University Essay: Reflection on Diversity at Work, GSD3DAW 2019

This essay is a self-reflective piece exploring the author's personal experiences and understanding of diversity in the workplace. The author reflects on their initial skepticism towards working with diverse teams and how their perspective shifted upon experiencing the benefits of cultural exchange and collaboration. The essay highlights the importance of diversity for both employees and the company, emphasizing increased creativity, productivity, and employee engagement. The author discusses the challenges of language barriers, generational gaps, and the need for effective leadership. They also share insights on the importance of cultural sensitivity, knowledge sharing, and the ability of diverse teams to drive innovation. The essay concludes with a summary of the author's learning experiences, gained from both course work and practical experiences, and their commitment to applying this knowledge in future global work environments.

Running head: REFLECTION
Reflection on Diversity at Work
Name of Student
Name of University
Author Note

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REFLECTION
Introduction
A self-reflective essay is aims in communicating the experiences of an individual in an
effective manner. This essay will reflect on my personal experience, thoughts and understanding
about the diversity at work. Diversity at workplace has become a common phenomenon across
the globe as it promotes recruitment of a particular company’s workforce irrespective of gender,
age, religion, race or cultural background. In this reflective essay I will be communicating my
experience of being a part of a diverse workplace. There are several aspects of working in a
diverse workplace and I shall be reflecting the importance workplace diversity.
Reflection on Experience about Diversity at Work
I have worked in a diverse work culture and on working with a diverse group of people,
my perspective regarding working among a diverse group of people has completely changed. I
have understood the importance of diversity in workplace.
Diversity in a particular workplace is important for its employees as it manifests a great
reputation and for a company. This is however, not the only benefit of workplace diversity.
While working among a group of people coming from different cultural backdrop, I have got to
learn several processes and aspects of team management and team collaboration. Previously I
was skeptical about working with a team coming from different cultural background or having
different language preferences. However, on experiencing the work culture and work processes
of a diverse workplace, I have understood and realized certain key benefits and the need of
promoting diverse work culture.
Diversity at workplace is vital for employees as it manifests itself in increasing the
profitability and opportunities for the workers. Therefore, diversity is significantly important for

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majority of the business organization. A diverse workforce include people with different
characteristics and mind set. Diversity in a workplace indicate presence of a workforce of people
coming from different cultural background, religion, language preferences and abilities.
In recent years, the number of diverse workplace has increased as it offers several
advantages. On being a part of diverse workplace, I have realized and experienced the benefits of
working in a diverse workplace. The diversity at work allows an individual to put forward a
variety of perspective and views. One of the key advantages of working in a diverse workplace is
that it helps in increasing the creativity of an individual. This is true as on getting the support
from people having different specialization, coming from different work culture, I could brush
up my skills and was able to learn certain new things as well. The creativity is definitely
enhanced on working with a diverse group of people. Another benefit that a workplace generally
achieves is increase in the productivity. The productivity is enhanced in presence of a diverse
work culture as it indicated working with a wider range of skills, which makes the
implementation of a particular work much easier.
While working as a part of a diverse work culture, I have realized that when employees
respect each other in a workplace, it is possible to increase the productivity of the organization.
Thus, it can be concluded that cultural diversity can improve the productivity levels. Diversity in
a workplace is important as it brings different talents together and enables them to achieve a
common goal. Thus, cultural diversity therefore helps in improving the employee engagement
and I feel that it is one of the most definite benefits of employee engagement. My own
experience of working in a diverse group has helped me in understanding the concept of working
in a diverse work culture. I have understood that a company embraces cultural diversity to
enhance the capability and creativity of their employees.

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Initially I had faced certain problems while working among the diverse group of people.
Those problems were faced mostly because of my pre-notation about the difficulties of working
with the people who has different language preferences. At first I could not freely communicate
with the members apprehensive of what they might be thinking of me as we all were from
different cultural background. However, on working with them for a week, I was able to freely
communicate with them. I started enjoying working with those people and got to learn a lot of
things from them. Diversity at work is necessary to improve the knowledge and understanding
over a particular problem or subject.
Diversity at workplace offer several benefits such as easier knowledge sharing and
improvement in the productivity of an organization. However, there are certain challenges as
well which I have observed while working with a diverse group. The difference in language and
communication can act as a major roadblock in team collaboration. I have personally faced this
issue in initial weeks of working among a diverse team. Along with that, a diverse team might
involve team members of certain age difference or even generational gap. There is a high change
that this might become a reason of communication gap. One of the essential needs of working in
a diverse team is respecting the cultural differences of the team members and respecting each
other’s differences.
Therefore, I can certainly say that the experiences that I have gathered while working
with a group of diverse team members has helped me to understand the benefits as well as the
challenges of working with a diverse team. I have personally experienced the benefits of working
with a diverse group as I could enhance by creativity and knowledge. The team members from
different cultural background inspire creativity to drive innovation. I have understood that one of
the key benefits of diversity at workplace from an individual’s perspective include improvement

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in cultural sensitivity, insight and local knowledge. This further indicates a higher quality of
work delivery which increases the production of an organization. Diversity at workplace is
further important as it helps in attracting and retaining the best talent. While working closely
with the diverse group of team members I have realized that diversity at workplace enables the
project team to offer a broader and a more adaptable range of products or services. Diversity at
workplace provides a greater opportunity for both personal and professional growth.
This course have helped me to understand the business needs related to diversity at work.
One of the most important things that is required to make a diverse team work is an effective
leadership. An appropriate leadership style is necessary to overcome the challenges that can be
faced with a diverse team and make the team perform to their best. The concept about team
building, leadership and workplace diversity that I have gained through this course will help in
me working with a diverse team in future as well. I am quite confident that I shall be able to
undertake understand the concept of diversity in a more effective manner as I have gathered both
theoretical and practical knowledge about the subject. This course has helped me to understand
the basis challenges that accompany might face while working with a group of diverse team. One
of primary challenges that a diverse workplace is integration of the multicultural team as it is
subjected to cultural prejudice. In such cases, effective leadership is needed that can make a team
of diverse group work as per the expectations of the company. Professional communication can
be misinterpreted by the culturally diverse team due to language barrier. This is a serious
problem that is faced by a diverse team. Along with that, the conflicting work style can be a
serious problem. Diverse cultural perspectives however, is required to inspire creativity and drive
innovation; and therefore it is one of the primary focuses of the business organization across the
globe.

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The knowledge and concept that I have gained from this course will help me to work in a
workplace that promotes diversity. The experiences that I have gained will significantly help me
to understand the viewpoint of a culturally diverse team. The practical experiences of working in
a diverse work culture has facilitated the learning experiences that I have gained through this
course. The lectures that I have attended and the earning materials have significantly contributed
in enriching my knowledge in this subject area. I wish to work in a diverse and global work
environment in future. The knowledge and understanding that I have gained through this course
will help me to improve my approach of working in a diverse work environment. From my
personal experience, I can comment that although working among a diverse team can be
challenging at first, it is definitely rewarding as well since it helps in enhancing the creativity,
knowledge and experience.
Conclusion
In this reflective essay, I have provided an insight to my personal experience of diversity
at work. I had an opportunity of working with a diverse team for a brief period of time. The
experience of working in a diverse team has helped me in understanding the benefits as well as
the challenges of working with a diverse team. The learning from the course work has helped me
to gain a detailed understanding of diversity at workplace. In the reflective essay, I have detailed
my perspective towards diversity at work.