Benefits of Diversity in the Workplace - Research Paper Example

? Benefits of Diversity in the Workplace School Diversity in workplace is omnipresent in the present age. There is diversity of age, culture, religion, gender and opinion. The diversity is conventionally approached as a negative factor. In fact, diversity provides a company with a lot of opportunities. To avail them, all that is needed is adequate management of diversity. Benefits of Diversity in the Workplace The workplace has become increasingly diverse over the centuries. The tiny and delicate stem that had popped out of the seed of diversity at the time of the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century has now grown up into a tree. Various political and socioeconomic factors have nourished the plant of diversity to keep it growing. “The interplay of management practices, employee organizations and government interventions have shifted the character of work and employment in the past and will do so in the future” (Nolan, 2005). In the present age, one can find all kinds of diversity in the workplace including the diversity of age, gender, skills, culture and ethnic origin. Diversity in workplace has offered the managers with a lot of opportunities as well as challenges. This paper identifies some of the benefits of diversity in the workplace. Managers can use diversity to reduce the cost of business. Companies progress on the basis of their workers. Thus, maintaining a skilled workforce is one of the most fundamental prerequisites of the attainment of competitive advantage. Companies incur thousands of dollars every year to arrange the training programs for the vocational education and skill development of the workforce. Employee training is a common phenomenon as shown in the table below: Diversity training (The New York Times Company, 2006). These external trainers are way too expensive. Managers can save these costs by arranging in-house training sessions by making use of the age diversity. In order to achieve that, managers need to make the workers work in groups. Each group must have members diverse with respect to age so that the young and inexperienced workers can benefit from the experience of the aged workers. The talent encapsulated by the workforce is often overlooked, but can be put to positive use for the betterment of the organizational personnel. Such an interaction not only provides the inexperienced workers with frequent opportunities of education and training, but enables the workers from different age groups to interact with one another and remove their misconceptions. The workers can be even made to appreciate their age differences by putting the older workers in a position where they can benefit from the agility and mobility of the younger ones, and putting the younger workers in a position where they can learn from the experiences of the older ones. The older workers normally lack expertise in technology. This is where the managers can put the younger workers in the shoes of the mentors and the older workers in the position of learners. Such activities are necessary so as to keep such misconceptions from developing that workers belonging to a specific age group are more knowledgeable than others. Workers belonging to different age groups have different kinds of expertise that they can share with others, so nobody is inferior. Cultural diversity in workplace is increasing as more and more people are migrating to the rich economies in search of a better standard of living. The following graph shows how the number of immigrants has increased in Canada since 1901: Growth in the immigrant population in Canada (Kumaran, 2010). Having realized the growth of cultural diversity over the years, policy makers and scholars have started debate on ways “to acknowledge, accept, and value cultural differences among ethnic groups”(Amaram, 2007, p. 1). Companies can use the cultural diversity to expand their customer base. When a worker from a certain culture is employed in the workforce, it is actually much more than what it looks. By doing so, the company employs not just an individual, but also a representative of a certain culture. The more culturally diverse workers are employed, the more cultures are represented in the company’s workforce. This not only helps the workers to benefit from one another’s cultural experiences, but also sends a message of unity and harmony towards the culturally diverse consumers. These days, as more and more companies are trying to grow and open branches in more and more countries across the world, an objective understanding of the cultural ethics is fundamental to the company’s success in a certain culture. What is considered etiquette in one culture may be taken as an offense in another. Before introducing itself in a certain culture, the company must assess the needs and preferences of the people belonging to that culture. This is where the employees belonging to that culture and employed in the workforce can be consulted. The diversity of gender is no less useful for the growth of a company. Women have conventionally been discriminated against in the workplace with respect to position and wage (Green, 2003, p. 96). There has been little realization of the potential ways in which employment of women can actually benefit the company. Employment of women expands the customer base for the company. There are many cultures in which members of one gender only like to confront the members of the same gender. Particularly in the more conservative cultures, women tend to avoid interaction with men. They need women to solve their personal issues. Be it a psychologist, a gynecologist or a customer services agent at an undergarments’ shop, women want service from women because it makes them feel safer. A company may lose up to fifty per cent of its potential customers just by not allowing the gender diversity in its workforce, since women are roughly half of the total population of adults in the world. Concluding, diversity in the workplace is a consequence of a lot of political and socioeconomic factors that have surfaced in the last two to three centuries. Many people think of the diversity in the workplace as a risk whereas prudent handling can actually transform it into an opportunity. Managers can use the age diversity for in-house training and education of the employees and promotion of their interpersonal relationships. Cultural diversity as well as gender diversity can be used to expand the customer base of a company. Likewise, several kinds of uses can be drawn from other kinds of diversity like religious diversity and ethnic diversity. Diversity in workplace is growing with the passage of time. Wise leaders make use of it to attain competitive advantage in the market, improve the brand image in the public eye and hence, increase the profitability of the business. References: Amaram, D. L. (2007). Cultural Diversity Implications for Workplace. Journal of Diversity Management. 2(4): 1-6. Green, T. K. (2003). Cultural Diversity Implications for Workplace. Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. 38: 91-157. Retrieved from http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/crcl/vol38_1/green.pdf. Nolan, P. (2005, Jul. 5). Greater diversity in the workplace. Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/05/12/visionary.nolan/. Kumaran, M. (2010). Diverse Populations in Saskatchewan: The Challenges of Reaching Them. Partnership: the Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research. 5(1). Retrieved from http://journal.lib.uoguelph.ca/index.php/perj/article/viewArticle/1012/1739. The New York Times Company. (2006). Looking Around the Corner: The View From the Front Line. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/marketing/jobmarket/career-resources/2007-Diversity-v12.pdf. Read More