Line Managers and the Implementation of Diversity at Organizations - Research Paper Example

Introduction According to the recent statistics, the world population is somewhat near to 6.8 billion people. However, if by any mysterious way, we could reduce the population of this planet to 1000 people, then in the current demographics, it would have 584 Asians, around 124 Africans, 95 would identify themselves as Europeans. In addition, 84 would be living in Latin America, 52 of them would label themselves as North Americans, however 55 would be soviets groups, and only six would belong from Oceania. Out of those 1000 people, only 86 would speak English as their mother language; however, the majority of 165 people would be speaking Mandarin. Surprisingly, 83 out of those 1000 people would be found speaking Urdu Hindi or Bengali, 64 would speak Spanish, 58 would be conversing in Russian, and Arabic would be spoken by around 37 people. However, important here is to note that the rest of the people would be speaking other more than 200 languages that include Japanese, Italian, French, German, Bengali, Indonesian, Portuguese and other languages. According to the religion, quite understandably, the majority of 327 people would be Christians, 178 people would be following Islam, 167 would identify themselves as non-religious, however, 132 and 60 would be Hindus and Buddhists respectively. Only three people would be called as Jews and the rest would belong from other religions (Dickie & Soldan, pp. 23-25, 2010). The reason behind presenting this little scenario was to highlight the fact that our planet, over the years, has turned into a very diverse place. We are surrounded by people that differ from us in almost all possible aspects. Color, cast, creed, age, religion, belief, attitude, sex, nationality, community, society, lifestyles, occupations, origin, and others pose significant differences amongst the people that we see in our everyday lives. Diversity is no longer a phenomenon, which could be stopped, avoided, altered, tamed, or ignored. Diversity is one of the biggest realties of our today’s lives and there is no way in which one could avoid it. In fact, the world has witnessed one of the bloodiest, most brutal, and deadliest wars and conflicts just because people were not ready to embrace diversity. However, the scenario has completely changed. Intelligent and well-versed people and societies understand that diversity is not only one of the biggest realties of our life but also celebrating diversity can strengthen societies and provide them with a competitive edge (Stockdale & Crosby, pp. 11-28, 2004). Quite understandably, also the corporate world has not been able to save itself from this very phenomenon. In fact, the corporate world has been one of the most severely hit with the same. However, there has been a considerable change in the approach of the impact of diversity on organizations and the need the diversity management. A few decades back, organizations use to consider diversity management as a legal issue since it was and it is against law to discriminate against women, minorities, disabled, older employees and others. Therefore, diversity management was somewhat the job of the legal department or the lawyers that were hired by the organization. However, over the years, smart organizations have realized that diversity is not just “issue that they need to deal with”, but it is reality of today, an element of organizational behavior, a truth used as strength for the organization, and a certainty, which can even become the competitive advantage of organizations (Arredondo & Arredondo, pp. 51-56, 1996). Then again, it is against the basic human nature to embrace diversity at all times. Quite understandably, managing, embracing and celebrating diversity asks people to leave their comfort zones, put in some extra effort to act against their basic programming as egoistic human beings. This explains why diversity management has become a critical issue in many organizations. However, a careful analysis would reveal that where the Human resource managers along with the top management of organizations try their best to implement diversity management, line managers remain the biggest hurdle in their way due to many reasons. This paper from this part onwards would be an attempt to analyze this statement critically, by presenting relevant theory, thoughts, and examples. Discussion For understanding the importance of the role that line managers play in implementation of diversity management at organizations, it is imperative here to understand first the reasons for the emergence of diversity in the workforce of today. Quite understandably, the first reason behind the same is the fact that demographics are changing. As mentioned in the earlier part of the paper that as humankind s evolving it is becoming more and more diverse. Not all minds are similar and not all brains are alike, people are changing and taking their own different routes in their own lives (Konrad, Prasad & Pringle, pp. 48-54, 2006). Moreover, dissimilar educational qualifications, changing attitudes and behaviors of people, and aging workforce are also igniting this fire of diversity. In addition, gone are the days during which people belonging from minorities used to sit at the homes assuming that they will not get their rights and respects in a society dominated by an alien majority. Today, minorities believe that this is their right and their responsibility to actively participate and contribute. This led to a storm of previously unknown and alien people into the corporate world thus increasing the importance of diversity management. Secondly, an important issue due to the increasing lawsuits and legislations that has appeared in past few decades. Research reveals that for the past few years, the courts of United States and United Kingdom have granted many people tons of money in several lawsuits against their organizations (Kirton & Greene, pp. 10-31, 2005). Furthermore, the UK administration has brought in much new legislation to prevent any form of discrimination at workplace. This has allowed the employees to feel more empowered and powerful against their employees and has discouraged employees to undertake any form of discrimination against their employees. Thirdly, organizations are becoming more and more diverse because of competitive pressures. As mentioned earlier, smart organizations understand that being more open to diversity will help them to outclass their competitors since diversity can become their competitive advantage. Quite understandably, in this intensely competitive marketplace, companies are focusing almost all their energies towards searching a sustainable competitive advantage (Greene & Kirton, pp. 67-75, 2009). Most of the experts agree that sustainable or long-term competitive advantages stem not from the physical or financial resources of the company but from the human resources or the people. Companies that successfully manage diversity are able to increase the employee satisfaction by creating a friendly and comfortable working environment. In addition, they are also able to retain and attract the best possible talent in the market. However, companies that fail to embrace diversity would send a message to the people outside that we are biased, unethical and not a good place to work at. Wal-Mart is an example of a company, which has successfully attracted the best possible talent by its employee friendly, and diversity management techniques (Konrad, Prasad & Pringle, pp. 49-55, 2006). Finally, diversity has also become imperative because more and more organizations are now becoming global companies or multi national organizations having cross border operations. In fact, many companies are earning almost negligible revenues from their domestic market and sustain almost entirely on their operations from abroad. These companies have no choice but assimilate themselves into the local cultures or else their very survival would be at stake (Rabiyan, pp. 60-77, 2008). Now there are various reasons why line managers remain an obstacle to the implementation of diversity management programs at any organizations. Firstly, many line managers, from different departments are not prepared to deal with diversity. Quite understandably, most of the managers in organizations people from early Generation Y and late Generation X. These people were brought up in environments, which were comparatively not so open to diversity, diversity was not one of the most fundamental, and core values of society. In the years, when these individuals entered the corporate world, in fact for most of the years of their service the served in offices and environments where they had to deal with people that were not so different from them. Therefore, not only they undermine the importance of diversity but also fail to understand the same. Moreover, they are not even prepared to deal with this diversity management since this is some alien thing to them (Arredondo & Arredondo, pp. 28-34, 1996). Secondly, for managing diversity, managers need to adapt to special styles and develop their own set of ways to deal with different group of people. Unfortunately, in the light of the first point, many managers fail to develop these styles and unconsciously, they end up hurting their colleagues and sub ordinates that come from different back grounds. For example, a manager who has little experience in managing diversity failed to understand that while dealing with disabled people he had to treat them equally as others. Out of sympathy, the manager usually preferred giving the easiest tasks to the disabled people thinking that they shall not be put under a lot of stress. However, to the manager’s surprise that use to hurt the disabled people a lot. Those people never wanted to be treated and reminded that they are different from others but in a way which is equal and similar to that of others (Stockdale & Crosby, pp. 81-88, 2004). Thirdly, line managers may end up believing that managing or ensuring diversity is not at all their jobs and they are being paid for the technical part of the job that they and things like diversity management, health, and safety is something, which should be left to the human resource department of the organization. Additionally, it is rational for people to avoid things with which they do not see a direct co relation of their benefits and pay. Furthermore, abovementioned are secondary activities that a manager needs to perform. At times, line managers are too busy performing the technical or core part of their job that they end up not finding any time to ensure diversity and other such things (Greene & Kirton, pp. 63-69, 2009). Lastly, managers may also threaten or force their employees not to report any such incidents that are violating the policies of diversity management. Quite understandably, top management cannot keep track of everything happening neither they can keep an eye of all activities. This allows line mangers to exercise significant powers in many regards. Moreover, despite the facts that whistle blowing appears to be very glamorous in theory, it is extremely troublesome and difficult to undertake in real life. Therefore, within their own departments, managers may create their own separate kingdoms where they may tarnish all the rules of diversity management (Kirton & Greene, pp. 79-82, 2005). However, there is another side of the picture as well. Without any doubts, the points mentioned above that prove that line managers are problematic in diversity management are true but the same does not mean that diversity cannot be implemented. If this would have been the case, then no organization at all would have been able to implement diversity management, however, this is not true. Many organizations have successfully championed diversity management and many of them have even made it their competitive advantage (Hubbard & Edward, pp. 57-70, 2004). The difference between the organizations that fail to embrace diversity and the ones that champion it is the fact that these organizations do something very well to ensure diversity in their organizations. Firstly, they identify the problems with diversity management of their line managers and conduct a proper training needs analysis for the same to provide their line managers with proper training to cope with problems. Secondly, they try to create an organizational culture that supports, nurtures, embraces, identifies, encourages, strengthens, and celebrates diversity. The top management would clearly communicate to each employee of the organization that diversity is strength and five years down the road, we want to see the organization as one of the top most organizations in terms of pluralism (Arredondo & Arredondo, pp. 33-39, 1996). Thirdly, these organizations, which are truly serious about embracing diversity would go on a step further and would not only ask their managers to do this would evaluate their performance on the same. These organizations would add the element of diversity to the performance appraisal forms and balance scorecards of their managers. They would receive promotions, bonuses, pay increases and other benefits on their skills of dealing with diverse people. Lastly, they would not only tame all their existing people to remain open to diversity but they would also only take in those people, which fulfill this criterion (Konrad, Prasad & Pringle, pp. 48-54, 2006). These organizations would try to look for people that can adapt to different situations, which are open to new and creative ideas, which can work with people from diverse backgrounds are empathic, concerned, kind, considerate, caring, and compassionate. For example, Southwest Airlines, one of the pioneers in putting employee satisfaction at the top of list mission list, makes sure that its employees pass a special test which is aimed finding or not that a person would be bale to work with diverse people. A group of 50-70 candidates is tested at one time by putting them into an auditorium where they are asked to prepare a presentation about the relevant topic. However, while the candidate is presenting that presentation, the focus is not on the presentation, presenting material or the presentation style of the candidate but on other candidates that are supposed to listen to the presentation. The evaluators look or candidates, which are attentively listening to the presentation of others with empathy, compassion, and interest and believe that these people would be crucial in ensuring diversity management in the organization (Stockdale & Crosby, pp. 20-31, 2004). Conclusion This paper tried to shed some light over the point that managers can be problematic while the implementation of diversity at organizations. This paper started off by discussing the fact that diversity today has became an imperative reality, however, some years earlier it was considered only and only as an legal issue. Diversity management has become imperative due to four important reasons, which include the changing demographics, competitive pressures, legislations and lawsuits and globalization. Line managers are tricky in diversity management because they are in experienced in this regard, they fail to understand the special needs of diverse people, fail to see a direct reward for managing diversity and threaten their employees not to report any incidents of mismanagement of diversity. However, many organizations have also achieved remarkable success in avoiding these problems by ensuring training, strong organizational cultural, performance evaluation on the same and by recruiting and sleeting talent that embraces diversity. Therefore, towards the end of this paper it can be concluded that line managers do pose significant tribulations in diversity management however, they by no means are totally unavoidable and can be reduced by the methods and techniques mentioned above (Dickie & Soldan, pp. 12-29, 2010). References Arredondo, Patricia, & Arredondo, Patricia M. 1996. Successful diversity management initiatives: a blueprint for planning and implementation. Sage. Dickie, Carolyn, & Soldan, Zhanna. 2010. Diversity Management. Tilde University Press. Greene, Anne Marie., & Kirton, Gill. 2009. Diversity Management. Routledge. Hubbard, Edward, & Edward, Hubbard. 2004. The Managers Pocket Guide to Diversity Management. Human Resource Development. Kirton, Gill, & Greene, Anne Marie. 2005. The dynamics of managing diversity. Butterworth-Heinemann. Konrad, Alison M., Prasad, Pushkala, & Pringle, Judith K. 2006. Handbook of workplace diversity. SAGE. Rabiyan, Yasmin. 2008. Diversity Management: The Discourse on Diversity in Corporate America. VDM Verlag. Stockdale, Margaret S., & Crosby, Faye J. 2004. The psychology and management of workplace diversity. Wiley-Blackwell. Read More