Diversity Management in Organisations - Coursework Example

The Impact of Diversity on Today’s Organizations (Name) (University Affiliation) (Date) Introduction Diversity management has today become a significant aspect in all organizations as almost all organizations are built on the migration of groups from all parts of the world (Roberge et al., 2010). Diversity management has also filtered into colleges and university texts over the past years; scholars are continuously researching how effective the issue of diversity can be exploited fully for the benefit of organizations (Kurtulus &Fidan, 2011). It is evident that the make-up of the workforce across the globe is changing visibly thus, organisations need to focus more on the issues associated with diversity management. Diversity management refers to the planning as well as efforts organisations put in place in order to recruit and retain workers from different backgrounds. Moreover, it involves the facilitation of working relationships among individuals from different background. The topic diversity does not only designate a various demographic and cultural differences, but also a workforce differentiated by the existence of many cultures, religions, races and differing sexual orientations. As such, this paper seeks to examine the impact of diversity in the current business environments. The paper will highlight the relationship between performance and diversity in the organization. Additionally, the paper will examine the social determinants of diversity in the workplace. Diversity and performance Labour force diversity affects the personal well-being of workers. First, workers may find it gratifying to work in firms that are comprised of heterogeneous labor force. For instance, workers would find enjoyable working with young and old, workers with various work experiences, men and women. Second, workers would expect the wage effects of diversity to be in accordance with the effect on productivity. Accordingly, an individual would expect age diversity in the organization as it has a positive effect on the productivity of the firm thus, an individual would expect the positivity to be effected on the individual wages. This means that workforce diversity has an economic benefit to both the employees and the organisation (Göbel & Zwick, 2009). Diversity is associated with dissimilarity with the workforce: the extent to which an employee is different from the other in the organisation. The effects of diversity can be delineated through the production function, strategies as well as preferences (Göbel & Zwick, 2009). More often than not, diversity can have negative impacts on productivity, if a worker’s utility as well as work performance depends discriminates on his fellow employees are from different backgrounds. This often occurs when a worker depends negatively on the share of workers who come from different age group, ethnicity or even gender. Accordingly, such a worker would choose to work with employees similar to him or her in terms of tribe, gender, race and even religion. Conversely, if workers associate diversity with social good, it would impact the organisation’s productivity positively. Additionally, strategic impacts can arise in a situation where a worker finds it more efficient to work with similar colleagues more so under imperfect information. Furthermore, similarity often facilitates easier formation of reputation formation as well as formation of coalitions. Recent studies indicate that a diversified labor force often gives a higher productivity rate than homogeneous one. Accordingly, many researchers argue that younger workers often learn from older ones, thus the significance of age diversity in an organization. However, Kossek and Lobel (2012) posit that organisations often sort individuals of similar skills to work together thus; diversity does not bring benefits for the organisations. They also contend that even with positive diversity impacts, additional communication costs resulting from trade-off between costs and benefits would be unavoidable. Positive diversity gains are high when workers have separate, but complementary information sets. From a human resource management perspective, the diversity of workers in terms of the labor input is often understood differently. The diversity of labor input is associated with team dynamics as well as commitment of workers to common values and work ethics (Mor-Barak & Cherin, 2011). According to Mor-Barak and Cherin (2011), the more similar a worker is to his or her peers, the more the commitment to organizational work unit he or she has. On the other hand, Lobel (2012) argue that age diversity in the organization reduces emotional conflict. This is because the age similarity often advances career progress rivalry and comparisons between workers thus leading to harmful outcomes. However, rivalry can somewhat force workers to put more effort, which leads to improved productivity. Social determinants affecting diversity Diversity in the workplace is often affected by several social determinants: stereotypes, tokenism and devaluation. Diversity comes with discriminatory conditions that are facilitated by the general cultural or social system. First, stereotype thinking is considered as one of the greatest contributor of discrimination in the workplace. Typically, a stereotype is a widely held belief regarding a certain group of people based on their race, religion, gender and any other form of differentiation. Stereotypes are often harmful as workers are evaluated, treated and perceived as members of groups, and not as individuals with unique capabilities as well as weaknesses. Thus, diversity has increased stereotypes in the workplaces, which has lead to a discriminatory working environment. For instance, workers of Arab origin are often associated with terrorism in America and such, this kind of stereotype often affect productivity negatively as the discriminated workers often feel secluded (Roberge et al. 2010). Second, devaluation is a situation where the minority groups in the workplace are associated with underperformance. Accordingly, it is a situation where the native workers have a tendency of underrating the performance workers who belong to minority groups. This form of discrimination often undermines the presence of diversity in an organization and will often the general productivity of the firm. For instance, women in the workplace are often considered as underperformers when it comes to traditionally male dominated jobs. In effect, women can fail to exploit their full potential in male dominated roles, as they believe that they lack the masculine qualities. Third, tokenism has been regarded as another social determinant affecting diversity as it promotes both devaluation and stereotypes. Tokenism refers to the process of recruiting a small percentage of members of a minority group. Organizations often do this in order to give the appearance of racial or sexual equity in a workforce. Accordingly, diversity in an organisation can push for the recruitment of workers from a minority group and such, an organisation can benefit from diverse skills and ideas. However, workers recruited through tokenism must be accepted and treated as other workers for the organization to realise productivity. Because of their small number, the dominant group in the workplace tends to view them as non-traditional groups, rather than individuals with unique capabilities. Negative stereotyping as well as devaluation can only decrease if such groups are recruited in large numbers in order to outdo the traditional employees as far as performance is concerned. Diversity in the workplace has impacted today’s organisations largely. A recent study indicates that diversity is somewhat an impediment to teamwork as well team cohesiveness (Vandenberghe &Vincent, 2012.). Accordingly, more often than not workers from different backgrounds may feel uncomfortable working with their colleagues as they may have differing political, social as well as economic viewpoints. This kind of scenario can affect a firm’s productivity adversely as there is no unity and teamwork between employees. Within the same setting, diversity can facilitate tension within the workplace thus creating gossip, distrust and rumors. Evidently, arguments are often experienced in organisations with diverse workforce. Diversity in the workplace can be beneficial to the organization especially when ideas and opinions are called for, as these employees bring a wide range of ideas through brainstorming. However, problems often escalate when divergent opinions are viewed with subjectivity. Such scenarios would always lead to arguments, which are often unproductive and may lead to tension and ‘cold war.’ For instance, a worker may view his or her colleague’s divergent opinion as absurd because he she comes from a different social setting or background. Arguments are unhealthy to an organization as workers become less productive. Moreover, arguments may lead to workers not trusting each other. Further, diversity can cause customer service problems especially when certain employees are unable or uncomfortable to relate as well as communicate with certain customers. Accordingly, some workers can express their negative opinion about certain minority group in the presence of customers without considering the customer’s unique character (Vandenberghe &Vincent, 2012). However, diversity can as well improve customer service as employees are exposed to different cultures and languages. When employees relate with co-workers from diverse culture, gender, race and religion they get to understand how to deal with different customer’s despite their differing backgrounds. Discrimination is also one major impact that is often associated with diversity. According to Vandenberghe and Vincent (2012), a diverse workforce encourages discriminations as workers form groupings based on their similarities such as gender, culture, race and religion. Thus, workers in managerial positions from the dominating group would often discriminate members from minority groups when giving out appraisals as well as promotions. These managers can subject certain employees to harassment or give certain employees preferable assignments. Conclusion Trouble often arises when workers start to believe that only their culture, religion, race and other forms profiling espouse the right values. Moreover, conflicts often arise when workers in the organization believe that only their culture represents the right as well as the logical way to behave. This type of thinking is often referred to as ethnocentrism and should be given a great deal of attention. That way, organizations will manage diversity within the workplace. Workers should be taken through a series of trainings that address the significance of appreciating other people despite their social, economic, political, racial or religious affiliation. Research indicates that when two ethnocentric workers from different cultures meet, there are high chances that they would argue, as their worldviews would be totally differing. Diverse workers need to be taught how to manage their ethnocentric judgments in order to have conducive working environment. Therefore, cultural relativism should be embraced in any organizational setting. This paper has delineated the impact of diversity in an organization looking at various perspectives. Moreover, the paper has examined the relationship between diversity and performance. Moreover, the paper has highlighted the social determinants that affect diversity in a workplace setting. References Göbel, C., & Zwick, T. 2009. Age and productivity—evidence from linked employer employee date. ZEW Discussion Paper no. 09–020. Kossek, E. E., & Lobel, S. A. (Eds.). 2012. Managing diversity: Human resource strategies for transforming the workplace. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Business. Kurtulus, Fidan A. 2011. “What Types of Diversity Benefit Workers? Empirical Evidence on the Effects of Co-Worker Dissimilarity on the Performance of Employees.” Industrial Relations 50(4): 678-712. Mor-Barak, M. E., & Cherin, D. A. 2011. A tool to expand organizational understanding of workforce diversity: Exploring a measure of inclusion-exclusion. Administration in Social Work, 22(1), 47-64. Roberge, Marie-Elène, and Rolf van Dick. 2010. “Recognizing the Benefits of Diversity: When and How Diversity Increase Group Performance?” Human Resource Management Review 20(4): 295-308. Vandenberghe, Vincent. 2012. “Are Firms Willing to Employ a Greying and Feminizing Workforce?” Labour Economics, forthcoming. Read More