Managing Multiculturalism and Diversity Case Study 2022

Managing Multiculturalism
and
Diversity

1
Multiculturalism in Australia: Opportunities and Challenges
In the global world there are people from different parts of the world living in any country
and so is the case with Australia where multiculturalism occurs. Such multiculturalism
provides many opportunities and challenges to the workforce within the country hence it is
critical to manage diversity at the workplace in an effective manner (Collins, 2013). It’s not
that multi-culture exists within Australia from decades or so rather Australian society has
been multi-cultural from long time ago. Most of the Australians in today’s time belonged
from countries that were colonial powers. The diversity existed in terms of fact that Australia
originally constituted aboriginal people. Before the settlements by Europeans, the Australian
continent was not a single nation rather it was a nation of aboriginal cultures that actively
spoke 200 to 400 active languages. In the census of 2011, the Australian population consisted
26% of the people that were born in overseas and 20% of the people has at least one of their
parents born in in overseas. Aboriginal Australians make up approximately 2.5% of the total
population.
Such multiculturalism brings opportunities and challenges for the country and people to work
with diversity in an effective manner. It is balance between the people from all the cultural
backgrounds that allows individuals to learn new things. The diversity that existed within the
Australian society enhances the chances of the people within the society to improve the ways
in which Australian people are learning. Since every people that comes from any particular
society has one or the other type of cultural knowledge hence it becomes easier for the
employees to learn new languages which allows them to improve the way in which they are
dealing with the challenges at the workplace (Boese & Phillips, 2011). Diversity also brings
new skills to the workplace and since new ideas are generated through this kind of diversity
hence it helps in making decision becomes easier and also efficiency comes in the modern
day business due to this.
The history of multiculturalism has allowed Australia to have people from every background.
This has developed a society where every kind of professional exists. For instance the
aboriginal people consist of the major section in the Australian workforce. People from Asian
background acted as one of the best IT talents. This is the major reason why companies hired
so many Indian in their firms. It is an opportunity for the companies as it allowed the firms to
lower down their prices. This is because the people belonging to different cultural groups
have different work-life demands and hence their wages need also varies (Colic-Peisker,