Challenges of Managing a Diverse Workforce - Report Example

Organisational HRM: Challenges of managing a diverse workforce Name: Lecturer: Course: Date: Challenges of managing a diverse workforce Introduction A pressing challenge and a key concern in the tourism and hospitality industry globally is the creation of an entirely inclusive and supportive diverse culture within the workplace. When the diversity is effectively managed, it is of paramount significance to the realization of corporate objectives. Organisations that have developed a reputation for effectively managing diversity at workplace tend to attract more superior personnel. Within the tourism and hospitality industry where the workforce is likely to encounter people from diverse cultures, creating cultural diversity by recruiting a diverse workforce is critical, despite being a comparatively complex phenomenon (Korjala 2012). Managing diversity is a means to creating a working atmosphere where employees from different backgrounds, gender, race, age, ethnicity, religion, social background are respected, recognised as well as where the organisation benefits from the nature of employee diversity (Mazur 2010). This essay takes the perspective that adopting equality and diversity policies could have significant positive impacts in promoting equality and diversity within the tourism industry. As the world becomes more and more globalised, the workplace continues to be more globalised too, particularly within the tourism and hospitality industry (Nicolaides 2010). Typically, a global organisation relies on a workforce that is willing to take personal initiatives and to cooperate at all levels of work, as well as show commitment to the organisation. Therefore, a globalised organisation should integrate social processes that reverse ethnic and geographic constraints. Hence, its members, despite of their background and underlying differences, are assimilated to embrace the values and corporate objectives of an organisation (Johnson 2014).The HRM practices and policies in a globalised organisation must therefore embrace and encourage diversity and equality, while simultaneously seeking to defeat all forms of discrimination. Understanding Discrimination Organisations that practice discrimination at workplace undermine equality. The decisions to hire and fire, promote and compensate and allocate other preferential treatment are based on employee’s sexuality, race, gender, religion, age and ethnicity. Discrimination at workplace also undermines equal pay and promotes favouritism in terms of payment of wages and benefits. Korjala (2012) pointed out that organisations where discriminatory practices are prevalent tend to have employees who are unmotivated as well as discouraged. An example of direct discrimination is when a hotel in UK gives employees of African descent less pay and career development opportunities than workers of British origin. Companies in the tourism and hospitality industry such as Hilton Worldwide have created non-discrimination policies that prohibit discriminating workers on the basis of national origin, sex, age, colour, religion and sexual orientation (Hilton Worldwide (2014). Hence, discriminated individuals may suffer from non-acceptance, unfair treatment, rejection and discrimination at the workplace since they are different from the prevailing or more influential social group by one or more characteristics (Johnson 2014). Understanding diversity Workplace diversity implies acknowledging the underlying differences among employees as well as creating an all-inclusive environment that embraces these differences. Organisations that practice diversity employ workers from diverse ethnicities, races, religions, ages and genders (Johnson 2014). A case in point is Hilton Worldwide. The hotel is made up of individuals of diverse cultures who speak more than 40 languages. The company has a large workforce of some 600,000 employees from different ethnicities across more than 90 countries (Hilton Worldwide (2014). According to Ely and Roberts, cultural diversity is the differences among the team members in religion, gender, race, nationality and ethnicity or any other aspect of social identity underlined by history of discrimination, oppression and prejudice. Rijamampianina and Carmichael (2005) suggested three aspect of diversity, namely primary, secondary and tertiary (See Fig 1). Figure 1: Three dimensions of diversity (Rijamampianina & Carmichael 2005) Based on the Rijamampianina and Carmichael’s (2005) analysis, it is conceivable that cultural diversity describes the underlying differences between people in terms of language, gender, traditions, religion, morality and forms of interaction. Managing diversity implies understanding its impacts and implementing behaviours, policies and work practices that encourage recognition and valuing of heterogeneity within the organisation in an effective way. Diversity management is a management philosophy that promotes the recognition and valuing of heterogeneity within the workplace in the hope of improving organisational performance. It values differences in a positive way to radically optimise employees’ potentials (Mazur 2010). Understanding equality and diversity policy Armstrong et al. (2010) suggested that diversity and equality are at the far opposite ends of the same continuum. In this case, they only serve to indicate progression in developing equality within the organisation. Other researchers have pointed out that it is not advisable to distinguish between the two or underscore likely conflict. As a result, accommodating diversity may have significant detrimental implications on the capacity of an organisation to adopt equality (Russel & McGinnity 2011). Despite these divergent views, this essay takes the perspective that adopting equality & diversity policies could have significant positive impacts in promoting equality and diversity within the tourism industry. The premise is based on Monks’ (2007) inquiry into international evidencing linking quality and diversity measures to employee and organisational performance. The inquiry led to the creation of the theory called “equality-diversity value chain.” Within this model, equality policies are integrated into an organisation’s strategies and values, leading to improved employee relations, corporate image, creativity, talented applicants and overall improved productivity. Equality and diversity policy describes an official statement of commitment to promoting diversity and equality at workplace to prevent discrimination (Russel & McGinnity 2011) According to the model, diversity and equality policies influence an organisation’s performance. A number of qualitative studies have established a positive correlation between equality and diversity policies to organisational performance (Jayne & Dipboye 2004). Organisations that can defeat these challenges as well as harness the workforce to work to their maximal potential can benefit from quantum leap in effectiveness as well as attain competitive advantage. For instance, at Grupo Vips14, a Spanish company that markets hotel, tourist sites and restaurant brands, operates in different countries in Africa, South America and Europe. To ensure equal recruitment opportunities, recruitments are done in countries of operation. Since there is a fear that workers from weaker economies could be exploited. The company emphasises that once recruited, the foreign workers are given equal opportunities, such as pay and benefits, as Spanish worker (Malta 2012). Benefits of Equality and diversity policies Studies that have examined equality and diversity in business cases have mainly focused on the potential for costs and benefits linked to having equality and diversity practices. The equality and diversity policies promote employee motivation and retention. A recent study established anecdotal evidence suggesting lack of equality and diversity policies to high employee turnover, high employment tribunals and loss of talented workforce (Mazur, B 2010). Another study by Kamal and Ferdousi (2009) established that discrimination at workplace contributed to low job satisfaction, high tension within the organization and low commitment to the organisation. Cox and Blake (1991) suggested six major business benefits to having equality and diversity policies such as Equal Opportunities Policies. First is the cost argument. Since the cost of doing poor work in an integrated workforce increases, organisations that effectively manage diversity tend to benefit from cost advantage. Second argument is based on resource acquisition. At this stage, organisations that adopt diversity-management approach tend to create favourable reputations for themselves as prospective employers for ethnic minorities or women. To this end, they tend to benefit from a wider talent team. Third is the marketing argument. Organisations with global bases tend to obtain insight as well as cultural sensitivity as it has a large pool of members with roots from different countries, which improves marketing. Fourth is the creativity argument. Having a diversified team implies that an organisation benefits from diverse perspectives, which improves its creative base. Fifth is the problem-solving argument. Organisations that have equality and diversity policies benefit from heterogeneous teams that potentially generate better decisions and problem-solving skills by having broader range of perspectives (Cox and Blake 1991). Case Study: NZSki Ltd New Zealand NZSki Ltd is a New Zealand-based company that runs the country’s top three major commercial ski fields, namely at Mt. Hutt, The Remarkables and Coronet Peak, and Queenstown (EEO Trust 2014). The company’s innovative HR program programme to retain its diverse seasonal workforce consisting of nearly 1,000 employees from over 100 ethnic groups in New Zealand has enabled it to earn several tourism industry awards, such as “HRINZ Overall HR Initiative of the Year Award” in February 2010 and the “Supreme Award at the EEO Trust Work & Life Awards” 2009 (Auckland Chamber 2013; Dogshun 2012). In 2008, operating the three separate ski fields spread across the country with a small team of only 40 permanent staff proved a challenge, as handling the complexities in diversity was a challenge. The company witnessed a small annual retention rate of 30 percent, low staff morale and poor performance in the tourism industry (EEO Trust 2014). The seasonal workforce mostly consisted of Generation Y. Additionally, a large proportion of the workers were mostly immigrant workers. This brought about diversity issues such as problems in communication and low commitment (Grafton 2013) Because of the high employee turnover and a bad repute in the New Zealand tourism industry, the company could only attract temporary job-hunters who would quit after months (EEO Trust 2014). The company was faced with low performance issues. In an effort to retain its diverse workforce, the company needed to initiate a high-performing value-driven culture based on diversity and flexibility (Auckland Chamber 2013). In response, the company engaged in a project to attract and retain career-minded staff. It started career development initiatives, such as training, and to support its staff to gain nationally-recognised certifications. The company managers viewed that every worker had to be treated equally and to be provided with equal career-development opportunities (EEO Trust 2014). A “Train the Trainer” programme was adopted to train the company’s heads of department to tailor customer programme to the employees. In turn, training and mentoring initiatives was delivered to employees. All employees were given equal opportunities for promotion. In addition, staff benefits such as hot meals and free passes for friends and family was provided (EEO Trust 2014). Due to efficient diversity management, the retention rate doubled to 60% in 2009, and rose further to 62% in 2010. The number of job applicants also rose to 5,000 annually (Dogshun, J 2012). The company’s revenue has increased by 169 percent from 2008 and 2012 (Auckland Chamber 2013) By having equality and diversity policies in place, NZSki Ltd stands to benefit from having better insight into the local markets, understanding different customer preferences, which increases the capacity to attract and retain the best talents and benefit from greater flexibility within the organisation. Recommendations To effectively adopt equality and diversity policy, an organisation should have a diversity plan for cross-cultural training in place (Gong 2008). The plan should be comprehensive and attainable. It should also be something that each worker can participate in. The diversity plan should be implemented through training. Educating and training the employees can lead to in-house development of expertise. Cultural diversity training can create awareness as well as enable employees to have behaviour change (Nicolaides 2010). There should also be supervisor and management training on diversity enhancement topics, such as building diverse teams, promoting equality in recruitment and managing conflicts resulting from having a diverse workforce (Korjala 2012). The individual driving the training should have the support of the executive management. He should also develop the training based on the needs of the actual business needs of the hotel. To this end, effective communication and hospitality should be encouraged in the workforce. The training should also provide an opportunity of networking between the workers (Nicolaides 2010). Conclusion Adopting equality and diversity policies has significant positive impacts in promoting equality and diversity within the tourism industry. Managing diversity is a means to creating a working atmosphere where employees from different backgrounds, gender, race, age, ethnicity, religion, social background are respected, recognised as well as where the organisation benefits from the nature of employee diversity. Both practice and theory of managing diversity indicate that management of diversity is critical function for the success of tourism organisations, by enabling them attract steady workforce and to retain talented workforce that ensures it remains competitive by providing service quality despite the increasing diversified workforce and changing labour market. 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