Professional Development Workshop: Diversity Challenges and Opportunities

This workshop focuses on diversity management and the challenges and opportunities it presents. It includes activities to develop cross-cultural communication abilities and cultural competencies. The workshop aims to create a safer, more inclusive, and diversity-oriented workplace.

Running head: PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Part- 1: Schedule of practical activities
Professional development workshop: diversity: challenges and opportunities
Professional development of the diversity oriented aspects are important to develop more
inclusive workplaces that can provide effective work environments for diverse group of people.
The activity would be to identify the challenges and opportunities pertaining to diversity
management within the organization. The workshop activity is subsequently focused towards the
development of a safer, more inclusive and diversity oriented workplace.
Inclusion of Activities
The workshop would focus on the development of activities that are relevant and
interesting. Thus, the activities would be designed to help the participants learn diversity and
diversity management in better ways. The most important value that can be applied in this case is
learning more about the factors that enhance diversity management within a given workplace.
Firstly, the activity would be to gain knowledge of the various cultural contexts that can
be present at a given workplace. Secondly, an important activity would be to develop cross-
cultural communication abilities. Thirdly, the subsequent activity would be to engage in active
cultural communication with the diverse members within a workplace. Fourthly, the important
factor would be to understand the threats that may be present in terms of mismanagement of
cultural diversity (Ashikali and Groeneveld 2015). Fifthly, cultural competencies need to be
developed through the understanding of the opportunities that can be provided by a diverse
workplace. Sixthly, an important activity would be organize events that helps to bring different
people together in the concerned. Lastly, the concluding activity would be to create a better,
more effective counselling system for people from diverse communities to help them cope with
the workplace issues. The activities would take place in systematic progression to help the
achievement of the essential goals.
Timing
The first activity would regard the knowledge that needs to be created to develop better
understanding of the cultural factors. For this activity 1day can be separated.
The second activity would be to develop cross cultural communication abilities. This
would require many activities to be done that would include developing better communication

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aspects. This would also require proper training management. Hence, 2 days would be required
to develop this activity.
The third activity is to engage in active cultural communication. This would require many
sub-activities to be implemented that would help to achieve the actual activity. This would take 2
days to be completed.
The fourth activity would be to understand the threats that may be present in terms of
mismanagement of cultural diversity. For this activity 2 days would be required.
The fifth activity would be the development of the cultural competencies through the
understanding of the opportunities that are present in regards to the same. This would require he
development of proper plans. 1 day would be required.
The sixth activity would be activity would be to organize events that can help to bring
different people together. For this activity a separate plan needs to be formed for which 1 day is
required.
The last activity would be to form a guidance system for diverse people. This would be a
continuous task after the workshop is officially over. For the event that would be held in the last
day of the workshop, a 3 hour question and answer sessions can be effective.
Integration of topics and activities
The topics that are covered in the class would be utilized to guide the entirety of the
activities. The topics would be incorporated as and when required in the various systematic
activities that would be taking place. The topics such as the development of culturally safe and
secure environments would be incorporated with the greater framework of evaluation of the plan.
Some of the important aspects that would be incorporated within the workshop activities are also
from the other aspects that are learnt throughout the course. These topic would predominantly be
cultural and social diversity. This would include the navigation of cultures and subcultural
elements and the creation of cultural intelligence (Holck, Muhr and Villeseche 2016). Other
important topics that would be considered are promoting cultural diversity and cross cultural
values. An example can be given in case of the creation of cultural competencies. In this case the
values of cultural and social diversity, cultural intelligence, challenges and opportunities,
conscious cultures and deep learning of the cultural values would be incorporated. The cultural

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concepts would actually be used at each and every activities that would be taking place. More
than one topic would be incorporated within the frameworks of the different activities that would
be taking place (Guillaume et al. 2017). Hence, the important factor would be to consider the
values that are most important towards the effective development of the workshop.
Resources to facilitate activities
There would be some important resources that would need to be utilized for the benefit of
the workshop. Each separate activity is important and a number of required physical and non-
tangible resources are much important. For the first activity, the resources that are much required
are information about the various cultures. This would mean data from the internet, books,
journals and other knowledge based resources. For the second activity training rooms, trainers,
meeting rooms, projectors, whiteboards, whiteboard pens and dusters would be required. The
third activity would require meeting rooms, conference halls and projectors. The fourth activity
would require knowledge resources like the internet, books, journals, articles and informatics.
The fifth activity would require planning schedules, papers and timetables. The sixth activity
would likewise require resources like the flyers, decorative items, cultural symbols, cultural
music, art and dance presentations, etc. For the last activity conference rooms, interview rooms,
tables, chairs, whiteboards, computers, laptops and other ICT devices would be very much
needed (Stone and Deadrick 2015). The other resources that would be required can be permits
for organizing cross-cultural functions, vehicles permits, large spaces, cultural centers and other
important buildings.
Barriers to the implementation of activities
There can be some significant barriers to the activities that have been created. A
significant part of the barriers are communicational and cultural barriers. The people that would
need to participate in the activities can feel uncomfortable with the notion of getting together
with people from the different cultures. At the same time there is a communication barrier that
can affect the activities. All the different members might have trouble understanding the most
important messages that would be provided in the workshop. This means that the people
involved can face significant language barriers. There can also be significant barriers to finances.
The event is a large scale event with many separate stages including a separate event. The
finances required to sustain these activities might fall short of the budget. This is a significant

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concern as the aim is to organize an effective workshop. Moreover, issues with the budget can
further cause issues with the required resources. There is a need for large spaces for many of the
activities to be completed. Arranging these large spaces would be a significant concern due to the
fact that the time is short. At the same time one of the major challenges is getting the approval
for the government authorities for the access to the open spaces like parks or conference halls.
Promoting the workshop to gain audience attention is also an important challenge. The
organizers would need to tackle these challenges through effective planning.
Diversity management
Part- 2: Summary and final comments
In the present age of globalization managing diversity at the workplaces have become
very crucial aspect of organizational management. Diversity need to be understood, respected,
recognized and included within any given workplace. The workshop is a comprehensive
development of the diversity management prospects for better future development of workplaces.
There is a need to understand all the important aspects that are related to diversity at any given
workplace. In consideration of the same the workshop is focused towards understanding
diversity with regards to the challenges and opportunities that are present. Workplaces in towards
world have to work with people from various cultural, language, national and religious
backgrounds. However, the diverse groups are not only limited to these divisions (Rosenmann,
Reese and Cameron 2016). There are physically challenged, deaf, mute or handicapped people
engaged in work. At the same time a significant portion of the workforce is formed by the
Aboriginal or Indigenous communities. It is important to remember in this case that the office
needs to be a place that includes people from a wide number of diverse backgrounds. This need
is to be addressed through the workshop. The workshop through the systematic activities is
focused towards making the participants realize the value of diversity, understand the challenges
and opportunities and develop themselves to incorporate within the given workplace a more
inclusive environment. The people associated with the workplaces are the most important in
generating diversity value as they are the ones that mostly interact with each other. Hence, more
human way of implementing diversity is one of the strongest focus of the workshop. These are
the main aspects that are being hoped to be accomplished.

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References
Ashikali, T. and Groeneveld, S., 2015. Diversity management for all? An empirical analysis of
diversity management outcomes across groups. Personnel Review, 44(5), pp.757-780.
Benschop, Y., Holgersson, C., Van den Brink, M. and Wahl, A., 2015. Future challenges for
practices of diversity management in organizations. Handbook for Diversity in Organizations,
Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp.553-574.
Guillaume, Y.R., Dawson, J.F., Otaye‐Ebede, L., Woods, S.A. and West, M.A., 2017.
Harnessing demographic differences in organizations: What moderates the effects of workplace
diversity?. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 38(2), pp.276-303.
Holck, L., Muhr, S.L. and Villeseche, F., 2016. Identity, diversity and diversity management: On
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Noe, R.A., Hollenbeck, J.R., Gerhart, B. and Wright, P.M., 2017. Human resource management:
Gaining a competitive advantage. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
Rosenmann, A., Reese, G. and Cameron, J.E., 2016. Social identities in a globalized world:
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Stone, D.L. and Deadrick, D.L., 2015. Challenges and opportunities affecting the future of
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