Managing Diversity in the Workplace

This document discusses the concept of diversity in the workplace, including its benefits and how to effectively manage diversity. It covers topics such as the importance of communication, encouraging diverse groups, hiring practices, and the implementation of policies and procedures. The document emphasizes the need for clear communication, open-mindedness, and sensitivity training to create an inclusive and harmonious work environment.

Running Head: DIVERSITY 0
Management

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Contents
Purpose.......................................................................................................................................3
Concept of diversity in workplace.............................................................................................3
Benefits of diversity in the workplace.......................................................................................3
How to manage the diversity in workplace................................................................................4
Certain tips for managing diversity in the workplace:...........................................................4
Policies and procedures..............................................................................................................5
Documentation of policies and procedures............................................................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................7

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Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to know the concept of diversity at workplace.
Organizational diversity at workplace is said to be total makeup of the employees and the
amount of diversity that is included. It is also the differences in the personal traits of person
such as race, age, gender, ethnic origin, marital status, education, and various other secondary
qualities. There are companies that include diversity training for the new entrant as part of
their training and initial orientation.
Concept of diversity in workplace
Diversity in workplace refers to the various differences between all the individuals in
the organization. It only include how each person identify themselves but how other
recognize them. Diversity take place in various forms in organization such as gender, race,
ethnic group, religion, age, citizenship status, sexual orientation, physical and mental
condition (Barak, 2016). Due to the changing business environment, organizations are
adapting diversity strategies and policies that will appeal to their clients, employees,
suppliers, and vendors. Due to valuing differences, every person contributes their creative
experiences in the workplace and give positive contribution in the internal activities (building
of good organization culture), and external activities (sharing great experience to customers
as well as stakeholders). In every organization, diversity is all about sharing the different
background, ideas, skills, thoughts, geography, knowledge, and background. It encourages
different thoughts, create unique culture, and embrace the new ideas in the organization. In
this regard, worklogy stated that workforce diversity “is the bringing together of a variety of
people to one workplace.” In addition to this, companies that serve the global audience and
diverse population are able to maintain competitive position among its competitors.
Benefits of diversity in the workplace
Diversity delivers various benefits in the workplace. Firstly, employees from different
background provide the innovative and creative ideas at the workplace. Variety of
experiences and skills among the team members also states that employees can learn various
things form each other. It is true that cultural differences and language barriers are one of the
major obstacles for every business who want to expand their business. However, by hiring the
employees of various languages make it possible for organization to easily expand their

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business. When company has good diversified people, people mostly attracts to that. People
always want to work in those culture where people value each other irrespective of their
caste, religion or culture. It also improves the performance of employees. It is true that
employees likely to feel more happy, comfortable and confident in an inclusive environment.
Having diversified people, there are chances of more customer satisfaction by doing
improvement how employees connect with the various clients and public (Dyson, 2017).
Diversity at workplace also leads to better decision-making in the organization.
Research has also stated the direct link between the workplace diversity and decision-making.
Whenever the employees from diverse perspective and cultural background come together,
they always come up with various innovative solutions that further improve the decision-
making process and results (Martic, 2018). Workplace diversity also helps in boosting the
company’s brand and reputation. Organizations that are dedicated toward promotion of
diversity are seen better and socially responsible. It also makes the company more interesting.
It becomes easy for the people to relate with the company and its brand, opens the door to
new customers, market and business partners. It is also beneficial for retaining the employee
at the workplace. When employee feel valued and accepted, they also like to stay for long
time in the company. Because of this, companies with higher diversity at workplace have
lower rate of turnover. It also assists the companies in getting higher amount of profit. It is
true that whenever the decisions are taking faster, companies tend to get the serious
disadvantage over its competitors. Workplace diversity also helps in fostering the mutual
respect among the employees (Kinicki & Fugate, 2018). Whether employees work in teams
or groups with different working style, disabilities, an energetic work environment becomes
the norm. It is evitable that conflict occurs at the workplace. Employees who acknowledge
differences also able to find the similarities when there are some common objective such as
quality and production. A diverse workplace also offers the various exposures to employees
from different backgrounds and culture. Traditional learning workers also learn the new
technologies and process from diversified cultural background.
How to manage the diversity in workplace
Managing diversity is one of the most challenging jobs for nay HR professionals. These
challenges can be reduced if organization makes efforts for encouraging the more
heterogeneous environment through promotion of open communication, culture of tolerance
and creation of conflict management strategies. For a leader to properly manage the diversity

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in the workplace, it is needed to understand the background and how their beliefs and
behaviours affect the decision-making within the diverse environment.
Certain tips for managing diversity in the workplace:
 Prioritize communication – in order to manage the diversity at workplace, it is
required by the organization to ensure the effective communication with the employees.
Procedures, policies, and safety rules should be designed properly to overcome the cultural
barriers and language by translating the materials using symbols and pictures. In order to
ensure that every person is on the same page requires there is effective and clear
communication among the entire employee. It is also essential to make sure that all
employees understand each policy, procedure, safety rules and many more information
(Demby, 2015).
 Encourage the employees to work in diverse groups- It is true that diverse work teams
let the employee get to know each other by valuing their ideas. It can also help in breaking
down of cultural misunderstanding. It is also necessary to encourage the employees to
collaborate with the team members who are different from them. The best way of using this
method by creating the work, that will reflect the diversity that exists in the workplace. It will
not only help the employees know the value of each other but also assist them in expanding
their experiences and views of team members.
 Hiring- In order to build the diversified workplace, it is essential to recruit the talent
from diversified background. It requires the effective leadership who can make hiring
decisions for overcoming the biasness in assessing and interviewing talent. When any
organization is successful in breaking the biasness and hire the qualified people with right
credentials, education and experience, a diverse workplace will be the better place. It can also
achieve it by creating the diverse interview panel that will ensure the candidate selection
process free from biasness and prejudice. Fair recruitment is also crucial if diversity will be
managed properly.
 Base certain standards on the objective criteria: By setting the one standard of rules
for every employee irrespective of their background, it becomes easy to manage the diversity
in effective manner. It is also essential to ensure the employment actions, including
discipline.
 Treat each employee as an individual: for effective result, it is essential to avoid
making assumptions regarding employees from varied cultural background. Instead of this, it

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is feasible to look at each employee as an individual and judge their failure and success based
on the individual merit rather than in the group.
 Provide diversity training: It is seen that many employee behave inventively toward
their team members not because they just want to be discriminatory but they do not know
anything better. Therefore, by providing the diversity training to employee, especially on the
position of leadership, helps people in respecting and understanding the differences in race,
religion, ethnicity, gender, thinking style and cultural values. Diversity training also helps he
employees to become self-aware by understanding their own prejudices, cultural biases and
stereotypes.
Policies and procedures
Companies that embrace the diversity are also required to ensure the procedures and
policies in order to protect employee’s right. It is also significant for the organizations to take
care of the impact of policies and procedures on the diverse group of employees. For this, it is
required by the Companies to create some of the innovative and creative ways for the
employees to provide feedback with suggestion and surveys for gaining better understanding
about the diversity policies.
Documentation of policies and procedures
Proper documented diversity policies are an effective way of communicating the organization
bearings on diversity. Policies on diversity are therefore required to review with each new
hire.
Zero tolerance policy: having the diverse workforce means the off-colour jokes related to
gender, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation. Name-calling, slurs and bullying employees
for any of the reason is needed to meet with the zero tolerance. Therefore, policies should be
place in such a manner for handling the misconduct and communicate to the employee that
such type of behaviour is not tolerated (Dobbin & Kalev, 2016). Organization should also
require making sure that employee feel safe while reporting any kind of inappropriate
behaviour from any if its co-worker. It can be achieve by keeping a formal complaint policy.
Sensitivity training- employees are also required to aware about how to coexist with
diversified range of people in order to achieve the harmony. Therefore, sensitivity training

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can help the organization in managing the diversity at workplace by becoming more self-
aware. Sensitivity training also helps in adjusting and examining the perspective of people
from diverse background. By using this, employees also learn to appreciate the views of
others in a better way (Llopis, 2017). It is also required to show what actions are offensive
and why they are perceived as offensive. It is also essential for the organizations to regularly
review the internal policies especially around the equal opportunity and harassment. For this,
it is also necessary to reflect the current rules and regulations that are associated with the
company.
Conclusion
In the limelight of above discussion, it can be concluded that the encouragement of
diversity is the great way to look forward for the organizations. In the global talent market,
organizations who can successfully manage the diversity in the workplace will definitely get
the competitive advantage over other firms. In terms of innovation, differentiation and
employer branding also, diversified firms get competitive advantage. Through diversity,
firms also able to attract the pool of talented employees toward its company. With the help of
diversified workforce, firms can also get the wide pool of talented employees so that
innovation and creative ideas can be generated.

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References
Barak, M. E. M. (2016). Managing diversity: Toward a globally inclusive workplace. Sage
Publications.
Demby, G. (2015). 'Diversity' Is Rightly Criticized As An Empty Buzzword. Retrieved from
npr:
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/11/05/453187130/diversity-is-
rightly-criticized-as-an-empty-buzzword-so-how-can-we-make-it-work
Dobbin, F., & Kalev, A. (2016). Why Diversity Programs Fail. Retrieved from Harvard
Business Review: https://hbr.org/2016/07/why-diversity-programs-fail
Dyson, E. (2017). The Shifting Definition of Diversity in the Workplace. Retrieved from
peoplescout: https://www.peoplescout.com/getting-right-understanding-
managing-diversity-in-workplace/
Kinicki, & Fugate. (2018). Organizational Behavior - A Practical, Problem-Solving
Approach. McGrawHill Education.
Llopis, G. (2017). 5 Reasons Diversity And Inclusion Fails. Retrieved from forbes:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/glennllopis/2017/01/16/5-reasons-diversity-and-
inclusion-fails/#333a972150df
Martic, K. (2018). Top 10 benefits of diversity in the workplace. Retrieved from:
https://www.talentlyft.com/en/blog/article/244/top-10-benefits-of-diversity-in-
the-workplace-infographic-included