University HRM Report: Diversity Management Analysis for CERA

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of diversity management, focusing on its application within Civil Engineering and Research Associates (CERA). The report begins with an executive summary, followed by an introduction that outlines the scope and objectives of the study. It explores the business rationale for diversity management, discussing equal employment opportunity and affirmative action. The core of the report presents an argumentative discussion, weighing the pros and cons of diversity management in the workplace, supported by relevant literature. The report then examines the arguments that could be presented to the CEO of CERA to advocate for diversity management, emphasizing its value in innovation, talent attraction, and customer engagement. Practical recommendations for implementation are included, focusing on how the HR department can drive diversity initiatives. The report concludes with a call for CERA to adopt diversity management practices, ensuring fair treatment and equal opportunities for all employees. The study utilizes peer-reviewed journals, books, and CERA's website to support its findings and recommendations.

Running head: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Human Resource Management
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Executive Summary
The main purpose of the assignment is to explain the concept of diversity management. The
objective of the business report is to discuss about the positive and negative side of diversity
management and whether it is needed to apply in a given business or not. The business reports
present an argumentative part where both positive and negative aspects are properly explained
with proper justification. Finally, it is recommended at the end that CERA should adopt diversity
management action in their operations so that every employee is treated equally and there should
be fair payment of wages. The business report suggest some action plan to CEO of CERA where
the HR Department will look at the recruitment and selection process and there will be
recruitment of diverse workforce in the near future.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Business rationale for diversity management..................................................................................3
Equal Employment opportunity and Affirmative action.................................................................4
Argumentative discussion (For or against argument for diversity management)............................5
Arguments for diversity management at workplace........................................................................6
Arguments against diversity management at workplace.................................................................6
What argument would be presented to Mark French (CEO of CERA) regarding the business case
that focus mainly on diversity management in CERA....................................................................7
Applying evidences to CERA and how Human Resources can help with implementation of
diversity at CERA............................................................................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
Reference List................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
This study deals with understanding the concept of diversity management. In this
particular assignment, proper emphasis has been given on discussing the debates about diversity
management in CERA (Wilton, 2016). The next segment provides with an argumentative debates
that discuss both for and against the topic on diversity management. The current report even
recommends to CEO of CERA on matters relating to business case as it focuses mainly upon
diversity management in CERA. The business report clearly explains about the fact that there is a
need for diversity management at CERA so that there is smooth functioning of business
practices. The information was collected from recent peer-reviewed journal articles, books and
websites of CERA (Sparrow, Brewster & Chung, 2016). Entire study revolves around a company
named as Civil Engineering and Research Associates (CERA). The vision statement of CERA is
to become one of the famous and renowned consulting companies in civil construction in
Sydney. The approach adopted by CERA was to provide high quality as well as timely planning
and civil engineering advice and solutions to the clients. At CERA, they have experienced and
responsive consultants, who work together to plan, design as well as document all the aspects
relating to structure of in-house activities (Vivares-Vergara, Sarache-Castro & Naranjo-Valencia,
2016).
Business rationale for diversity management
The business rationale for diversity management explains about the process that is used
for managing similarities as well as differences in proper ways (Brewster, Mayrhofer & Morley,
2016). This management is built upon certain set of values that aims at identifying the
differences between people who are the real strength for the business enterprise. Furthermore,
diversity management is one of the processes of management that creates an environment as it
allows all for contributing to achievement of organizational goals as well as experience of
personal growth (Tyson, 2014).
Diversity takes into account all individuals and it is not presumed by any specific race or
gender. The term diversity is extended to attributes such as age, personal as well as corporate

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Organizational values Mission
Vision
Long-term and short-term goals
Organizational strategy
Similarities and
differences between
individuals
Objective results Desired results
Situational constraints
Existing culture
Legislation
Economic conditions
Diversity Management
Strategic
Operational
Managerial
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background and personality. Furthermore, diversity takes into account lifestyle, geographical
origin as well as status (Tung, 2016).
Equal Employment opportunity and Affirmative action
Equal Employment Opportunity- It is important to understand about the concept of Equal
Employment Opportunity where it is connected to attempt made by the government that ensure
all the individuals have an equal opportunity to get access for employment irrespective of their
age, gender, national origin and religion (Tenhiälä et al., 2016).
Affirmative action- It is essential to understand the fact about affirmative action that is directly
associated with rendering quotas as well as other forms of reputation used for compensating for
past injustices suffered by a given class or group (Sparrow, Brewster & Chung, 2016).
Model of Diversity Management
Figure: Model of Diversity Management
(Source: Shields et al., 2015)

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Diversity is all about managing similarities as well as differences of employees where it
is important to identify the needs that differentiate between objectives as well as subjective
components. Furthermore, it is important to specify the dimensions of diversity that is needed to
be managed as far as possible (Sparrow, Brewster & Chung, 2016). However, the management
of a collective as well as all-inclusive mixture of differences as well as similarities along specific
dimension
It is important to understand the concept of diversity management as well as bringing
improvement in the level of organizational performance (Brewster, Mayrhofer & Morley, 2016).
It is understood that diversity management provides a source of competitive advantage as well as
process give a means of bringing effective adaptability to change. There had been several
ideological grounds that need to be taken into account where it is required to maximize either the
potential within the individuals who are gifted or being creative in their actions. Diversity
management will be source of innovation that is used for generating a wider range of ideas as
well as frameworks as it results in innovative and gaining opportunities for future analysis
purpose (Sheehan, 2014).
Several initiatives need to be taken for managing diversity as far as possible. Strategic
initiatives identify diversity as critical for attainment of success of an organization. In addition,
managerial initiatives links with formulating management practices as well as structures as it
facilitate for maintaining effective diversity management (Reiche, Mendenhall & Stahl, 2016).
The other initiatives that can be taken are operational initiatives that aim at implementing several
practices in and across workplace.
Argumentative discussion (For or against argument for diversity management)
The term diversity management came into existence since 1980 and it is ambiguous to
properly understand how a particular business enterprise makes strategies to handle their diverse
workforce. Addition to that, there are several diversity consultants as well as trainers and experts
who have proper understanding about each type of diversity for paying a fee. Nowadays,
organization is bringing diversity management into practice by enhancing a new position that
needs to be aligned to human resource department functions (Sparrow, Brewster & Chung,
2016).

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Arguments for diversity management at workplace
As rightly put forward by Riley (2014), proponents of workplace diversity explain studies
that shows diversity mostly have positive effect on the bottom line of a given business enterprise.
Diversity management has several benefits and it is advantageous to have diverse workforces.
The synergy takes place between people from varied backgrounds, work values as well as
cultures. Furthermore, collaboration among different population will give rise to creativity,
without diverse workforce; here will be bland work teams. On analysis, it is found that
employees feel good about diversity that takes place naturally rather than forcing diversity
management into the workplace (Sparrow, Brewster & Chung, 2016).
It is not difficult for a company to recruit diverse pool of applicants if they are engaged in
providing fair employment as well as good business practices at the same time. To further
explain about benefits of diversity management, it is essential to put forward one of the tangible
aspect where the company does not have additional expense of consultant fees. It is necessary to
compare the cost of hiring, training and retaining employees with the cost to engage in
outsourcing diversity management (Reiche, Mendenhall & Stahl, 2016).
One of the reasonable ways that should be adopted by organization where they can save
money is staffing human resources department with diversity expert. It is not possible for any
consultant who will remain available all the time with each of the individual employees. For this
reason, the client base of the company may increase due to the reputation of the business as the
values diversity in the workplace increases within the suppliers as well as customers at the same
time (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014).
Arguments against diversity management at workplace
According to Kramar (2014), opponents of diversity, management in the workplace
shows valid arguments against management. It mostly happens that employees are always
reminded about diversity management while working with their peer groups, recruiting methods
as well as work teams. Sometimes, members of non-minority groups feel themselves excluded as
they feel that minority groups are getting the preferential treatment as far as diversity is
concerned. Other misconception that is always is heard and need clarification is that both
diversity as well as affirmative action is the same. To explain each of the concepts in detail, it is

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important to provide details about affirmative action as it can be either voluntary or mandatory as
the case may be. In one of the article where it was written about Diversity that it is not about
quotas or any types of affirmative action (Baum, 2016). Rather, it takes into account conscious
recognition by looking at the changing face of nation as well as operational economy at the same
time. Several researchers had opposed against diversity management that is manifests itself in
several ways. Most of the employees become resentful on matters relating to diversity
management. Other employees just believe that mandatory diversity training is not treated as
panacea for workforce and for this reason, the training is useless. One of the important concerns
that need to be taken into consideration is cost. For instance, a small business during the initial
stage aims at developing or enhancing diversity management program as it further need to hire
an expert for developing a program (Jackson, Schuler & Jiang, 2014). However, there are
millions of dollars that needs to be made especially at the time of diversity consulting business.
Thus, most of the diversity experts are of the opinion that thousands of dollars are needed for
implementing diversity program. At the end, it is said that still the business fails to get guarantee
as to receiving a type of metrics that concern with the effectiveness of a new diversity
management program in the most appropriate way (Paillé et al., 2014).
What argument would be presented to Mark French (CEO of CERA) regarding the
business case that focus mainly on diversity management in CERA
Necessity of diversity management
Diversity management is important nowadays as it help in meeting the needs of a
multifaceted marketplace. Most importantly, diversity management respect varied cultures as
well as ideas and philosophies (Beardwell & Thompson, 2014).
How Diversity management add value to an organization
Innovation- Innovation is one of the attributes that after applying add value to an organization.
One of the biggest reasons to employ a diverse workforce is because of broad base of cultural
experiences as it drives towards innovation. Problem solving become easier when there are
diverse workforce groups at each level of management. A new perspective that failed to match

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the group link is more likely to bring improvement in the business in a unique way (Marchington
et al., 2016).
Attracting talent and customers- At workplace, it is often seen that employees aims at working
in a company that has diverse workforce. Even though, customers make preference in purchasing
goods as well as services from diverse companies. To explain in detail, business need to be
engage in implementing diverse activities and develop a new model that embraces diversity as a
central growth enabler (Greer, Carr & Hipp, 2016).
From recruitment to strategy- At the time of recruiting or hiring pool of applicants, it was
noted that authentic diversity management is needed (Sparrow, Brewster & Chung, 2016).
Addition to that, business organization are engaging in recruiting chief diversity officer who can
have greater control over areas like strategy, sales as well as marketing. It is necessary for the
companies to engage in diversity of actions and work within the management staff as it will help
in fulfilling the needs of a broad customer base (Brewster et al., 2016).
Cultural Intelligence- One of the biggest reasons to employ a diverse workforce is cultural
intelligence. Adopting values as part of business idea enables in fostering understanding between
the diverse cultures. In that case, when business operates by keeping diversity of actions in mind,
then the opportunity has shared values in terms of both profits as well as society in an effective
way (Brewster, Mayrhofer & Morley, 2016).
Applying evidences to CERA and how Human Resources can help with implementation of
diversity at CERA
It is recommended to Mark French (CEO of CERA) for implementing diversity in CERA
as it is one of the most positive aspects that connects employees together. Diversity management
is such as concept where employees are able to known about other people values, cultures and
traditions. CERA need to engage in developing diversity management plans as it should be tied
with written diversity policy within CERA Brewster, Mayrhofer & Morley, 2016). It is necessary
for the HR to manage diversity plans as well as programs in the most appropriate way. There are
three broad steps that need to be understood and it is mentioned below with proper justification:

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 Assessment of diversity- It is necessary for the HR to understand the fact about inclusion
of all employees for input will be essential for creation of useful plan. This can be
collected by conducting employee satisfaction surveys, discussion as well as discussion
that can provide insights of information about several challenges and obstacles at the time
of developing diversity plan for CERA (Reiche, Mendenhall & Stahl, 2016). Developing diversity plan-The HR need to set series of attainable as well as measurable
goals that should be developed on matters relating to workplace diversity Brewster,
Mayrhofer & Morley, 2016). Implementation of the plan- It is important to get commitments from CEO and other
managers of CERA. The action plan is treated as the responsibility of the overall business
enterprise and not just the HR director.
The HR department needs to provide training series on power as well as privilege and how
far it connects with the given workplace. For this, awareness can be treated as the first step that is
needed to create a truly multicultural environment. After employees get to understand about their
power and privilege, it is easy to train that takes into account laws relating to diversity as well as
discussions are based on biasness. It is even needed to discuss on how to bring improvement in
the HR plans like job analysis, selection as well as recruitment for creating a multicultural work
environment.
The HR Department should look at some of the aspects at the time of creating a training
focused upon maintaining multiculturalism at CERA. It is needed to know about the culture and
have proper knowledge on diverse customs, histories as well as religions. It is important to
discuss about how to treat people rather than as part of the group. It is necessary to teach each of
the employees to listen actively that can help in raising cultural awareness in the near future. It is
thereby important to work upon resistance to change as most of the employees are of the opinion
that working in a diverse workforce is difficult. It is needed to ask or understand about the
multiculturalism leadership team as well as ethnic backgrounds and even the traits in
representative form (Reiche, Mendenhall & Stahl, 2016).

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Conclusion
At the end of the study, it is concluded that there is a need for every business organization
to adopt diversity management in their operations and it is the case with CERA. The above
analysis briefly explains about the positive and negative aspects of diversity management so that
it is easy to understand from both points of view as to whether CERA should adopt diversity
management in their operations. Diversity management has so many positive aspects and this
was the reason why CERA should adopt diversity management plan in their operations in the
most appropriate way. The HR department should engage in recruiting diverse pool of applicants
and it finally help in decision-making process. All individuals are unique by nature and diverse
culture at workplace make the working place interesting where there will discuss ranging from
diverse cultures, norms, values and attitudes.

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