Managing Diversity: Strategies for BT Mobile's Workforce in the UK

This report examines the strategies and initiatives employed by BT Mobile to cultivate a diverse and inclusive workforce. It begins with an introduction defining workforce diversity and its importance, followed by a project management plan outlining the project's scope, cost, and timeline. The report investigates the aims and objectives of the study, including the importance of managing a diversified workforce, strategies for development, and potential challenges. A literature review supports these points, emphasizing the benefits of diversity, such as increased creativity, productivity, and improved company reputation. The report details various strategies for BT Mobile, including long-term planning, investment in talent, and training programs. It also addresses challenges like acceptance, communication, and disabilities. The research includes primary data collection through questionnaires, data interpretation, and recommendations. The report concludes with reflections on the project's outcomes and the value of the project management process.

Managing a Successful
Business Project

Table of Contents
TOPIC:-............................................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1
ACTIVITY 1....................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Developing Aims and objectives .........................................................................................1
1.2 Prepare project management plan ........................................................................................5
1.3 Work breakdown structure and Gantt chart..........................................................................7
1.4 Critical evaluation of project management process and appropriate research
methodologies used...................................................................................................................11
TASK 2 .........................................................................................................................................12
Carry out small scale a Primary and Secondary research.........................................................12
TASK 3..........................................................................................................................................13
3.1 analysis of data using appropriate tools and techniques and draw valid and meaningful
recommendations and conclusions............................................................................................13
Data interpretation ....................................................................................................................14
3.2 tools and techniques selected on the accuracy and authenticity to support and justify the
recommendations made.............................................................................................................24
3.3 A critical evaluation and reflection on the project outcomes, the decision making process
in effecting project changes and justification of recommendations. ........................................25
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................25
Provide reflection for the report................................................................................................25
Examine value of project management process .......................................................................26
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................26
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................27
Appendix........................................................................................................................................29

TOPIC:-
“What types of strategies and initiatives do companies [or the sector] put in place to build
a diverse and inclusive workforce?”
INTRODUCTION
Diversity within an organisation is refers to as the similarity and differences that are
present among employees in term of cultural background, disability, religion, race, age and
educational background. The diversified workforce involves a group of people who contains
their experience or knowledge in different area which ensure enhancement for working practices
with the help of shared knowledge (Bertels, Koen and Elsum, 2015). The current report is based
on British Telecom mobile company which offer smartphone throughout several countries. But
as the competition is increasing it become crucial for BT mobiles to keep on updating its
operational practices so that it become able to deal with changing customer need and
expectations so that it become able to achieve competitive edge at marketplace by maintaining a
diversified workforce with several skills and . Current report consist of project management plan,
data interpretation which is performed with the help of primary investigation using
questionnaire, recommendation and findings of investigation.
ACTIVITY 1
1.1 Developing Aims and objectives
Diversified workforce brings up several benefits to an organisation by brining group of
people within workplace that are different in term of their expertise area and knowledge. The
main aim behind conducting an investigation over “What types of strategies and initiatives do
companies [or the sector] put in place to build a diverse and inclusive workforce?” is to
determine the importance of diversified workforce within an organisation (Boyle, 2017). It
support the researcher to develop an understanding regarding benefit of diversified workforce
and challenges that an organisation has to face while its implementation. In addition to this, it
also support other organisations in formulating effective strategies who go through this
information. The aims and objective of this investigation is mentioned below:
Aim:-
The main aim of this report is, “To study various strategies and initiatives an organisation
perform in order to manage diversity in workforce”
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Research objectives:-
 To analyse the importance of managing diversified work force in BT mobiles.
 To determine the strategies that help mangers of BT mobile in developing and managing
diversified workforce. To study the challenges that might arise in case of improper management of diversified
employees ?
Research questions:-
 What is the importance of managing diversified work force in BT mobiles?
 What are the various strategies that help mangers of BT mobile in developing and
managing diversified workforce?
 What are the several challenges that might arise in case of improper management of
diversified employees?
LITERATURE REVIEW
The importance of managing diversified work force in BT mobiles
According to the Rose Johnson, in the era of globalization, various organizations are
trying to achieve workforce diversity which encourage the company to employ workers and
employees from different backgrounds. There are various benefits of applying workforce
diversity within the company. For instance, employing the workers from different culture and
language can provide opportunities to enhance the reach of the business. Workforce diversity
have a huge impact upon the productivity of the employees working within the organization. In
context with BT mobile, importance of managing diversified workforce can be explained with
the below mentioned points:
Increase in creativity: Workforce diversity helps in bringing a variety of the employees
from different backgrounds that can suggest a wide range of solutions to solve the problems and
achieve common organizational goals. Diversity increases the creativity within the company and
chances to come up with more effective and improved procedures. In case of BT Mobiles diverse
workforce can help in adding new features that may be helpful for their community.
Increase in productivity: Diversity in the leadership styles allows the managers and
leaders to implement new skills and techniques to achieve the teamwork spirit and unity within
the firm that helps in motivating and inspiring the employees. With a boosted morale, employees
are able to work with more efficiency that increase their productivity and performance.
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Improve the company reputation: workforce diversification also create an image of the
company into the market that organization do not practice any discrimination into the
employment process. It helps in attracting more valuable and talented job seekers. Employers are
not only able to drag new talent but also retain the existing employees with the help of this
diversification policy.
Build up community relations: When organizations plans to expand their business in
global market, they require employees or workforce from various cultures and communities so
that they can help in making effective communication and understand the work environment of
different countries. The presence of local employees within the organization helps in increasing
the sales in that particular community.
Strategies that help mangers of BT mobile in developing and managing diversified workforce
According to Kimberlee Leonard, workforce diversity consists individuals from various
backgrounds based on religious beliefs, economic history, racial identification, etc. Hence, it is
necessary to manage and control the diverse workforce so that conflicts may not arise within the
workplace. If diversity is implemented with an effective strategic plan, it can bring strength to
the company. Strategic plan that may help the managers of BT Mobiles in developing and
managing diverse workforce is suggested below:
Make plans: The management of the company needs to develop a long-term plan to
implement the diversity at the different levels of the organization for which, it is necessary to
make quantifiable strategies, execute them for a long-term and stick to the strategies confidently.
Investment in strategy: The things that may be covered within the diversity strategy, are
learning and talent development of employees, retention and performance management of
talents. These strategies require adequate investment of efforts, funds and time so that top
potential talent can be identified and promoted.
Train the team: It is necessary to understand the existing organizational culture and
analyse the acceptance level of potential training. A culture sensitivity skills training program is
crucial for both the employees and the employers so that mutual respect for cultural differences
can be produced, effective teams can be build up, relationships can be strengthen for boosting the
productivity.
Build an inclusion: A strategic on boarding process that is excellently and thoughtfully
constructed with the opportunity of development can create a strong culture hence it is crucial to
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weave in the organizational values, mission, vision, public image and marketing plan. This will
help the management of BT Mobiles to develop better communication and commitment among
the diverse workforce.
Take responsibility: In order to implement and develop the diversity of workforce
within the company, it is crucial for everyone to understand their roles and take the responsibility
to play a part in creating a culture of belongings. A visible, transparent and active leadership can
play a major role in this part hence leaders of the selected organization should make an open
commitment to their goals and diversity strategies.
Several challenges that might arise in case of improper management of diversified employees
According to Angela Hoods, companies with diverse workforce always face diversity
issues in everyday operations. As the workplace is becoming more dynamic and diverse,
management need to be more aware about the various challenges that may take place within the
organization. In case of an improper management of diversified employees, conflicts may arise
and it may be difficult to perform regular functions of the company. The challenges or issues that
may arise in BT Mobiles due to ignorance of proper management are defined below:
Acceptance and respect: Lack of the acceptance for other cultures and values decrease
the respect among the workers for each other which cause the disagreements, conflicts and
animosity at the workplace which is not good for organizational growth.
Accommodation of beliefs: Diversity in political, cultural and spiritual beliefs is the
biggest challenge for the management of diverse workforce enterprises. Employees try to impose
their beliefs and values on the other employees and this creates disputes among them which
divert their focus from the work.
Ethnic and cultural differences: Workers in the diverse workforce are still hold
prejudice against others who belong to different culture, religion or ethnic backgrounds. This
discrimination and prejudice can affect the morale and productivity of the employees and
conflicts may arise at the workplace.
Physical and mental disabilities: Sometimes it becomes difficult for the physically or
mentally disabled employees to work in the organization due to the lack of the facilities for them.
Unsupportive or discriminatory behaviour of other employees may decrease their morale and
they may loose their productivity.
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Language and communication: This is the most common challenges that have to be
faced by the diverse workforce companies. Managers and employees feel difficulties in getting
the messages sometimes which can lead towards the miscommunication and productivity loss.
1.2 Prepare project management plan
The project management plan is refers to as the written documents which contains
information regarding several type of activities to be performed within a project. It act as a
blueprint to the project manager which depict the set of actions to be performed and in what
manner along with the time taken by them (Davies and Hughes, 2014). This project management
plan contains several type of strategies and plan that support in proper execution of project. It
consists of several elements such as size, scope, cost, resources, risk, communication, quality and
time. In context of present research, the investigator has developed a project management plan so
that operations can be performed in a systematic manner. The element that are present within this
plan are mentioned below:
 Cost:- It is defined as the fund which is required for the execution of particular project.
The financial resources are consider as one of the most essential factor which help
personnel to accomplish their aim or purpose in right manner. These factors are those
determinants which basically occurs while several tasks are being performed. In order to
perform operations in efficient manner as per changing customer demand BT mobiles is
required to formulate effective strategy which may increase the cost of operation cost,
R&D cost etc. On the other hand, researcher is also required some amount of finance in
order to execute its research by arranging resources and other things for performing the
activities involve in investigation appropriately. The cost required by investigator for
conducting this project is £500 for executing activities that support in accomplishment of
research objective.
 Scope:- This is an essential element which provides level of opportunities and chances
within the marketplace. The scope of this developing strategies for diversified workforce
which help BT in enhancing its customer base and achieving competitive advantage in
marketplace (Hillson, 2017). On the other side, this research also contains a wider scope
from the investigation as it help in identifying the effectiveness of diversity strategies for
a telecom company within UK market. In addition to this, by performing this
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investigation researcher would be able to grab several opportunities for providing more
reliable and relevant diversity strategy for a inclusive workforce.
 Time:- This is consider to be most essential element for a project as it help in
determining the specific time period to be required for performing a particular task within
a project which further support in providing an estimation of completion a particular
project. By determining appropriate time scale the British telecom can arrange required
resources for performing the activities. On the other hand, the researcher requires to
identify the duration for each activity and from this it has been determined that the
project will required around 2 months to complete. By estimating this, personnels of
research would be able to implement several tactics or tools and be able to arrange the
practices in a manner which leads to accomplishment of pre determined goals.
 Quality:- It emphasize over the integral part which support the project manager in
placing the project in better position in order to bring positive outcome. For this, the
project manager of BT must focuses toward hiring the people that are from technical
background so that high quality operations can be performed (Jeston, 2014). In context of
investigation, researcher make initiative to adopt useful and accurate information so that
work can benefit other researcher in term of performing their investigation. In addition to
this the sources selected for gathering information will be authenticated i.e. secondary
information is being collected from the published article and primary information will be
gathered from 10 managers who are experienced in managing diversified workforce.
 Communication:- This phase put emphasise over communicating the essential
information to the people involves within a project for proper execution of work. Hence,
by using the appropriate source the project manager of BT can make its team members
clear about the main plan and idea behind that particular project. On other side, in context
of investigation the researcher use accurate and reliable sources so that required matter
can be discussed among the team mates in effective manner. In addition to this researcher
would also be able to build up a better coordination among each group member which
support them in controlling the conflicts among personnels. This communication will be
performed by organising meetings, presentation etc.
 Risk:- It is a most common factor which every researcher or project manager have to
face while performing research activities. In context of present study, the investigator
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may find several issues in term of its reliability of data or other which affect the final
outcome of research. On the other side, in context of BT the project manager may face
issue while executing the project which not only increase the cost of project but also
affect the image of company in marketplace.
 Resources:- This section present information regarding the material or resources that are
required for the accomplishment of project (Lientz and Rea, 2016). In order to work over
the development of diversified workforce BT requires resources like machinery, capital,
computer systems etc. for providing tehm better understanding of work and providing
training to them. On the other side, for performing the investigation, researcher require
resources like internet connection, manpower, computer systems etc.
1.3 Work breakdown structure and Gantt chart
In order to present the activities to be performed within an investigation in effective
manner, tools like Gantt chart and Work breakdown structure is being used so that individuals
within the project can be able to get a actual outlook of the activities to be performed and in what
manner. These are mentioned below:
Gantt chart:- It is defined as the graphical representation of activities or tasks which get
performed within a project along with the time taken by each activity. It is basically a process of
breaking down the set of activities that is to be performed within a project. In this chart, the tasks
are basically shown over the vertical axis and time taken by them are presented over the
horizontal axis (Lundin and et. al., 2015). In addition to this, it also represent the dependencies
among various activities within the project so that each task can be performed in systematic and
right manner. It also support in keeping the people updated regarding the projects which are
required resources for the tasks to be performed and when the project get accomplished.
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