Work Place - Term Paper Example

The Role of HR in Equality and Diversity in the Work Place Workforce diversity is a major concern of today’s organizations. We live in an increasingly multicultural society and so organizations need to focus on how to manage diversity in the place of work accordingly. Diversity is very important in an organization as it can assist in the organization to reach new markets, which in turn give the organization a competitive advantage (Digh 1999, p.94). Notably, equality and diversity policies are related to the key functions of human resource management such as recruitment and selection procedure, and training and development policies among others. Therefore, the human resource function is most likely to hold the main responsibility for the individuals planning within an organization as well as policies concerning equality and diversity issues. The HR functions are believed to be the main driver of progressive change regarding equality and diversity issues. Arguably, HR is responsible for fostering and promoting workforce diversity through recruitment and selection processes, training programs and policy development among others. This paper discusses the role of human resource in equality and diversity in the workplace. Diversity plays a significant role in the workplace and it reveals that organizations can greatly benefit from developing and maintaining a more diverse workforce. Diversity in the workplace enables organizations to secure a competitive advantage given that the markets are becoming increasingly global and so it assists organizations to discover opportunities in new customers and products. In addition, it attracts a wider talent pool and assists in understanding the needs of a wider customer base. More so, ensuring that there is equality in the workplace is also a very important as it also helps in determining the success of an organization. It is important to treat individuals equally for an organization to be effective and productive. Therefore, it is very important for equality and diversity to be promoted in an organization so as to have a more diverse and motivated workforce. HR is responsible for ensuring that there is equal opportunity and diversity management in the organization. Equal opportunity is about eliminating any form of discrimination in the workplace, especially during the job recruitment process. On the other hand, diversity management involves cultural transformation of the organization to promote the value workforce diversity. When addressing equality in the workplace, the main focus in on gender, ethnicity, age, and disability among others, but diversity in the workplace focuses on individuals’ lifestyles and work style and so on (GröSchl 2011, p.121). Human resource can help in fostering and promoting diversity and equality in the workplace. Generally, the role of HR manager is to assist in creating an organizational setting that is receptive of diversity (Condrey 2005, p.778). HR plays a role in managing the overall diversity of the organization through recruitment, compensation, equity, training, and policies and so on. First, HR can foster diversity through recruitment and selection processes. Mostly, recruitment and selection processes are what determine the kind of employees an organization has. Therefore, it is the work of human resource managers to ensure that recruitment and selection of employees are done fairly and professionally because this way, more talented and diverse workers will be recruited to fill in the vacant positions. More so, fair recruitment and selection processes will address the problem of inequality and lack of diversity in the workplace. Actually, many job applicants are rejected, especially if the hiring manager has limited knowledge of diversity recruitment and workforce diversity in the overall. Therefore, the best way to ensure that there is diversity in the recruitment and selection process is to eliminate discrimination during the recruitment process and secondly, to attract minority applicants so that the organization can be able to recruit a diverse workforce (Danowitz, Hanappi-Egger and Mensi-Klarbach 2012, p.204). During the recruitment and selection processes, HR ensures that workforce diversity is maintained by increasing the representation of women and minorities (Shena et al., 2009, p.243). For instance, this is possible if the HR manager establishes a presence among minority groups by participating in job fairs that target recruitment advertising to minority publications (Snell and Bohlander 2012, p.221). Basically, HR managers tend to recruit individuals who fit and have good values that are in line with the culture of the organization. It is also their duty to ensure that their recruitment and selection strategies assist in developing multiple cultures in the organization. Therefore, the HR managers who are involved in recruitment, selection and interviewing processes should ensure that they have knowledge on the beliefs, attitudes, and stereotypes of different groups. According to Snell and Bohlander (2012, p.221), HR professionals need to train hiring managers so as to ensure that diverse applicants are not discounted during the interviewing process just because they are different. More so, HR professionals are charged with the responsibility of clearly defining the goals of the diversity recruitment and retention program as a way of making managers from all other levels in the organization to understand the importance diversity recruitment and support it accordingly. The HR drafts policies on managing a diverse workforce and building cohesive and diverse workforce. All the policies on diversity and equality in the workplace are developed by HR, and these policies are very important in enabling an organization to embrace and maintain equality and diversity. More so, some of these policies are very effective in motivating employees to interact with others and develop positive relationships amongst themselves. HR policies ensure that there is full utilization of employees’ talent, their inclusion in the organization (Özbilgin, Groutsis and Harvey 2014, p.230). Therefore, HR’s role in policy development shows how HR plays a leading role in fostering both diversity and equality in the organization. In addition, HR can promote diversity through mentoring. That is, the human resource teams have to ensure that the organization has support groups and mentoring initiatives. Through mentoring, young talent will be fostered and also ethnic minority individuals will be aware of the right choices to make and achieve their career goals. Again, human resource management is also responsible for conducting annual monitoring and diversity audits for current employees as well as in recruitment for prospective employees. The role of HR in diversity in the workplace is to increase diversity awareness training. Notably, diversity training is one of the most effective ways to increase diversity awareness at the place of work among organizational members (Scott and Byrd 2012, p.24). Diversity training enhances the effective integration of diverse group members. The main aim of diversity training is to raise diversity awareness and encourage participants to develop multicultural skills. In most cases, human resource managers provide diversity training topics some of which include participation in teams, communication and listening, and cultural and international diversity and many other relevant topics (Scott and Byrd 2012, p.24). Diversity awareness training creates a common understanding of the importance of diversity and it also assists in building social cohesion that improves the outcome of organizational members. Reports indicate that diversity training allows participants to have a positive attitude towards diversity (Shena et al., 2009, p.243). Moreover, HR promotes diversity through training sessions and team building activities. Both training programs and team building activities provide a good opportunity to motivate employees and to interact with diverse groups. In the process, different individuals may form new bonds, thereby creating a more harmonious and productive work environment for everyone. Normally, HR reinforces the need for diversity training via counseling of employees, especially those who think that such training is not beneficial. Diversity training is a very effective initiative in creating a two-way socialization process by ensuring that there is no personal bias in the organization and that the perspectives of all employees are valued (Goode 2014, p.34). Another way through which HR can foster diversity and equality in the workplace is progression and leadership. The key role of HR in diversity management is to create and empower an organizational culture that promotes an inclusive environment where every employee is given an equal opportunity to learn, progress, and contribute to the organization’s success. The HR manager needs to develop initiatives that assist in progression and leadership especially for ethnic minorities. Actually, ethnic minorities are in most cases under-represented at the management level and such initiatives will assist in developing organizational cultures that allow talent to flourish and progress. More so, the key role of HR to ensure that all employees are equally happy with their salaries is to ensure that there is compensation equality in the organization. Notably, an inclusive workforce that embraces diversity enhances staff motivation, minimizes absenteeism, reduces opportunity cost, improves productivity, and increases job satisfaction (Romanenko 2011, p.26). Also, HR ensures that all employee concerns are met accordingly and their problems solved when they arise. This helps an organization to have a sustainable competitive advantage because employees within a diverse and inclusive work environment are less likely to search for job opportunities elsewhere. Therefore, diversity and equality in the workplace are very important as these two aspects contributing significantly to the success of an organization. In most cases, a successful organization has a motivated diverse workforce and offers various job positions equally to all successful applicants without discrimination. With the increasing globalization, organizations have realized the importance of creating and maintaining workforce diversity as a way of developing a sustainable competitive advantage in the competitive global markets. Notably, diversity in the place of work is believed to be the role of the human resource professionals. HR is responsible for fostering and promoting equality and diversity in the workplace through various initiatives such as recruitment and selection processes, diversity training programs, policy development, and progression and leadership among others. For instance, during the recruitment and selection process, HR manager should ensure that the hiring managers are aware of diversity recruitment and its significance, so as to be able to recruit a more motivated and diverse workforce. More so, it is the duty of HR professional to ensure that some job applicants are rejected during the intervening process because of their background or certain attributes. When it comes to diversity training programs, HR professional is responsible for creating awareness on diversity to all employees and other organizational members through mandatory diversity training. In addition, HR draft policies that address equality and diversity issues, and ensure that they are implemented effectively. Another role of HR in managing equality and diversity in the workplace is to create an organizational culture that promotes an inclusive environment to enable all employees be given equal opportunity to learn new idea, progress and significantly contribute to the success of the organization. All in all, it is undeniable that HR plays a leading role in promoting and maintaining diversity in the workplace. References Condrey, S. E. 2005, Handbook of Human Resources Management in Government. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. Danowitz, M. A., Hanappi-Egger, Edeltraud, and Mensi-Klarbach Heike, 2012, Diversity in Organizations: Concepts and Practices, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Digh, P. 1999, Getting people in the pool: Diversity recruitment that works, HR Magazine, vol. 44, no. 10, pp. 94-98. Goode, Shelton J., 2014, Diversity Managers: Angels of Mercy or Barbarians at the Gate: An Evidence-Based Assessment of the Relationship between Diversity Management and Organizational Effectiveness, Bloomington, Indiana: iUniverse. GröSchl, S. 2011, Diversity in the workplace: multi-disciplinary and international perspectives, Farnham, Farnham: Surrey, Gower. Özbilgin, Mustafa F., Groutsis, Dimitria, and Harvey, William, 2014, International Human Resource Management, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Romanenko, A. 2011, Cultural diversity management in organizations the role of psychological variables in diversity initiatives, Hamburg: Diplomica-Verl. Scott, C. L., and Byrd, M. Y. 2012, Handbook of research on workforce diversity in a global society: technologies and concepts, Hershey, PA: Business Science Reference. Shena, Jie, et al., 2009, Managing diversity tHR ough human resource management: an international perspective and conceptual framework, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 20, No. 2, 235–251. Snell, Scott, and Bohlander George, 2012, Managing Human Resources, Boston: Cengage Learning. Read More