Benefits and Challenges of Workforce Diversity

This assignment delves into the multifaceted topic of workforce diversity, outlining both its positive and negative aspects. It highlights the importance of open communication and a culture that values diversity for organizational growth. The benefits discussed include increased productivity, improved language skills, enhanced employee attraction, and fostering creativity through diverse perspectives. The document concludes by emphasizing the significance of diversity management as a key driver of organizational success.

Running Head: Workforce Diversity
Google Singapore
Workforce diversity
Positive impact of workforce diversity

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Table of Content:
Table of Content....................................................................................................................................1
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
Part A.....................................................................................................................................................3
Workforce Diversity...........................................................................................................................3
Stereotyping......................................................................................................................................3
Part B: Provide recommendation to the organisation for situations different scenarios in workforce
diversity.................................................................................................................................................3
Communication Barriers....................................................................................................................4
Discrimination...................................................................................................................................4
Time & Money...................................................................................................................................4
Preventive action to negate the effects of workforce diversity:............................................................5
Proper Planning.................................................................................................................................5
Openness In communication.............................................................................................................5
Conclusion:............................................................................................................................................5
References:............................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Google is one of the largest companies which have the maximum diversity in its workforce, and
there is no doubt on the success company has achieved in its tenure. Part of the success can be
handed out to its huge diversity in work force, where people from different spheres of life, with
different experiences, different countries, different race, ethnicities and culture come together and
work together for one single purpose “making life easier of people around the world” (Kundu &
Mor, 2017)
Google is the biggest example of work force diversity, it employees lakhs of people globally in all of
its offices, and takes in consideration that it does not favour a local over a deserving candidate.
Diversity in the workplace is important, because it manifests itself in building a great reputation for
the company, leading to increased profitability and opportunity for its workers. Diversity is really
important because when people from different cultures, race, and ethnicities come together, they
come into an environment filled with different life experiences, learning experiences and exposure,
this in turn helps the employees and companies to think from different perspective and help in the
growth of the company. It is no good to hang around with the same set of people, from same
culture, especially for a company, which needs to be always on its feet and work towards
betterment of life of people around the globe; hence it becomes really important to focus on
building a team with diversity at its forefront ( Kang, 2015)

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Part A
Workforce Diversity
It can be understood as vastness in differences between the people in an organization. Diversity
encompasses race, gender, culture, ethnic groups, age, personality, experiences, education
background and many more. In short, the varying differences in the workplace amongst people
define the workforce diversity. Workforce diversity fosters mutual respect amongst the team and if
developed towards the extent of positive synergies the organisation can do wonders for itself. This is
the importance of workforce diversity (Barak, 2016). Company like Google has people from across
the globe, because it understands the importance of workforce diversity and imbibes it strongly in its
culture. It believes in the ideology of diversity, to the extent that for certain Google offices, it is
mandatory to have people from different countries. Google believes there is more to learn from
people alone about their culture in comparison to what they can, in their entire lifetime from books
or any other source (Sabharwal, 2014)
Stereotyping
Stereotype can be understood as any thought which is widely adopted about specific individuals or
certain ways of behaving, intended to represent the entire group of those individuals, or behaviour
as a whole. Stereotype as a concept is inbuilt in a person because of the culture he is raised in and
also what he has primarily seen, observed and heard, which might necessarily not be true. But one
certainly constructs a perception in his/her head about such specific groups, individuals, on basis of
their behaviour, or the culture they are raised in. Stereotyping, thus, in an organisation can make
people treat individuals or groups in a certain way based on the perceived notions about the
individual or the group. Different factors like race, ethnicity, culture, religion, age etc. are the
contributing factor for the stereotyping in the organisation. Such stereotypes can create tension in
the workplace and hence it’s the responsibility of the managers to negate the effect of these
stereotypes and lay the foundation of work force diversity in a contributing manner (Shiu, Hassan &
Parry, 2015)
Part B: Provide recommendation to the organisation for situations
different scenarios in workforce diversity

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Diversity in workforce as explained in the above written paragraphs is positive, but if at all, not
managed in a positive manner it may lead to negative effects. Due to great difference in age group,
caste, culture, race, religion, differences are bound to happen and hence it is really important to
manage the workforce diversity in an organisation.
Communication Barriers
While building Google Singapore, toughest challenge they had to face was hiring people. As most of
the employees are of Indian & Chinese origin, language was one of the most important barriers in
the work place. Chinese having Cantonese tongue and Indians (Mixed of English & Regional dialect),
the company faced a lot of flak from the board of directors for hiring people from different ethnicity
with communication as a challenge. The company resolved the issue by introducing a language
round while hiring the employees. In this way they could save on the wasteful expenditure on
irrelevant manpower, by just introducing a stage in their selection procedure. The company also
hired few language interpreters to reduce this barrier, thus resolving the negative impact of the
workforce diversity.
Discrimination
Few years back, when there were unsteady times in Singapore, Indian were not treated the way they
used to be, this created a negative impact within the workforce as well. Subordinates and managers
in the organisation were looking down at Indians with hatred (because they were taking jobs of
Singaporeans, as perceived by them), this created a very difficult time for Google Singapore. The
situation was resolved after senior management came out in the open, spoke about the issues, and
empathised with the Indian working in the company. Also managers were strictly asked to report
any such matter of discrimination in a stern manner.
Time & Money
Managing workforce diversity is not an easy task at hands of managers, it has a lot of implications
and hence good amount of thinking is required before implementing such strategy. In Google, the
workforce had to be increased, and it was decided by management to increase the diversity in the
company. Therefore a lot of expense resources were hired, recklessly, just to increase the ratio of
diversity. The resolution for the following came when HR managers were restricted on a budget
rather than the workforce count.

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Preventive action to negate the effects of workforce diversity:
Proper Planning:
Any business organisation has to do planning before implementing any strategical changes in the
system. Change management is a very important concept of organisation behavioural theory, where
in order to not disturb the workplace environment, everybody has to be on the same page, and
same has to be ensured. Similarly, the company should plan its strategy for the workforce diversity.
A team should be formulated which has to ensure that the entire organisation is on the same page in
context of work force diversity and knows the benefits of the same. Proper planning would
smoothen the process of change management and the barriers to welcome diversity would be
reduced effectively (Ryan & Wessel, 2015)
Openness In communication:
Biggest barrier in success of any company is, the challenges it faces at the hands of its
communication process. If there is openness in the system related to communication, employees
would feel in a great working environment. The communication has to be from both top to bottom
and vice versa, it is very healthy for organisations growth. The existing workforce must be aware of
the advantages of having diversification in the environment; they should know how they will benefit
from having diversity of people around them, their exposure in terms of learning and their growth.
All this can happen only if the management has a culture of communication as its core value (Jones
& Kelly, 2014)
Conclusion:
Workforce diversity as explained in the earlier paragraphs has both pros and cons. If, managed well
by the managers, it can certainly create magic for any organisation. Some of the benefits that the
organisation can reap out after using the corrective and preventive explanation are numerous.
Productivity of the organisation would increase manifold, as the employees will be able to think
from different perspective and hence provide customers with better and more creative solutions

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Language skills of the workplace will improve tremendously, and hence the companies who are
looking for expanding into other global markets would have a ready resource pool at their disposal,
which would in turn save them time in hiring resources that are ready to understand the workflow
and the culture of the organisation. Hence, very beneficial for global markets.
Potential employees see workforce diversity as strength of the company. They believe that the
company is open to different groups, companies pay attention to what an individual can contribute
to the organisation, irrespective of his race, culture, caste, creed and so on. This instantly helps him
connect with the company and thus the organisation can attract bright employees and in process,
builds a reputation for itself.
Organisation these days are focussing much on the workforce diversity because they understand
that it is a big pillar of taking the company towards the direction of creativity. When there are
various people with different life and learning experiences working towards a common problem, the
brainstorming sessions becomes highly effective and hence creativity flows in the organisation.

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References:
Barak ME. Managing diversity: Toward a globally inclusive workplace. Sage Publications; 2016 Oct
11.
Shiu E, Hassan LM, Parry S. The moderating effects of national age stereotyping on the relationships
between job satisfaction and its determinants: A study of older workers across 26 countries. British
Journal of Management. 2015 Apr 1;26(2):255-72.
Jones A, Kelly D. Whistle‐blowing and workplace culture in older peoples' care: qualitative insights
from the healthcare and social care workforce. Sociology of health & illness. 2014 Sep 1;36(7):986-
1002.
Kang J. Effectiveness of the KLD social ratings as a measure of workforce diversity and corporate
governance. Business & Society. 2015 Sep;54(5):599-631.
Kundu SC, Mor A. Workforce diversity and organizational performance: a study of IT industry in India.
Employee Relations. 2017 Feb 13;39(2):160-83.
Ryan AM, Wessel JL. Implications of a changing workforce and workplace for justice perceptions and
expectations. Human Resource Management Review. 2015 Jun 30;25(2):162-75.
Sabharwal M. Is diversity management sufficient? Organizational inclusion to further performance.
Public Personnel Management. 2014 Jun;43(2):197-217.