Diversity in Work Place - Coursework Example

Diversity in Work Place Firms enjoy various resources with the help of which they create value for their stakeholders. Traditionally, one of the mostimportant resources is that of the capital introduced by the shareholders. Capital or monetary resources were considered as main sources behind the creation of value for the shareholders of the firm. However, this view traditionally started to fade and new ways and means of creating value were explored also. Human Resource of the firm is one such resource which can provide strategic competitive advantage to firms over their competitors. Technological, economics and social changes happening around the globe are consistently forcing organizations to look and develop more and more better human resources. (Baird & Meshoulam, 1988). Historically there is a shift in the concepts and development of the field of human resource management over the period of time. What started as personnel management has now gradually transformed itself into the new realm of human resource management. HRM now is considered as an integrative approach in which a two-way linkage is assumed between the organizational strategy and individual needs of the employees on the other hand. The essence of HRM now is that the separate personnel actions are now consistently linked and integrated with the overall strategy of the organizations to achieve strategic goals. (G.W.Jansen, Van de Velde, & Telting, 2001). Personnel management’s focus was on the operational methodology whereas Human Resource Management emerged as a concept which filled the strategic gap and brought in personnel management into the overall umbrella of strategic management. Diversity in Work place is also viewed in that perspective of a major strategic shift in the human resource practices of the organizations. This shift towards viewing HRM as a strategic tool has also necessitated that that the organizations’ work force should include a diverse mix of employees who are hired regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion, color etc. This essay will look into the diversity at work places while discussing its pros and cons and how it fits to the overall management besides discussing some of the organizations which have successfully managed diversity in work place. Emergence of Diversity – a Causal analysis “Diversity refers to human qualities that are different from our own and those of groups to which we belong; but that are manifested in other individuals and groups. Dimensions of diversity include but are not limited to: age, ethnicity, gender, physical abilities / qualities, race, sexual orientation, educational background, geographic location, income, marital status, military experience, parental status, religious beliefs, work experience, and job classification." (http://hr.fhda.edu, 2008). However, a further analysis of the above quotation would suggest that diversity is a much bigger concept than just the gender and race. Diversity within the perspective of work place means creating an environment which has the capability and willingness to accept divergent views and opinions about how the management practices should be practiced within different cultural settings. Another definition of Diversity suggest that “Diversity is generally defined as acknowledging, understanding, accepting, valuing, and celebrating differences among people with respect to age, class, ethnicity, gender, physical and mental ability, race, sexual orientation, spiritual practice, and public assistance status” (Esty, Griffin, & Schorr, 1995). Further, it is often believed that changing demographics of the civilized societies have made diversity at work place a reality. Most Western societies are now witnessing a shift towards their demographics because of the fact that most of their population is ageing and with the increase in the influx of the new and skilled Diaspora, managing work place diversity has become a very delicate art which require especial skills and management practices to implement at organization wide level. Organizations which do not take into account this fact virtually are forced out of the business. The increasing diversity has therefore also required that people have the skills and tools needed to move their enterprise into the future. In the current environment of continuous change, people throughout the organization must become skilled at creating collaborative strategies and implementing effective change. They must be able to turn chaos into strategy, and strategy into performance. It is often believed that the new revolution in the HRM practices has sort of liberated the line managers and has also posed them a greater challenge to take their own decisions within the framework of the policy guidelines. (Whittaker & Marchington, 2003) and as much of the diversity of the organizations is within their line managers therefore it has become very important that organizations must develop and implement diversity practices in their organizations in order to gain full advantage of the varied level of skills of their diversified work force. This has further been re-enforced with the emergence of knowledge based organizations. Knowledge management is considered as at the center of economic transformation as organizational success is now largely dependent on the knowledge management of the organization. Competitive advantage is located in “learning organizations” “brain-based organizations” “intellectual capital” and the “economics of ideas”. Knowledge has assumed this centrality in conjunction with sweeping changes in organizational forms and the dawning post-industrial and information revolutions. Any economy with declining industrial base relies largely on its knowledge base since the rapid changes in the technological as well as professional skills demands that the human resource base must acquire a certain degree of knowledge which keep them in-line with the industry trends. Due to lack of this knowledge base, organizations within the economy also suffer since it is largely reflected in the performance of that organization having low or insufficient knowledge base. Thus the success of economy as well as organizations is shifting in the favor of having solid knowledge base on keep them sustainable and competitive. Further, the face of international competition has changed with the emergence of globalization. Historically, Organizations limited themselves to their geographical locations thus effectively limiting the scope of their businesses however as the technological changed emerged, the world started to become more connected with each other with enormously easy access to the information and resources. Thus the process of globalization kick started where the businesses became more integrated with each other despite being thousands of miles away from each other. Technology has been considered as one of the most important and critical factors behind this integration of resources and organizations. The advancement in communication technologies specially the emergence of internet and has provided the organizations necessary channel to communicate effectively and securely with each other. This in return has provided a necessary flexibility to the organizations to better organize their resources and their movement across the continents. Thus globalization and emergence of transnational and multinational organizations have forced companies to acquire and maintain a work force which must be diverse in nature. The outsourcing practices which have become common due to globalization have further increased the need for having strong diversity into the work force. The emergence of new technologies has also allowed the globalization of production processes also. Early definition of outsourcing referred the situations when the firms expanded their purchases of manufactured physical input. (Bhagwati, Pangariya & Srinivisan, 2004), however the recent shifts in the concept it has now became a new phenomenon where it now include arms’ length purchases of service abroad(Bhagwati, Pangariya & Srinivisan,2004). However there is a still a controversy over the definition of outsourcing as the economists specially debate over the precise definition of outsourcing. Since outsourcing is mostly now involved the outsourcing of services therefore World Trade Organisation in its general agreement defined four different modes under which services can be outsourced. (Bhagwati, Pangariya & Srinivisan, 2004). Whatever the modes of outsourcing can be, the process has allowed the organisations to integrate their resources and take advantage of the globalized pool of skills and experiences to achieve efficiencies and effectiveness mainly due to the use of technology. Diversity and Women Economic hardships, changing family structures and shift within social trends of the most modern societies have now allowed women to form a better chunk of their overall workforce. Therefore an important part of the overall diversity issue is the role of women. Women are increasingly being considered as an integral part of the most modern organizational cultures. A good diverse workforce must include a better mix of women and men into its folds in order to provide to organizations not only a balanced workforce but also a creative and productive work force. Thus the diversity issues include both the gender and the race at its core level. However, still there are organizations which make discrimination among their men and women employees in terms of wages, offering positions of high responsibility as well as working hours. Wal-Mart is such big example which can easily be discounted based on its practices regarding women employees. Diversity and Legislations Most of the countries including US and UK have effectively put into place a very strong legal framework into practice which now effectively forces organizations to follow diversity practices at work. The European Union’s Framework for equality is one such broad legislative framework which aims to ensure diversity and equality not only within the society of the region but also in the organizations working in the region. This framework intends to reduce the pay gaps between the women and men employees however despite this fact; there still existed a pay gap of almost 15% which gave rise to the structural inequalities and segregation between the employees. Further, legislation also aimed at achieving a reconciliation of private and professional lives of the men and women by making flexible working arrangements besides offering better child care facilities so that the skilled workforce in the form of women must not lost to the unproductive activities and region must have its indigenous work force available. Finally, it was also decided that the measures should be taken to encourage men to take up parental jobs also so that a balance must be struck between the roles of men and women not only in their homes but into their professional lives also. Further, this balance between the personal and professional life was necessary because of the fact that the laws were not only in favor of men but also the women were target of discriminatory management practices. Further, stress is also being place on the priority area of placing males into professions and areas which were traditionally being considered as the women only areas. The aim is to provide opportunity to women to be into areas which are highly valued and highly paid in order to strike a balance between the work roles of women and men within the work places. These legislative processes suggest that besides maintaining diversity in workplace, organizations must also ensure balance between the roles of male and female employees of the organization by re-organizing their roles and responsibilities within the organization. Pros and Cons of Diversity It is often believed that Diversity provides many benefits to the organization. Generally a diverse work force is adaptive in nature and can provide a great variety to the overall decision making taking place in the organization. This therefore provides an added flexibility to the organization. Further, a diverse work force belonging to different cultures, speaking different languages and showing various cultural understandings provide the company to broaden its services at global level as organizations by tapping the local sources can capture greater market space at the global level to create value for their shareholders and be more responsive organization. (Greenberg, 2004) Further, the diversity provides a much needed effectiveness to the execution of decision making within the organization. However, there are challenges also regarding the diverse force work in the organization. Communication is considered as the most important and critical issue while dealing with diversity at the organization. Various cultural mixes at the organization not only create a substantial challenge for the organizations as they have to spent substantial amounts on arranging cultural trainings which allow various employees to understand each other in their proper perspective. Further, Diversity also creates legal obligations for the organizations failure of which can bring substantially amount of legal penalties as well as negative publicity. Conclusion Emerging trends in globalization and changing demographic patterns of the modern societies have allowed them to maintain and manage work force which represent the various strata of the society. This classification of diversity can be based on gender, race, religion, color etc. the purpose is to have an organization which truly represents a society. Bibliography 1. Baird, L., & Meshoulam, I. (1988). Managing two fits of strategic human resource management. Academy of Management Review , 13 (1), 116-128. 2. Esty, K., Griffin, R., & Schorr, M. (1995). orkplace diversity. A managers guide to solving problems and turning diversity into a competitive advantage. AVON: MA: Adams Media Corporation. 3. Greenberg, J. (2004). Diversity in the Workplace: Benefits, Challenges and Solutions. Retrieved June 07, 2008, from http://ezinearticles.com/: http://ezinearticles.com/?Diversity-in-the-Workplace:-Benefits,-Challenges-and-Solutions&id=11053 4. http://hr.fhda.edu. (2008). Diversity in the Workplace. Retrieved June 01, 2008, from http://hr.fhda.edu: http://hr.fhda.edu/diversity/ 5. Whittaker, S., & Marchington, M. (2003). Devolving HR responsibility to the line - Threat, opportunity or partnership? Employee Relations , 25 (3), 245-261. 6. G.W.Jansen, P., Van de Velde, M. E., & Telting, I. A. (2001). The effectiveness of human resource practices on advancing men’s and women’s ranks. Journal of Management Development , 20 (4), 318-322. 7. Jagdish Bhagwati, Arvind Panagariya & T.N. Srinivasan (2004), the Muddle over Outsourcing, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 18(4), 93-114 Read More