Innovative Solutions in the Workplace

This document discusses the importance of innovative solutions in the workplace and the challenges of workplace diversity. It explores the impact of diversity on conflicts, communication, and resistance to change. The document also suggests an innovative solution to workplace diversity and the benefits of implementing diversity management plans.

Running head: IG004-Innovative Solutions in the Workplace 1
Innovative Solutions in the Workplace
IG004 - Assignment
Samira Kamran
Walden University

IG004-Innovative Solutions in the Workplace 2
Introduction
Human interactions have increased globally on various aspects. The employees gained
knowledge and adapted themselves in working together with mixed cultures. The importance of
working with diversified group of people is prevalent now. These factors have made both profit
businesses and non- profit organizations certifies diversity by working hard. Workplace diversity
is the responsibility of the management as well as the human resource teams. As defined by
Webster, diversity refers to acknowledging the transformations in people’s race, background,
gender age, religion and disability. The company chosen for the purpose of this study is Eastman
Kodak Company (Eastman.com., 2019). The main problem faced by them company was that
there was lack of innovation to meet the changing needs of the customers and as a result it failed
to cope up with the technological changes taking place in environment. The main aim of
evaluation is to design a steady result to deal with the concept of diversity in an innovative way.
The problems of workplace diversity
Workplace Diversity refers to combination of people coming from different backgrounds
and working together within an organization. Since there are mixed culture under the same roof,
issues like conflicts between employees, consumption of more time, communication, resistance
to change, harassment and discrimination arises.
Because of the difference in opinions and interest, conflicts arise among the employees. The
individuals are exposed to this cross-cultural diversification since the grad school. But it often
fails in business as no agreeable solution can be reached by either of the parties involved. As per
Zakon (2016), lack in diversity impacts the innovation effort negatively. When there is
disagreement on any issues between two or more persons, it is termed as conflict. This problem
arises most of the time but if it is not dealt immediately with integrity, the organization will wind
up. There will be animosity among employees if the management ignores conflict. The vision
of struggle/conflict are interactionist views, human relation, traditional approach. Performance’s
impact over the organization can be explained by these views.
Conflict is unavoidable and natural as per the concept of human relation. It is being assumed
by the traditional view that one’s performance will always be affected by the conflicts. Most of
the conflict arises because of trust issues and communication lag (Mor-Barak, M. 2017).

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Managers must actively accept these issues and must frame solutions for the same in order to
ensure operational efficiency. The interactionist refers conflicts as either inter-personal or intra-
personal and either at inter-group or inter-organizational levels. The immediate reasons of these
conflicts are poor performance, cooperation, misunderstanding and competition. The above
highlighted issues will be resulted if we work in a diversified workplace. (Mor-Barak, M. 2017).
All the conflicts can be responded properly by constructing a common base, finding an agreeable
answer, mutual consideration, apologizing, differentiating the context and searching an arbitrator
(Mor-Barak, M. 2017).
Taking decisions upon a diversified workplace is time consuming that needs to be thought
upon. All the workforce beliefs and values must be taken under consideration before policy
making. This process is regarded as wasting valuable time, which could have been used for
productive purposes (Stockdale, M. 2010). Furthermore, the instructions are different for each
culture. Asians are more apprehensive about outcomes while Americans are concerned with the
concept of pleasing management (Stockdale, M. 2010). It is very tiresome to bring together the
both values. A comfortable and agreeable solution must be bought up by the administration. All
these steps take time and are expensive to small companies (Stockdale, M. 2010).
Differences in the languages create the communication barriers. The challenge is when one
cannot understand the language of management (Mor-Barak, M. 2017). Communication
problems reduce productivity. Bilingual managers are hired now a days in order to solve this
issue but it can increase the cost because of the higher pay involved. Communication challenges
occur because of language barriers, inactive listening, misunderstanding, communication
mixture, weak channels and privacy of communication (Mor-Barak, M. 2017).
Diversity brings change and people are resistant to changes. This increase conflicts. Most of
the employees do not value new ideas or newer ways of performing. It is hard to implement new
ideas and concepts if the belief of “If it’s not broke why fix it” or “things are always done this
way” prevail among the existing employees. The fear of failing and unidentified reasons of
resistance. The attitude will eliminate various alteration in the business. Conflicts can also arise
because of harassment and discrimination because of businesses’ failure to accept and
understand diversified individuals. Discriminations are done on the basis of gender, age, sex,

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ethnicity, disability, background and religion. The other factors are genetic nationality,
relationships, information and race.
The history leading to workplace diversity
All the people in the businesses who were hired by the administrators and managers must
follow values and procedures of industry. This approach was followed however understanding
the significance of the application of diversity management in the workplace things changed.
Companies having diversified workforce are now leaders (Cañas, K 2014). The term diversity
stemmed from gender, background, race and age as well as from educational context, marital
status, beliefs and values (Canas, K. 2014). Congress have approved an equivalent occasion of
employment law in the 1940s, following which several other laws regarding diversity have been
enacted. The president appointed an Executive Order that instructed opportunity equality and
treatment for individuals serving in armed forces (Cañas, K 2014).
A demographic study was conducted on the demographics of American labor market
diversity in 1980 by labor secretary William Brock (Cañas, K 2014). The research exhibited
various factors, which shaped 21st century American labor market. The influences are workforce
population evolution, the minorities group, number of women and the age group in labor market
and migrant population that were illegal (Cañas, K 2014).
The demographic aspects that have been identified in the research promoted many
businesses in incorporating a diversified workforce for surviving among the competition. The
main emphasis is to employ a workforce, which will be rich in diversity and will help increase
the productivity of the organization (Daly, A. 2001). There had been an increase in flexibilities in
daily procedures, reduction in production cost, increase in efficiency and revenues, public image,
productivity as well as increase in the market share and value because of these innovations and
diversity (Daly, A. 2001).
Diversity Myths in an Organization
The main issue related to innovation and creativity is that there was lack of innovation on
part of the organization and as a result it was unable to meet the needs of the customers. The

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competitors had adopted various technological disruptions that were not dependent upon the
photographic cameras and films. The main misconceptions and myths of the people in the
organization due to which there was lack of innovation was the fear of change, the fear of
becoming obsolete and useless for the organization and the due to the culture of uncertainty
avoidance. Professional perspective states that diversity work is “the right thing to do” (Smiley,
L. 2016). The company had a lack of foresight because they could not identify the need for
technological change in the organization and they did not know they would become bankrupt.
Divergent and Convergent Thinking
Convergent thinking and divergent and convergent thinking are used in the daily life and
not just for workplace creativity. Diverging on other hand is about the uninhibited exploration of
new concepts and ideas. The strategies that were adopted by me to help all the people of my
team to give all their ideas freely was by using various brainstorming techniques such that each
person can be given a chance to present their ideas. Some of the brainstorming techniques that
could be used- Six hat technique, brainstorming technique and others. On the basis of the
alternatives decided by divergent thinkers the convergent thinkers can be asked to identify the
best technique for solving the problems of technological innovations. Convergent thinking, the
procedure of identifying one best solution to a particular problem. Diversification is however
more important than just one solution. Thus, divergent thinking refers to making various
solutions for solving concerns. There are numerous mediums diversifying the business and hence
a single explanation would not work. Creation of diversified workforce holds great significance
for the bottom line of any organization.
Missing parts
The process of design thinking includes four main phases these are- empathizing,
defining, ideating, prototyping and testing the idea. Design thinking is a process of providing
solution to various problems of the organization (Geissdoerfer, Bocken & Hultink, 2016). This
process helps in identifying the problems, redefining the same in order to arrive at a solution and
to challenge the assumptions of the people. The same technique can be applied to the company
under study. By empathizing the company can create sense a need for technological changes in
the employees of the organization in order to overcome their barriers. The company needs to
define the problems properly being faced by the company; they should then develop an idea to

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solve the same problem as has been defined by the company. For instance the main problem
faced by the Kodak Company is that of lack of innovation, the company should have properly
defined the same to other members and developed ideas to overcome the same. In the stage of
prototyping the company introduces new product and tests the same among a few customers to
see if it works and if it works then launching it for the broader market. The company chosen for
the purpose of this study could have integrated the design thinking to overcome the barriers of
fear, of becoming obsolete and all other fears could have been overcome.
Figure 1: design thinking process
Source: (Kolko, 2015)
An innovative solution to workplace diversity
People tend to stand by law and regulations when it comes to workforce diversity. But
there are many who find ways for avoiding concerns. Diversified workforce simply means
appointed people through various background, religion, but also adopting to internal policies and
regulations, which contribute towards helping employees, adopting diverse programs as well as
training workforces for respecting recruits (Daly, A. 2001). The factor that affects creativity in
the organization is generally the internal factor connected with innovational myths. The primary
barrier is that people reflect resistant for changes irrespective of the type of the organization
(Daly, A. 2001). There were only a very few women in the industry when I initiated with the

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trucking business industry but now with progression women are becoming drivers and/or owners
by engaging themselves in business process (Daly, A. 2001).
In the process of constructing solutions, individuals may experience internal obstructions
because of the misconceptions and myths (Stockdale, M. 2010). A comprehensive and effective
plan should be prepared based on the challenges rising from the factor of diversity. Minimizing
concerns as well as maximizing benefits are ensured by the pans of workforce diversity. Plans of
the diversity management will direct all the offering guidelines for facilitating the goals and
objectives. For promoting the aspects of diversity, the plans of policy and program
implementation will be adopted. The plan will also include hiring, selection process as well as
the promotion procedure. The protection of company’s culture comes under the responsibility of
diversity management (Daly, A. 2001). The factors that can be incorporated in diversity
management plan are advertising products to a range of consumers as well as recruiting
candidates from diverse population. The process of identification and implementation of the
personal needs for each employee can be considered as a possible solution. Addressing the needs
of the employees will eliminate the sense of discrimination. Moreover, the ability of the
company will develop for introducing the strategies of motivation (Daly, A. 2001). The
procedure of assessing the work will contribute towards need identification. The internal
concerns should be primarily addressed by the internal consultant. The internal issues can be
solved by the process of brainstorming and incorporating training methods. The implemented
solutions should be tested to assess their applicability on the organizational system. Sudden
Impromptu survey implication with the employees will help in the process of testing the results.
The effectiveness of success will be reflected through the feedback system (Mor-
Barak, M. 2017). For the purpose of gaining competitive edge over competitors in the industry
will be facilitated through the implication of creativity and innovation. According to my
understanding, Creativity reflects an unusual activity by the employees in relation to
competitor’s activity (Daly, A. 2001). Maintaining creative management may result in various
concerns. The newer ideas of the employees may not be in accordance with the laws and
regulations. For example, few drivers in the company marks the need for two log books for
keeping track but this process may lead to cheating in regards with the hours of driving per day.
The concern arrives during an accident as well as the concerned people were off duty (Daly, A.

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2001). Less control of the employer over boundaries may be regarded as another concern. The
sensible decision should be framing the limit of creativity in accordance with legal standards.
Missing parts
The ethical concerns of the company includes the issues related to a diverse workforce
that gets treated equally and providing equal training opportunities to all the employees of the
organization. By doing the same the company ensures that its people are motivated such that they
can take part in innovation techniques. Another major ethical issue for the company is that of
corporate social responsibility undertaken by the company such that it can have a positive impact
on the people. These are ethical issues because it improves the employee’s well-being of the
organization. By carrying out innovation for meeting the technological changes there will not be
any ethical issues because it is aimed at improving the well-being of the customers as well as all
the employees.
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded by stating that workplace diversity reflects various norms. The
suitability of testing of pre-employment activities in regards to a multicultural workforce can be
molded on various forms. One of the usual forms can be the strategy of women employment with
the association of aptitude tests and skills. An individual assessment is focused on the individuals
of the organization. The advantage of work diversity includes improved culture, public image,
customer relations, skills and productivity (Stockdale, M. 2010).

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Diversity Mind Map
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References
Cañas, K. A., & Sondak, H. (2014). Opportunities and challenges of workplace diversity:
Theory, cases, and exercises.
Daly, A. (2001). Workplace diversity: Issues and perspectives. Washington, DC: NASW Press.
Zakon, A. (2016). Why diversity is important to innovation. Retrieved from: ideascale.com
Employees of the organization feel
that they would fail
Future about the future causes lack of innovation
Fear of future
Employees fear that if technological
innovation takes place they will become
obsolete
Fear of failure
Due to lack of efficient
resources there can be lack of
innovation
Lack of innovationFear of becoming
obsolete
Lack of resources

IG004-Innovative Solutions in the Workplace 10
Mor-Barak, M. E. (2017). Managing diversity: Toward a globally inclusive workplace.
Stockdale, M. (2010). The psychology and management of workplace diversity. Malden, MA
Smiley, L. (2016). The 5 Diversity Myths Your Organization Needs to Stop Perpetuating.
Retrieved from:http://www.societyfordiversity.org/the-5-diversity-myths
-org-needs-stop-perpetuating/
Kolko, J. (2015). Design thinking comes of age.
Geissdoerfer, M., Bocken, N.M. & Hultink, E.J. (2016). Design thinking to enhance the
sustainable business modelling process–A workshop based on a value mapping
process. Journal of Cleaner Production, 135, pp.1218-1232.
Eastman.com. (2019). Eastman | The results of insight. Retrieved from
https://www.eastman.com/Pages/Home.aspx