The Management of Organizational Diversity - Essay Example

The Management of Organizational Diversity Concept Issue Paper: The Management of Organizational Diversity Concept Issue Paper: The Management of Organizational Diversity Diversity management has gained a lot of importance in today's era. It has been defined as "a comprehensive managerial process" that develops an environment favorable for all the employees.(R. Roosevelt Thomas, Beyond Race and Gender) In the scene of changing demographics diversity is the key component of the workforce. This has to be understood and focused upon in selection, retention and management of the workforce. Diversity is recognizing the uniqueness in terms of values, culture and characteristics of people and to design strategies to maximize the benefits of the unique features that comes along with it and also be careful to reduce any possible conflict. This concept issue paper describes:- What is diversity management What are the barriers in diversity management Why it is important The current challenges How does it help Diversity management Diversity encompasses everyone. Diversity can be identified on various parameters like race, ethnicity, age, gender, physical ability, physical characteristics, income, education, parental status, marital status, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, personality types and geographic location. In the growing global scenario the diversity factor is on the increasing trend. This calls for more attention toward diversity management. There are laws like EEO, Equal Employment Opportunities that guarantee the right to everyone for employment regardless of their diversity. Diversity management improves on EEO but is not a replacement of EEO. There are certain constrains due to diversity like- the area of consideration gets limited, there could be lack of diversity in STEM position applicants. There could be negligible diversity at the top ranks. It may categorize people into certain positions. Recruiting tends to be normally done from the same source. Similarly, only one person or a group of persons coming from a set of backgrounds gets the opportunity to be groomed. Barriers to Diversity It has been found that all individuals experience difficulty in interacting with colleagues, customers and others due to diversity in backgrounds like racial, gender or socio-economic. This often throws up cases of miscommunication but if they are not checked in time they could flare up into bigger problems. And there could be feelings like exclusion, mistreatment, no support or left-alone etc. that are not desirable for a healthy organization. One challenge is development of "like-me" syndrome. People coming from similar backgrounds tend to flock together. This created certain bias in the workplace and should be checked as early as possible. "[T]he "like me" syndrome can lead to a tendency to employee and work with people like oneself in terms of race, color, national origin, sex, religion, age, and disability." (EEOC, 1998: 27). This is a barrier for judging performances without any bias and also to get honest feedbacks. Similarly, when some groups are formed based on similarity, others are looked upon as outsiders. It has come up in researches that the outsiders do not get the same level of information, they are not included in decision making, they are given lesser opportunities to learn and perform. This gives rise to stereotyping where people intentionally or unintentionally form opinions about other groups. They also develop certain ideas regarding certain people. For example, women are too soft to become successful in administration or black people are not good employees Asian Americans are not to be accepted. The biggest challenge diversity poses is misunderstanding diverse non-verbal communications. For example a thumbs-up can be a positive sign in one culture but not so in another one and may become the cause of a rift. Sometimes the measures taken to encourage diversity by recruitment from all groups etc. can have a negative effect on the majority group as they see it as a threat to their position. Why it is important It is very important to use the diversity factor to the advantage of the organization and it is even more important to reduce the chances of conflict because of the diversity factor. It became very clear from the outcome of the best practices surveys. In 1998 and in 2000, two benchmarking surveys were done for 350 and 200 organizations respectively. They covered areas like recruitment, selection, retention and training. One of the key components here was to identify the Best Practice Organizations so that the successful models can be identified and adapted. The criteria for best practices were like success of the organization; results interms of quantity as well as quality; positive recognizable outcomes like customer satisfaction; innovative approach; adaptable ; and providing value addition. From the analysis of the results they selected nineteen organizations. The IPMA/NASPE Benchmarking Committee noticed that "diversity efforts" help in getting new perspectives and also in solving problems by getting different viewpoints. This helps create a healthy work environment and makes good business sense. The important thing to understand is to utilize and manage diversity to make it an asset for the organization. Current Challenges Due to increasing trend of globalization and changes in the demography, diversity in the work place is increasing by the day. We expect the U.S. population to increase by 50% by the year 2050. Half of the population will comprise of the minorities. There will be more older people, more Americans with Hispanic origin, more women and more people with disabilities in the workforce.( Future work; Trends and Challenges for the 21st Century, 1999) These demographic changes create tension in the workplace. The perceptions of the workforce are put to test due to tension. They find a challenge in their conditioning also. This creates opportunities as well as some dangers. The Value of mentoring without any affiliation to race, gender, nationality or religion, may be an inconvenience to the mentor but it helps to unleash someone else's potential. What does it provide The study areas of diversity management are the mindset and environment of the organization and diverse perspectives of the diverse workforce. Their diversity can be due to race, language, gender, disabilities or any other factor. The diversity of the workforce creates more potential for new ideas. At the same time it is also a ground for conflicts. That is why managing the diversity of workforce or diversity management is an important area to be addressed. It establishes a business strategy for managing a diverse organization and helps in different ways like creating a positive atmosphere and helping in personal and professional development. Thus helping everyone to reach their full potential. It also removes the hindrances in progress. Benefits: points These are the main benefits of diversity management:- It helps is discrimination or harassment prevention. Makes workplace relations better Improves performance of the organization Helps in building effective work teams Helps in solving problems in the organization Provides better customer services Improves recruitment process What should it accomplish Diversity Management is about getting maximum utilization of people coming from diverse backgrounds. If done effectively, it will enhance cost reduction, creativity, problem solving and organizational flexibility. It provides recruitment alternatives at the entry level. Position bridging can also be done through Diversity management. There could be a board of special appointing authorities for handling people with severe disabilities, and appointment of veterans and outstanding personalities. There could be student employment programs and "all sources announcements". Various programs like minority Serving Institutions (MSI) program and cooperative science centers, undergraduate & graduate science programs; environmental entrepreneurship program, community and civic organizations etc. need to implement diversity management. It provides professional development by identifying training and development needs for all employees. This is utilized in individual development plans and is a base for rotational & developmental assignments and most importantly to rotate the acting supervisor. It lays down principles like -you don't have to endorse what you have to tolerate to create respectful workplace to get the job done or, if there is clash of values, it can be celebrated or tolerated as the case may allow but never be discriminated. Implementation In the Benchmark Committee survey, the state of Oklahoma, Washington, Wisconsin and the City of St. Petersburg, Florida came up as the Best Practices organizations in Diversity management. All these organizations showed some common trends like:- These organizations had an integrated, continuous and measurable strategy for diversity management. The efforts for diversity were decentralized. A central governing body designed the plan outlines along with individual agencies that developed their own plans according to their specific needs. This helped in developing a sense of ownership and providing support to diversity management form both the top level as well as the organization itself. They provided training in diversity to the workforce, right from the managers to the entire workforce. They had programs for incorporating diversity into "mentoring efforts, leadership training and management-by-results" programs. They made use of the workforce data and demographics and studied the statistics. This helped in identifying the under-utilized occupations and make plans to reduce it. They used innovative result-oriented ideas and had their unique programs. It was found that enforcing affirmative action efforts by various means like law, order or mandates, the agencies were compelled to make serious goals and to sincerely work towards them. They also had a review committee to form the policies, give the assistance, approve the plans, review the plans and monitor them. The survey found that effectively implemented diversity programs interlinked recruitment, development and retention strategies. This enhanced total organizational performance. One very important component of these best practice organizations that came up in the survey was their accountability for the results. For this they used methods like "metrics, surveys, focus groups, customer surveys, management and employee evaluations, training evaluation and education evaluation." This helped them to measure the employee's ability to deal with people coming from various cultures and styles. It helps to support diversity in workplace and to study the effect of diversity on business relations. To implement Diversity Management more effectively the organizations need to use more specific and measurable criteria. Difference from others Diversity management is not a law like Equal Opportunity Law that provides the opportunity to get employment without any bias of the background. It is to streamline what happens at the work place after a law like EEO puts in diverse people into an organization. A lack of diversity management can be detrimental to the growth and performance of the organization. The best performance of an organization comes from deliberate efforts and measures taken under the sphere of diversity management. By identifying the needs of individuals and groups and their differences, tailor-made strategies can be implemented. Different measures need to be used to check the productivity to the strategies and also to check whether it is on the right path or not and whether it has achieved the degree of growth that it should have achieved. Not having any support of diversity management, will not only slow down the performance of the organization but it will also give rise to a biased group based atmosphere which is not at all desirable. It has been demonstrated by the surveys mentioned above that a diverse management team with differences in age, race or gender, had a positive impact on the performance of the organization. By leveraging the differences of diversity the organizations can actually become stronger. Thus diversity management claims an important position in today's world. Reference: 1.Best Practices in Diversity Management, United Nations, 2001 2. EEOC, Govt. of U.S.A.;1998: p.27. 3. Future work; Trends and Challenges for the 21st Century, U.S. department of labor, Washington, D.D. Labor Day 1999 4. IPMA, Homepage, http://www.ipma-hr.org/benchmark_index.html Retrieved on May 12, 2007 5. R. Roosevelt Thomas, Beyond Race and Gender,1992 Read More