Plan for a Sustainable Workplace

1Running head: WORKPLACE DIVERSITY
Workplace Diversity
Institution’s Name:
Student’s Name:

2Running head: WORKPLACE DIVERSITY
Task 1
The purpose of this plan is to ensure that there is a productive and sustainable
workforce that improves decision making and result oriented. Diversity is a term that
used to refer to gender, language, age, disability, cultural background and race. This
plan will be grounded on the legal structures that promote diversity in workplace
including Sex Discrimination Act 1984, Racial Discrimination Act 1975. Work
Health and Safety 2011, Disability Discrimination Act of 1992, Public Service Act
1999, Fair Work Act 2009 and Work Place Gender Equality Act 2012 (Australian
Bureau of Statistics, 2013). The first step at MKA Shipping is to strengthen a
respectful and inclusive work environment and culture as provided by Racial
Discrimination Act where every person regardless of their racial background should
be treated fairly. Therefore the plan will focus on supporting every employee and
respect for people with disability, and respect for both young and old employees. The
second step is to improve the ability to attract and retain people of diverse
background. The Fair Work Act 2009 provides for inclusivity in the workplace by
ensuring that anybody can work in Australia. This act advocates for hiring and
recruitment of employees based on merits but on their backgrounds. Therefore,
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander should be given equal opportunities at work.
The third strategy in this plan is to improve the understanding of workplace
diversity issues while increasing analysis and utilization of workplace diversity.
Understandably, employees are the number one perpetrators of discrimination in the
workplace and as a means of reducing this, there is need to promote diversity

3Running head: WORKPLACE DIVERSITY
awareness among them. This strategy will be aimed at collecting information and data
from employees at MKA Shipping concerning the workplace environment while
recording cases of discrimination if any. The fourth strategy will be to ensure
accessibility of people with disability, and culturally and linguistic diverse
background. This strategy aims at ensuring that any person can access the workplace
by eliminating potential barriers. As such, the plan will be grounded on the
Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities article 31.1 which requires
respect and inclusion of people with disability in the workplace (Australian Bureau of
Statistics, 2013). Generally, the plan will prevent and discourage any form of
discrimination at MKA Shipping and follow the Australian Human Rights
Commission policy of treating everyone fairly regardless of color, sex, nationality or
any other social aspect. This plan will therefore create a conducive working
environment for everyone.
Task 2
In the implementation of the above work diversity plan, the following will be
taken into consideration. Communication plays an important role in promoting human
interactions in an organization. In order to ensure there is diversity at MKA Shipping,
every employee must be made to understand what diversity is, the importance of
diversity and why everyone should be respected. Holding open meetings will be an
effective way of letting everyone communicate their passion and how they feel
towards other people. Emailing and newsletters will also be used as a way of
promoting diversity in the workplace. Building positive working relationship among
the employees will be another way of ensuring loyalty and cohesive working in the