Workforce Diversity: Advantages, Challenges, and Management

This research paper discusses the advantages and challenges of workforce diversity in organizations. It explores the impact of diversity on productivity and brand reputation. The paper also provides insights into effective management strategies for handling a diverse workforce.

Abstract
Diversity is considered as one of the crucial part of the organisation, which enable the
employees to deal with different careers. Positive aspect of the diversity brings out exchange
of ideas as diverse culture and the development of the friendship without any factor of
discrimination. Workers will have to come up with the dynamic s of external environment,
stereotyping has been excluded. Diversity in the workforce means that difference and the
similarities among the people in the organisation covers age culture background, disabilities,
religion, gender, sexual orientation, and physical appearance. No one is similar to each other
in terms of above traits. A person is not only differentiated on the basis of culture, gender and
psychological factors but it also includes perspective. Diversity makes the employee base
heterogeneous. Employment to diversified workforce has become necessity for the
organisation, which helps to build effective team, which affect the productivity. This
research paper brings out a discussion on workforce diversity, which has become strength in
any organisation but also people should comply with the things related to religion and caste
and it leads to consideration of diversity issues, which sometimes contributed to the
productivity.
Keywords
Diversity, diversity management, disadvantage of diversity, advantage of diversity,
productivity, workforce diversification, benefits, and challenges faced while recruiting from
diversity, globalisation, competiveness, issues in diversity, and brand reputation.
Introduction
In today`s era, the main fundamental shift occurring in the economy of the world. The
company is trying to move over the traditional barrier in order to cross the border not in terms
physically but penetrate the market with the help of penetration strategy after looking at the

demand of the products. Investment are reducing as the comprehended perceiver has realised
the important of advancements caused while considering the transportation and other
telecommunication advancements which have defined the state as global village because of
globalisation. For instance- American might have the need to work on their cars, which has
been designed by the Germany, it assemble at Mexico, and components are made in. US and
Japan where it has fabricated from the places of Korean steels and also the other Malaysian
rubber (Goswami, and Goswami, 2018). According to the perspective of Indians, it is
recognised as an opportunity as it is a prime economic driver in the globalisation scenario.
Various organisation have between comings from India in order to explore the opportunities.
With an aim to survive in cutthroat competition where the organisations will have to employ
such an efficient and effective workforce so that, the workforce can manage to survive in
competitive market. Delegating employment to diversified people is the main aim of each
organisation. Human is the most important asset of the organisation, which includes capital
resources, physical resources engaged by themselves that cannot alone improve the ability of
the organisation without the increased rate and contribution of human capital or return on
capital/investment. There is a need to set a criterion for the people and the organisation so
that they can maximise the entrance of fresh blood into the organisation, which will enrich
and optimise monetary aspects, which has to be harnessed in order to achieve maximum
organisational goals (Goswami, and Goswami, 2018). Efforts are sharpened on the regular basis
so that it can optimise the effectiveness of human capital and achieve greater challenges.
HRM is related to management of the human aspect in such a way that objectives can be
achieved with the development of employees and their satisfaction. However, it is difficult to
manage diversified workforce, which is being a challenge.
With the increased liberalisation, globalisation, and privatisation, it is quite visible that
changes at the workplace can undergo few changes at the workplace. It is not at all the time

where people with same profession, same qualification and same level of experience come
together in order to execute the organisational goals. As females who were not, working at
that time have come up with the same level of knowledge and education, which has, create
competition in the market. Female working ratio has been coming equal to the males. In order
to avoid the conflict and manage the relationships; it is significant to establish a coordinal
relationship between the employees as it is pone of important ingredient for the functioning
of actions smoothly in the organisation. With such a network loopholes, it shows that it
becomes difficult for any of the organisation in order to achieve the main objectives in an
efficient manner. The research has led to prepare the given model-
(Source: Kim, Lee, and Kim, 2015)
Purpose
The rationale of this study is to identify whether the organisations, which are extended
globally, are able to bring the employees to work with differentiated teams by introducing
varied policies in the organisational structure. This will help to assist to reduce the cultural
difference that could affect the flow of work. The main aim of this research is to perceive the
elements of diversification, and to study to what extent diversity issues have affected effect

on entrepreneurs in the global economy. Further, the research aims to create awareness of the
ways in order to incorporate employee diversity by the business executives in the enterprise
so that they can achieve the objective. This purpose will be fulfilled and three main objectives
will be achieved at the workplace. It will lead to identification of diversity issues and
minimise the biasness, which can reduce the stereotypes and certainly change the behaviour
in order to help and effectively handle the diversified workforce (Kim, Lee, and Kim, 2015).
Methodology
The data is being derived from secondary sources as the data is collected from several
journals, books, websites, and projects. The data includes both inclusive and exclusive
criteria. Internal criteria consists of importance of diversity, challenges of diversity, and
related issues. Whereas, the research is exclusive of other challenges and issues.
Literature review
Management of diversity is elaborated as planning and implementation of the organisational
system and other practises in order to handle people and identify the potential advantages of
the diversity. With the increased use of technology, world seems to be in hand with
smartphones and other devices, which has assisted to interact with the customers. A diverse
team includes individual with different features. Diversity means organisation’s workforce,
which includes gender, religion, age, race, nationality, cultural background, language, sexual
orientation, ethnicity, and education (Goswami, and Goswami, 2018). Diversity engagement is
mandatory as it helps to build great reputation of the organisation. This leads to increased
profitability by availing opportunities to the employees. Recruiting, retaining the diverse
team, and the inclusive group of the subordinates, which reflect world as betterment of team
with the help of developed fresh ideas and fulfilling the wants of the marketplace. To become
profitable in global and diversified market, it is important to make efforts so that it can look
as community around the world. During the planning undertaken in order to expand the staff

to make efforts to recruit diverse set of the subordinates to assist the company. Many of the
companies are known as “two-dimensional diversity” as leaders of these organisations have
three diversity trait and other culled and acquired through experience (Kim, Lee, and Kim,
2015). Operating in another country will help to appreciate difference in culture. Diversity
management is an key driver for the organisations in today`s global marketplace. For
instance- when selling products to the female customers can avail gender smarts. By relating
the concept of diversity in the leadership with the market reported by the respondents. Team
includes employees from different cultural backgrounds, which signifies to be more creative
as stimulated by the varied perspective and ideas so that experience can come up with most
innovative and creative ideas. Organisations often seek the relevancy of the global market in
order to embrace diversity (Kidder, Lankau, Chrobot-Mason, Mollica, and Friedman, 2004).
With the increased and fierce competition, every organisation wants to grab best employees
to drive maximum opportunities in the external environment. For instance- it is important to
perceive future of diversity, its part can be a business growth, and think about the IT
(information technology) was considered as the cost centre. The organisations are most likely
to hire best labour. Talent is important to improve bottom line in increased economy so that a
company favour itself and select from diverse set of employees. Diversity maintains turnover
rates as it can be high if the communities become inclusive, create commitment in order to
create a fair and discrimination-free environment in the company. Some of the benefits of the
diversity, which the organisation enjoys. For instance- customer services have improved as
the staff have started adapting the communication pattern from the assistance of differently
skilled and culturally diversified employees who belong to different range of backgrounds.
Workplace diversity is the environment of the business where workforce is motivated to work
in terms of capability and strengths. Productive diversity is considered as important because

of different skills, perspective, experience, and the cross-cultural transferring and integration
of local economy with the company.
MNCs make resources, internal programs and various networking groups even after listening
to the subordinates and supporting them at the same time in which they are interested. This
supports diversity, which add benefits by creating tighter and invested society in the
workforce. Diversified employees create home to the diversified group of the people, which
come from different experiences, and backgrounds through which organisations can
effectively enter and penetrate the market of different consumers Kidder, Lankau, Chrobot-
Mason, D., Mollica, K.A. and Friedman, 2004). These people differs from the range of ethnic
and racial backgrounds, younger and older adults, bisexual people, and transgender. Creating
and building diversified workplace van assist the organisation to increase the market share.
Recruiting from varied talent pools in order to make organisation open to various
backgrounds. Diversity grows at high rate and more organisations have been focusing on
diversity at workplace by prioritising selection, retention, training, and recruitment. Diversity
lead to increase in constructive processes of the groups and its relation, which is associated
with the performance in the business units. Further, diversity is associated with increasing
revenue sales, maximum customers, large sum of profits and greater market share in the
market. However, the organisation who have barriers to the diversity limits its area of
considering the factors (Kim, Lee, and Kim, 2015). Further, it suffers from lack of diversity
on the senior level, lack of diversified applicants for the positions, differentiating people and
specifying those people for positions. Another barrier can be recruiting from same source,
which does not create any diversification (Boekhorst, 2015). Diverse groups are often looked
as less integrated and greater level of dissatisfaction. Increase in dissatisfaction level among
the group members that may lead to miscommunication. Diversity is mostly related to
conflicts, increased turnover of employees, absenteeism, lower level of group adhesiveness,

and finally lead to low grade of performance. People as social being and other global place,
which leads to give greater significance to the diversity in order to create the appropriate
environment to work. It is seen that diversity at the workplace lead to increase the
productivity in an indirect and direct manner (Kim, Lee, and Kim, 2015). Diversity can have
many positive as well as negative outcomes. Kreitner`s elaboration defines three main issues
regarding the diversity management (Boekhorst, 2015). As diversity applies to the every
employee in the organisations, which do not embrace a range of differences but the spectrum
based on individual difference inculcates new people with their uniqueness. Diversity is not
viewed as religious and racial differentiation whereas it is combination of all the differences.
Diversity is well known for the difference among the people that also includes its similarities.
The action of handling the diversity, which requires two important aspects are dealt with so
that it can be handled at the same time. Manager often expect to integrate a collective
combination of differences and similarities among the workers in the company (Boekhorst,
2015). Diversity is based on four layers named as personality, internal dimension, external
dimension, and organisational dimensions (Sarvaiya, and Eweje, 2016). Personality
elaborates the stable traits, which establish person`s identity. It is important differentiate
various types of personality based on traits which can be helpful to portray. Internal
dimensions define the features which strongly affect people`s thinking, attitudes, perception,
and expectation from other teammates. This is inclusive of certain factors such as sexual
orientation, age, ethnicity, race, physical ability, and gender. External dimension considers
personal traits on which certain level of control can be imposed such as personal habits,
income habits, marital status, appearance, religion, work experience, education, and
geographical location (Boekhorst, 2015). Organisational dimension includes the significance
and relevance for the organisation itself. Factors is inclusive of factors such as union
affiliation, work field, division, seniority, and finally the management status. Affirmative acts

is useful as a form of method as attaining diversified and integrating the workforce. It is an
artificial intervention, which aims to give chance to the management in order to balance,
justify, and outrage the discrimination, which does not pace up the need to change the
thinking in regards to leadership about the management of diversity. Diversity awareness is a
discipline of the concept related to management of diversity (Kim, Lee, and Kim, 2015). It is
a deliberate creation of the changes, which enable each employee to perform best in lieu of
the maximum potential, which can be used. For example- Israel is an illustrative example of
how the organisation values diversity and finally it turn to bring this issue as the benefit that
can become asset to the organisation (Boehm, and Kunze, 2015). South Africa has diverse
population, which consists of social, cultural, and religious group, which is very similar to the
Israel. However, at the same time, Africa`s population is more of several immigrants while
bringing to them with diverse ethno-cultural practises from the countries they belong to. In
order to achieve competitive advantage with the help of management diversity, it has become
integral as well as important while considering leadership (Downey, Werff, Thomas, and
Plaut, 2015). It goes without saying that management disciplines will have to effective so that
it can be strongly implemented in relation to leadership. Leadership here is meant as a social
influencing procedure through which a person can willingly participate in such a manner so
that organisational goals can be achieved. On the other hand, diversity will contribute to the
high level of productivity, which always remained a major challenge for the leaders as well as
the managers. With the fact that each organisation has its own way of organisational structure
and objective accomplishment and the different strategies which may be used to challenge the
organisation so that it increase the productivity (Rawat, and Basergekar, 2016). While taking
care of the employees, organisation ensures that they offer proper compensation benefits,
healthcare services, and employee appraisal, which finally enable the worker to feel whether
they belong to the organisation irrespective of the cultural background by availing loyal and

diligence diversified employees which can further help to improve the profitability as well as
productivity (Lynch, 2017). Existing employees can have diverse backgrounds, which enable
it to new way of experience for both employee as well as the leader. Further cordial
relationship in the team can open up with many ingredients through which it can conduct
smooth functioning ad achieving the common objective (Sheehan, and Anderson, 2015).
Findings
Various data reports have shown that organisations are likely to welcome and greet diverse
workforce. Apart from this, companies often make efforts to recruit varied range of
candidates not only from the local college but also from places where the ethnicity may
differ. Lack of diversity can make unintentional severe environment for people who can feel
that they do not adjust. Business entrepreneur have realised that reason of subordinate
abandoning, hiring, replacing and finding can be an extremely expensive procedure
(Boehmand Dwertmann, 2015). It is seen that organisational groups with huge level of
diversity are able to come up with maximum innovation and creativity defining high quality
solution as compared to organisations, which are less diversified groups. It is perceived that
diversity is a basic issue which has been confronted by the entrepreneurs when considering to
move ahead to achieve global economy (Phillips, Deiches, Morrison, Chan, and Bezyak,
2016). The option of finding comes without saying that it is important to recommend on the
basis of finding regarding the issues which it has faced. It has been observed that after
analysing the literature properly and several research paper and their aims reveal that the
organisation has been facing issues in hiring and recruiting the diversified employees, which
can bring fresh blood. It is related to the productivity with its workforce and its effect on
productivity. It is found that the main aim of any organisation is to enrich the productivity
and earn maximum profits (McCann, Sparks, and Kohntopp, 2017). There is no doubt that all
the authors and researchers in the literature reviews say that recruiting fresh flood and

diversified workforce is the essence in today’s scenario however at the same time; it has
become most difficult to manage such a diversified team. Nevertheless, hiring the diversified
workforce will lead to improve the productivity but at the time it is important to manage and
other conflicting disasters as not only organisation is being affected but also employees feel
issues, attitude clashes, difference in perception, and language issues and finally the
individual behaviour affects the productivity (Lynch, 2017).
(Source: Mix, 2019)
It has been observed that after considering the finding, it becomes mandatory for the
researchers to comply with a list of suggestions and other ways to handle various
shortcomings, which has been identified in the literature review and in the purpose of the
organisation. The organisation are needed to come up with various policies, as it has become
bigger concern to the HR team. On one hand, it says it is important to adopt new trends of the
globalisation whereas, on the other hand, it says that diversity leads to maximum conflicts,

which has been treated as another issue (McCann, Sparks, and Kohntopp, 2017). New trend
can be only identified if new and fresh blood enters into the organisation-
The organisation can come up with the promoting the regular use of language which is most
common between the employees (Hunt, Layton, and Prince, 2015).
The organisation can conduct various mentorship and motivational programs.
It is important to keep the channel of communication open for the all the employees to each
other and even to the employers (Hunt, Layton, and Prince, 2015).
It is important to inspire maximum participation of employees. One of the most accepted fact
is that it is not at all the matter of culture differences but it is about the matter of the quality.
Nevertheless, the reason can be to improve quality and productivity that has to maintained
and is not thrown out (Ellemers, and Rink, 2016).
(Source: Havenhill, 2017)

Research implication
The implication has to be established on the organisations so it can create a conductive plan
to imply it on the working atmosphere with workplace management diversity. It is seen that
with the implication and change in the perception in order to change has imposed greater
importance to adhere change management principles. Famous author suggests that
management should come up with change management strategies by considering it into
account (Flick, 2018). This comes up with establishment a sense of urgency where the
management can avail them with convincing reason that come up with management diversity
principles. Workforce come up with comfortable with ideology, which will lead to motivation
so that they can follow it. It is important to influence, create a coalition, and power which is
needed to lead towards change (Barak, 2016). CEO, HODs, ands business mentors in the
organisation and the society that usually guide right persons so that it can lead the change. It
is seen that the organisation has strived to develop strategic plan with effective integration of
the diversity embedding the organisational needs, which has to be formulated. The barriers to
the effectively communicate change strategy (Bell, Bryman, and Harley, 2018). The goal is to
continuously communicate to the team with a clear manner in order to affect and have clear
idea for the change and come to change. It is an empower-based vision, which can generate
wins that are short term as barriers to various diversity should be eliminated and a small
achievable set is important for successful implementation (Kim, Lee, and Kim, 2015). More
implications are related to establishing a healthy work environment in the influence of
diversity at the workplace. The research suggests that manager will have positive and exact
perception in regards to implement the strategies at workplace diversity. These native aspects
are related to inability of the manager so that it can effectively manage diversity because of
company`s nature and the related activities. There is often a huge lack of open
communication between the employer, employee, and the manager, which is implied and

used to communicate with the workers (Guillaume, Dawson, Ebede, Woods, and West,
2017).
(Source: Burns, Barton, and Kerby, 2012)

References
Barak, M. E. M. (2016). Managing diversity: Toward a globally inclusive workplace. Sage
Publications.
Bell, E., Bryman, A. and Harley, B., 2018. Business research methods. Oxford university
press.
Boehm, S.A. and Dwertmann, D.J., 2015. Forging a single-edged sword: Facilitating positive
age and disability diversity effects in the workplace through leadership, positive climates, and
HR practices. Work, Aging and Retirement, 1(1), pp.41-63.
Boehm, S.A. and Kunze, F., 2015. Age diversity and age climate in the workplace. In Aging
workers and the employee-employer relationship (pp. 33-55). Springer, Cham.
Boekhorst, J.A., 2015. The role of authentic leadership in fostering workplace inclusion: A
social information processing perspective. Human Resource Management, 54(2), pp.241-264.
Burns, C., Barton, K., and Kerby, S. (2012) The state of diversity. Available on:
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2012/07/12/11938/the-state-of-
diversity-in-todays-workforce/ [Accessed on: 10/05/19]
Cletus, H.E., Mahmood, N.A., Umar, A. and Ibrahim, A.D., 2018. Prospects and Challenges
of Workplace Diversity in Modern Day Organizations: A Critical Review. HOLISTICA–
Journal of Business and Public Administration, 9(2), pp.35-52.
Downey, S.N., van der Werff, L., Thomas, K.M. and Plaut, V.C., 2015. The role of diversity
practices and inclusion in promoting trust and employee engagement. Journal of Applied
Social Psychology, 45(1), pp.35-44.

Ellemers, N. and Rink, F., 2016. Diversity in work groups. Current Opinion in
Psychology, 11, pp.49-53.
Evans, A. and Suklun, H., 2017. Workplace diversity and intercultural communication: A
phenomenological study. Cogent Business & Management, 4(1), p.1408943.
Flick, U., 2018. An introduction to qualitative research. Sage Publications Limited.
Goswami, S. and Goswami, B.K., 2018. Exploring the Relationship between Workforce
Diversity, Inclusion and Employee Engagement. Drishtikon: A Management Journal, 9(1).
Guillaume, Y.R., Dawson, J.F., Otaye‐Ebede, L., Woods, S.A. and West, M.A., 2017.
Harnessing demographic differences in organizations: What moderates the effects of
workplace diversity?. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 38(2), pp.276-303.
Havenhill, (2017) Reinventing the Workplace for Greater Gender Diversity. Available on:
http://www.havenhill.net/blog/reinventing-the-workplace-for-greater-gender-diversity-
mckinsey-company-january-2017 [Accessed on: 10/05/19]
Holck, L., 2018. Affective ethnography: reflections on the application of “useful” research on
workplace diversity. Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An
International Journal, 13(3), pp.218-234.
Hunt, V., Layton, D. and Prince, S., 2015. Diversity matters. McKinsey & Company, 1,
pp.15-29.
Kidder, D.L., Lankau, M.J., Chrobot-Mason, D., Mollica, K.A. and Friedman, R.A., 2004.
Backlash toward diversity initiatives: Examining the impact of diversity program
justification, personal and group outcomes. International Journal of Conflict
Management, 15(1), pp.77-102.

Kim, H.K., Lee, U.H. and Kim, Y.H., 2015. The effect of workplace diversity management in
a highly male-dominated culture. Career Development International, 20(3), pp.259-272.
Kim, H.K., Lee, U.H. and Kim, Y.H., 2015. The effect of workplace diversity management in
a highly male-dominated culture. Career Development International, 20(3), pp.259-
272.Downey, S.N., van der Werff, L., Thomas, K.M. and Plaut, V.C., 2015. The role of
diversity practices and inclusion in promoting trust and employee engagement. Journal of
Applied Social Psychology, 45(1), pp.35-44.
Lindsey, A., King, E., Hebl, M. and Levine, N., 2015. The impact of method, motivation, and
empathy on diversity training effectiveness. Journal of Business and Psychology, 30(3),
pp.605-617.
Lynch, F.R., 2017. The diversity machine: The drive to change the white male workplace.
Routledge.
Lynch, F.R., 2017. The diversity machine: The drive to change the white male workplace.
United Kingdom: Routledge.
McCann, J.T., Sparks, B.H. and Kohntopp, T.F., 2017. Leadership integrity and diversity in
the workplace. Leadership, 2(5).
Mix, (2019) Indian women are the secret to potential economic boom. Available on:
https://mix.com/!7M5U29Zy:india%27s-women-are-the-secret-to-a-potential-economic-
boom [Accessed on: 10/05/19]
Phillips, B.N., Deiches, J., Morrison, B., Chan, F. and Bezyak, J.L., 2016. Disability diversity
training in the workplace: Systematic review and future directions. Journal of occupational
rehabilitation, 26(3), pp.264-275.

Rawat, P.S. and Basergekar, P., 2016. Managing Workplace Diversity: Performance of
Minority Employees. Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 51(3).
Sarvaiya, H. and Eweje, G., 2016. Gender equality and diversity in the workplace. Gender
Equality and Responsible Business: Expanding CSR Horizons, p.135.
Sheehan, M. and Anderson, V., 2015. Talent management and organizational diversity: A call
for research. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 26(4), pp.349-358.