Managing Diversity at Workplace

Managing diversity at workplace
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1
The social transformation that took place over the last two decades resulted in
increasing workforce diversity and cross-cultural interaction (Alcázar, Fernández and
Gardey 2013). The growing demographic diversity created a need to understand
heterogeneity at the workplace. Diversity management approach has emerged to deal
with demographic diversity. It supposes that differences can be managed constructively
in business activities. Therefore, diversity management has replaced the equal
opportunity movement and gained the support of many organizations (Lauring 2013).
The workforce in Australia is culturally diverse; it composes of more than 250 ancestries
from more than 200 countries and they speak about 400 languages. Despite this
Australian Institute of Company Directors (2018), argue that Australian diversity is not
reflected in the senior and strategic leadership at organizations. Employers seriously
consider gender equality and diversity management; more than 70% of the
organizations adopt a gender equality strategy. Currently, large organizations promote
new gender equality initiatives that aim at addressing challenging improvements,
including large payments during parental leave, reducing the gender pay gaps and
finding ways to fix them.
This essay investigates diversity management, gender diversity issues, different
management approaches to diversity management that enable to compare and contrast
their rationales and finally it discusses the case of Fortescue Metals Group
management policy of managing gender diversity and equality at workplace.
The increasing rate of globalization and liberalization caused major changes in our
workplace. Currently, females work in almost equal ratio with males. Also, language
differences are brought to the workplace due to differences in the geographical regions
to which they belong. It can cause many problems not only because people speak
different languages, but also because it brings different mindsets to the same place, in
which they are supposed to act together to achieve the common goals of the same
organization. That is why contradictions among staff members are very challenging to
the organization and it might result in discrimination among the employees (Saxena
2014).

2
Diversity refers to the way in which people differ, it is commonly used to differentiate the
marginalized groups according to their social identity, like gender, religion, race,
disability, ethnicity and social class. Cox (2001), as cited in Byrd (2014), argue that
diversity represents the variation in social and cultural identities among individuals at a
certain place that could be the work or the market. Hence, intersectionality refers to the
intersection between people's social identities and indicates the different ways through
which social identities converge to create a dynamic system. Due to the increasing
cultural diversity, organizations found out that issuing diversity initiatives are likely to
reduce the negative impact of diversity at the workplace. These initiatives mainly aim to
reduce discriminatory employment practices and enhance the work climate that ensures
that differences among the employees are eliminated.
Reicher, Spears, and Haslam (2010), as cited in Byrd (2014), argue that the social
identity relates people to the social world, where people have similarities and
differences, there shared identity results in common social actions and their shared
identity is created from their practices. The term 'race' refers to the social categories
sustained by politicians to differentiate people according to their social construct.
According to E. L. Bell and Nkomo (200), as cited in Byrd (2014), the term 'gender'
refers to the biological differences among people, which are based on the assumptions
and beliefs that affects the treatment, behaviors, feelings, thoughts and resources of
women and men and take place on the individual and the societal levels.
Theoretical assumptions reveal that organizations' value is maximized by adding
women to leadership positions. The negative outcomes could exist only if the women
leaders lack the managerial experience required to fill the position or if women are
scarce to occupy the position (Noland, Moran and Kotschwar 2016).
Appointing women to participate in the board of directors represents a big effort towards
managing the board homogeneity. The percentage of women participation in the boards
reflect the number of women who occupy seats in the companies. According to
Stephenson (2004), as cited in Abdullah (2014), boards with women directors enhances
the process of audit and risk control and women can help in attracting more women to
the employment staff and promote the positive attitude among young women who wish
to become senior executives. Moreover, women directors pay attention to non-financial