Globalink: Understanding Diversity - Assignment Example

Globalink: Understanding diversity. Introduction The report is based on the study of the potential issues which are causing conflict within the different levels of employees in the Dublin based call centre of Globalink Limited. Organisational behaviour analysis has been done to clearly understand the issues generating conflict in the business environment. Globalink limited is a computer manufacturing company which provides services to various parts of Asia, North America and Europe. The workforce of the call centre includes employees from different age and cultural groups. This report has further discussed different literature reviews, theories and practices about diversity in the workplace. It has also discussed the best practices to manage organisational diversity. Organisational behaviour analysis The micro analysis of organisational behaviour helps any business to understand the potential conflict issues within the individuals of the organisation. Most of the conflicts generate from the diversified work force of any organisation (Robbins and Judge, 2012). The workforce of this organisation is mainly diversified by age, race, and ethnicity. The organisation possesses different generation of workforce such as baby boomer, generation X and generation Y (Ibec, 2015a). The baby boomers of the organisation are mainly the sales managers who are within the age bracket of 45-65 years. Generation X employees or the supervisors fall in the bracket of 28-45 years. On the other hand the generation Y employees who are the call centre operative are aged between 20-27 years. These generation diversity causes difference in work related expectation and characteristics. These differences between these generations can be judged to understand the reasons behind the conflict within the workforce. Attributes of similarities and differences Baby boomers Generation X Generation Y Work ethics Baby boomers of the organisation are very workaholic. They are very strict about the instructions and disciplines of the organisation. This generation prefers to work hard whenever it is required. They also believe in following the instructions of the organisation for proper execution of work process. This generation prefer to work under the comfort of technology. They generally do not prefer to follow instruction and cause indiscipline in the organisation. Attitude towards authority This level is working as the senior management of the organisation. They are very controlling and prefer to closely monitor every step of the subordinates. Supervisors are comfortable with the immediate authorities. The communication procedure between supervisor and senior management is very effective. This generation of the organisation are not very happy with the constant monitoring and controlling attitude of the authorities. Preferred way to learn soft and hard skills They prefer on the job training and learning. The supervisor of the organisation also believes in on the job training to sharpen their hard and soft skills. Few of them also prefer to get some training to develop these skills before applying them in their day to day work. This generation demand proper training procedure from the organisation. They want to focus on developing their hard and soft skills properly before applying them in the work process. Work and life balance This generation of the organisation generally sacrifices their personal life for work. They prefer to work extra shifts and in weekends as per the work demand. The supervisors want to balance their work and personal life. Most of them prefer to work in extra shift but they do not prefer to work on the weekends. This generation does not prefer to work very hard so they do not believe in working in weekends or after hours. They are very punctual in leaving the workplace at the specified time. Expectation regarding respect They are the leaders of the organisation and prefer to gain the due respects from the subordinates. This generation of the organisation want to be held in esteem and they want to be obeyed by their subordinates. The generation Y of this organisation wants to prove them as a leader as soon as possible but most of these employees are not that much focused on their day to day work. The study of the differences of these employee generations has provided a clear view about the potential reasons of the conflict. The difference in work ethics, skill sets and attitude towards the jobs are causing conflict between different generations of the employees in the organisation. The different level of tolerance of these groups is creating conflict within the employees of different levels. The absence of proper interaction and communication is also causing problems within the employees and their managers. Another reason behind these conflicts is the cultural and racial diversity of the organisation. The employees of this organisation are from different race, religion and ethnicity across the world. The training procedure and work patterns of the organisation are not well designed as per the language and cultural differences of these employees. This is prohibiting the organisation from properly sharpen the accrued skills of the workforce. Absence of proper communication procedures for different cultural groups is also hampering the authorities from properly conveying the instructions. Social training and social marketing can educate the workforce about the difference in values of various cultures. The organisation behaviour study deduced that the business lacks adequate support to different communities of employees through social training and social marketing. This is causing various knowing and unknowing racial conflicts within the workforce. Analysis of different diversity in the organisation Nature of diversity in organisations Various scholars and managers have agreed that due to globalisation of business processes the workforces are getting more diversified in nature (Crowley-Henry, 2005). Researchers have concluded that there are four major dimensions of diversity in any organisation such as age, culture and gender (Readi, 2014). The study of the potential issues of the organisation has deduced that their workforce is diversified as per the age and cultural group of the employees. Various studies have suggested that the stereotypical roles of older employees and the practice of age discrimination are the main reasons behind the conflict of an age diversified workforce (Ibec, 2015a). According to different organisational studies, older employees are likely to have an in-depth knowledge and experience about the work processes where the younger employees are more enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the current technologies (IBEC research and information services, 2006). Different researches have demonstrated the cultural diversity of an organisation in a pessimistic and optimistic view. The pessimistic view has conveyed that an individual preferred to be in their own cultural group rather than communicating across all other cultural groups. On the other hand the optimistic view concludes that cultural diversity helps the organisation in effective information processing and problem solving capacity (Hogan and Crowe, 2014). Advantage and disadvantages of diverse workforce Various scholars and managers have justified that diversity works as a positive catalyst in a workplace which leads them to competitive economical advantages. Various researches have shown that diversified top management team provides more financial benefits to the organisation in comparison to the homogeneous team (Readi, 2014). A diversified workplace ensures increase in adaptability of the workforce. Different organisational studies have proved that diverse workforce can provide a great variety of solutions to the service, resource allocation and sourcing problems of any organisation (Thiederman, 2008). Diverse workforce which is comfortable in communicating with each other can help in organisational strategies formation by providing a wide range of global viewpoints ((Thiederman, 2008). The diversification of workforce with different skills and experience helps an organisation to provide effective solutions to their global customers (Ibec, 2015b). No management can enjoy the benefits of their diversified workforce without facing few challenges. Various studies have suggested that these challenges are communicational barrier, inadequate knowledge of different cultural values and cultural discriminations (Konrad, Prasad and Pringle, 2006). Implementing diversity in the organisational policy is one of the major challenges of any organisation. Diversity training in an organisation is not enough for the management plan. Organisation needs to work on their strategies for the successful implementation of these policies (Ibec, 2015b). Effective management of diversity and its advantage The effective management procedure of diversity in the workplace includes assessment of the age and cultural diversity in the workplace, development of diversified work plan, restructuring the organisational policies and proper implementation of these policies in all levels of the business model (Golden, 2015). Proper execution of these steps provides a number of advantages to the organisation, such as: It helps the top management of the organisation to understand the different requirement of employees from various cultural backgrounds. It is also useful to understand the differences in work ethics and attitudes of various generations of workforce. The assessment of age diversity among the employees helps the organisation to understand the competencies and drawbacks of different age groups. Therefore, it influences them to design work policies that will ensure the maximum utilization of these competencies and elimination of the drawbacks. The cultural diversity analysis helps them to assess the skills of the workforce as per their cultural background and helps them to design the proper utilization of these skills. The effective management of diversified workforce help the top management to minimize the conflicts within employees and improve their productivity. It is also useful to increase the constructive communication and exchange of ideas between the employees of different cultural background. Best practices for the organisation The analysis of the work pattern suggests that the conflicts within the workforce are an outcome of the improper diversity management of the organisation. To minimize these conflicts and ensure the best utilization of the employees, the organisation needs to introduce some new policies and practices. The organisation needs to be more supportive towards different communities and social marketing. The organisation needs to take various assessment tests of the different categories of the workforce. These assessment tests will provide help to understand the competencies and skills of these employees. The organisation needs to promote age and cultural diversity in the leadership position of the organisation. It will help the senior management to have a wide range of views about the work attitudes of their workforce. They must introduce some diversity training program. These programs will help them to minimize cultural discrimination within the workforce. The organisation must issue strict guidelines about the work ethics and organisational communication procedure. They must arrange group communication programs to minimize the barrier between different employees and increase the communicational skills. Finally they should launch a customize satisfaction survey for the employees which will help them to create a comprehensive report. This report will give a clear view about the implementation of new diversified workforce policies and their effect in the financial gain of the organisation. Conclusion The in-depth study of the diversity in the workplace helps the top management to understand the reasons behind the conflict within the organisation. The improper management of the different generation of the workforce and cultural and racial discrimination are the main causes of these issues. After analysing various research reports and theories, the study has suggested different useful steps to neutralize these issues and create harmony within the organisation. Reference List Crowley-Henry, M., 2005. Cultural diversity in multinational organisations. [pdf] Dublin institute of technology. Available at [Accessed 13 January 2015]. Golden, P., 2015. Diversity management in the workplace. [online] Available at [Accessed 13 January 2015]. Hogan, M. and Crowe, D., 2014. Cultural diversity: a toolkit for organisational success. [pdf] Bizlabs. Available at [Accessed 13 January 2015]. IBEC research and information services, 2006. Ireland’s changing workforce harnessing diversity in the workplace. [pdf] Irish business and employers confederation. Available at [Accessed 13 January 2015]. Ibec, 2015a. Gender balance at the top of organisations. [online] Available at [Accessed 13 January 2015]. Ibec, 2015b. Diversity and the integrated workplace. [online] Available at [Accessed 13 January 2015]. Konrad, A. M., Prasad, P. and Pringle, J., 2006. Handbook of workplace diversity. London:Sage. Readi, 2014. Diversity management. [pdf] Provincia Di Roma. Available at [Accessed 13 January 2015]. Robbins, S. P. and Judge, T. A., 2012. Organizational Behavior 15th Edition. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Thiederman, S., 2008. Making Diversity Work: 7 Steps for Defeating Bias in the Workplace. United Kingdom: Kaplan Publishing. Read More