Exploring Challenges and Opportunities in Workplace Diversity

This report delves into the multifaceted aspects of workplace diversity, examining both the challenges and opportunities that arise from managing a diverse workforce. The introduction defines diversity in an organizational context, highlighting its benefits such as a wider talent pool, increased innovation, and enhanced shared values. However, it also acknowledges the challenges, including acceptance and respect issues, communication barriers, and potential pay gaps. The core of the report features a practical role-play activity where students simulate a charity event organized by a diverse team. This activity showcases the team's struggles with coordination, communication, and cultural differences, as well as the manager's interventions and training to overcome these hurdles. The conclusion summarizes the key takeaways, emphasizing the importance of diversity for organizational success and the skills acquired through collaborative efforts. The report also highlights the importance of creating inclusive environments and addressing potential conflicts to harness the full potential of a diverse workforce. The report concludes with a list of references to support the arguments presented.

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Table of Contents
PART 1: INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................1
PART 2: PRACTICAL ACTIVITY................................................................................................2
PART 3: CONCLUSION................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

PART 1: INTRODUCTION
Diversity refers to the condition of having or being consists of differing elements. The
concept of diversity encompasses acceptance and respect. Each individual is unique and they
must be recognise by their individual difference (Barak, 2016). In short diversity means different
kinds of people irrespective of their caste, creed, religion and culture live together in the society
in peace and harmony. In organisational context, diversity refers to the wide range of people of
different religion, culture and belief joined together and work collaboratively in order to
accomplish the common goals and objectives of the organisation (Djabi and Shimada, 2017).
Workplace diversity refers to the variety of individual differences in an organisation. There are
ample of benefits associated with diversity in work place for instance diversity aid in providing
wide pool of talent to the organisation, it enhances shared values within a company, it increases
the level of innovation and quality of work within an organisation (Levy et.al., 2018).
Despite of having many benefits there are some challenges which faced by managers and
management of organisation while dealing with diverse people. In this context, the following
report will examine the challenges and opportunities associated with working with diverse
people. Nowadays every organisation is open for selecting diverse candidates as they come with
new ideas that can assist the organisation in enhancing their productivity and profitability (Singh,
2018). Organisations that commits recruiting a diverse workforce have a greater pool of
applicants to choose from. It can provide more qualified candidates which are appropriate for
specific job and thus it helps in reducing the time of company and management (Wrench, 2016).
Employers believes that working with diverse employees helps in increasing the productivity of
the organisation as diverse employees' comes with different ideas (Saxena, 2014). Diverse
background employees imbue corporations with creative ideas and perspectives which
demonstrated by their cultural experience. Though there are some challenges and issues that
managers faced while managing diversified workforce (Hunt, Layton and Prince, 2015).
Acceptance and respect is one of the biggest challenge faced by the managers while working
with diverse workforce.
Conflicts arises when there is a lack of acceptance of culture diversity and beliefs among
employees. Diversity in cultural, spiritual and political beliefs can pose a challenge in a diverse
workplace (Guillaume et.al., 2017). Many managers have contends that some of the individuals
hold prejudice against people who have different ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds as
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their own. Pay gap in gender is still visible in many organisations. Apart from this, language and
communication barrier is considered to be the biggest challenge faced by the management of
business organisation while dealing with diversified workforce. Thus, these are the few
challenges that management of business organisations faced while dealing with diversified
workforce. Many of the large and medium organisations have transformed their perceptions
towards diversified people in Australia and they also made redundant efforts by formulating
precise policies and norms which helps in providing support to the diversified work force within
the organisation. In this context, the report will show detail understanding about working with
diversified people by conducting practical activity.
PART 2: PRACTICAL ACTIVITY
In the role play activity, students were told that they are part of reputed organisation
working in Australia. The organisation believes in recruiting diversified employees within their
organisation. This year, the motive of organisation is to conduct annual charity event where they
target to raise AU $10000. The manager is responsible for formulating the team full of
diversified people so that the learning outcome of the activity can be accomplished. After
completing the activity team members will be able to know the importance of working in
diversified team and they will able to understand the challenges they faced during the whole
process. Manager has selected an employee who is good at planning event and coordinating. His
name was Paul. He manages time effectively but lack communication skills. The role allocated to
Paul was to plan the event and articulate it with other team members.
Manager selects another employee name Catherine who came from United Kingdom to
Australia for work. She has adequate communication skills but lack effective coordination
especially while working with male employees. Role of Catherine was to collect precise
information and communicate it to Paul. Manager has selected another member who was
physically handicap and was on wheelchair. His name was Abdul. When it comes to generate
creative ideas and techniques, no one can compete with Abdul's mind. The role of Abdul is to
generate creative idea to make the charity event successful and attractive. Manager selects last
person who have role to manage the finance and budget of team. Her name was Natasha. She
was Indian and Hindu who came for work in Australia. All the team members have to coordinate
with the manager. Catherine was good at communication but lack adequate coordination skills.
She has collected all the required information within 5 days but due to her lack of coordination
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skills with male employees, she fails to provide collected information to Paul. This affects the
planning and implementing process. Manager got furious about they have only 25 days for the
event. Catherine told that due to inadequate coordination and articulation skills she was not able
to coordinate with Paul.
Manager provides him short training of 1 day in order to improve her coordination skills.
She has to deal with many male employees in the company so that her fear and anxiousness can
be perished. After one day there has been significant change and transformation in her behaviour
as she was able to coordinate with Paul effectively and efficiently. She provided the information
in precise and succinct manner which helps Paul to create plan. Paul was younger in all the team
and show arrogant behaviour towards other employees in the organisation. Especially to Abdul.
Abdul was of different religion and cultural background. Paul feels lower when he communicates
with Abdul as he was not of his culture. Manger identified this and talk to Paul in order to
provide him lesson of respecting senior members in the organisation.
Manager increases the position of Paul in the department and assigned him with lots of
responsibilities. After a day his behaviour was significantly transformed and he started
respecting senior members and Abdul. Paul discuss the event plan with him effectively and
Abdul provided him precise guidelines for further improvements. Natasha came from India face
difficulty in communicating with other colleagues and team members due to language barriers.
She has difficult task in formulating budget and articulating it with other team members and
managers. Due to her language issue, everybody started making fun of her which lowers her
morale and motivation. Manager got infuriated with the reactions and postponed the meeting.
Manager provided training to Natasha for two days in order to improve her basic English and
communicating skills so that she can communicate with confidence with team members.
Managers also rebuked other team members for making fun of her. After two days, Natasha
fluently articulated the budget of the whole event and discuss more in order to get further
consideration. Thus, team members work collaboratively and collectively respecting each other
opinions and views in order to make the charity event successful. Manager felt contented about
team work and provides assistance where the team needed. On the day of event, each and every
member of team handled more employees and staff so that the event can be able to accomplish
its desired goals and objectives.
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Through this event, the management of organisation was able to generate more than
desired target. They were able to generate AU $12500. After the event, manager thanked and
appreciated work of each and every team member and tell them about the importance of working
in diversified workforce. Team got disband after the event but they learnt important lesson while
working in the organisation. From the activity, the challenges faced by team was lack of
coordination, communication, respect and language barrier. The skills acquired by the team
members covers their weakness and they were able to enhance their knowledge level and
understanding effectively and efficiently. From the above role play activity, it can be understood
that diversity within the organisation is very crucial and important as it helps in enhancing the
team and collaborative work and also increases shared values and cultures within the
organisation. After the activity, team members were acquired the ability to work in team of
diversified people.
This is essential in order to accomplish the organisational goals and objective. In order to
sustain in competitive environment, it is essential and crucial for organisation to work in team
full of diversified people. There are various challenges and issues that has been faced the team
members at the beginning but as soon as they begin to understand each other, the team members
started to work in more collaborative and collective manner and thus they were able to
accomplish the goals and objectives of the event effectively and efficiently. Thus, from the above
role play activity, the significance of working in team and collaboratively has been ascertained.
PART 3: CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be understood that diversity means the state of being
diverse. It means a community which possess of different kind of people of different religion,
caste, and cultural background. In organisational context, diversity means different kinds of
people of different cultural background comes together in order to enhance the shared value of
the organisation. Diversity is very essential in workplace as provides ample of opportunity to the
company by improving their productivity and profitability. There are lots of benefits such as
wider pool of talent, innovative and skilled candidates, enhancement in shared values, etc.
associated with working in diversity. There are challenges such as language barrier, gender
inequality, conflicts and disputes which are identified by managers while working with
diversified people. In this context, through practical role play activity, the opportunities and
challenges associated with working with diversified people has been identified. In the role play
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activity conducted, students were a part of reputed Australian firm which believes to hire
diversified workforce. The motive of organisation is to conduct annual charity event where they
target to raise AU $10000. The manager was responsible for accumulating the team full of
diversified people so that the learning outcome of the activity can be accomplished. At first it
became difficult for manager to make team work but after training, they were able to work
effectively and efficiently. After the activity, team members were acquired the ability to work in
team of diversified people.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Barak, M.E.M., (2016). Managing diversity: Toward a globally inclusive workplace. Sage
Publications.
Guillaume, Y.R., et.al., (2017). Harnessing demographic differences in organizations: What
moderates the effects of workplace diversity?. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 38(2),
pp.276-303.
Saxena, A., (2014). Workforce diversity: A key to improve productivity. Procedia Economics
and Finance, 11, pp.76-85.
Singh, N., (2018). Prospective and Strategies Managing Cross Culture Diversity in
Workplace. GST Simplified Tax System: Challenges and Remedies, 1(1), pp.166-168.
Djabi, M. and Shimada, S., (2017). Generational Diversity in Organisation: A Meta-Analysis.
In Management and Diversity: Thematic Approaches (pp. 151-181). Emerald Publishing
Limited.
Levy, A., et.al., (2018). Diversity of brain metastases screening and management in non-small
cell lung cancer in Europe: Results of the European Organisation for Research and
Treatment of Cancer Lung Cancer Group survey. European Journal of Cancer, 93, pp.37-
46.
Wrench, J., (2016). Diversity management and discrimination: Immigrants and ethnic minorities
in the EU. Routledge.
Hunt, V., Layton, D. and Prince, S., (2015). Diversity matters. McKinsey & Company, 1, pp.15-
29.
Djabi and Shimada, 2017Levy et.al., 2018Wrench, 2016Hunt, Layton and Prince, 2015
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