University Diversity Management Thesis: A Reflective Study

This reflective study explores the student's journey through writing a thesis on diversity management in Ireland, focusing on the challenges faced by managers in diverse workplaces. The author reflects on the importance of diversity in the workplace, highlighting how effective diversity management contributes to a positive work environment, employee performance, and overall productivity. The study delves into the reasons why multinational companies hire employees from diverse backgrounds, emphasizing the value of varied skills and the impact of cultural differences on work culture. Challenges such as language barriers, communication issues, and the need for unbiased policies are discussed, along with proposed solutions like language training, education campaigns, and strict policies against discrimination. The author concludes by emphasizing the importance of fostering an inclusive and supportive environment to improve diversity management practices.

RUNNING HEAD: DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT
DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Diversity management is one of the noteworthy issues at workplace. I believe that
diversity management is an activity that organizations undertake in order to absorb talents from
distinct ethnic as well a cultural background. Hence management of the talents from diverse
cultural, ethnic, as well as, religious background hired by a company is a major matter of
concern to the human resource managers of that company. In order to delve deep the diversity
management problem of Ireland, I have taken the venture to be involved in writing a thesis on
diversity management in Ireland and challenges faced by managers. In this reflective study, I
have attempted to share the experiences as well as learning, I am enriched with, while writing the
thesis.
I am able to understand the importance of diversity in workplace, as I proceed with my
thesis on diversity management in Ireland. I am able to trace out that, management of diversity is
considered to be the procedure, that companies apply for the purpose of creating as well as
maintaining, a positive atmosphere at workplace. Again, I have realized that, human resource
managers are concerned about the management of diversity at workplace in order to create a
flexible and motivating work culture, where the differences as well as resemblances among the
employees of distinct ethno-cultural background are valued. Initially I was not able to understand
how the management of diversity at workplace, by the human resource manager can boost the
performance of the employees and the total productivity. Later, I conducted a thorough research
to find out how management of diversity and increase in productivity are interrelated.As a result,
I come to know there are four factors which are connected to each other-management of
workplace diversity, a healthy work culture, employee performance, and productivity (Dike
2013).

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In order to proceed further with my thesis, it is essential to form a clearer idea about the
relationship between these four factors-management of workplace diversity, a healthy work
culture, employee performance, and productivity; first I researched about the reasons why the
Multi-national companies hire people from diverse cultural as well as ethnic background. After
an in -depth research, I was able to trace out the reasons vividly. Multi-national companies
absorb talents from several countries, or large indigenous organizations that recruit employees
from diverse, religious, ethnic, as well as cultural background for the purpose of enriching the
employee base with people possessing varying skills, so that the optimum level of efficiency can
be reached. Again, it is the optimum level of efficiency that boosts the total productivity of an
organization. Hence, one of the main motives to the large organizations as well as MNCs to
recruit and retain talents from diverse ethno-cultural background is enhancing the total
productivity (Urciuoli 2016). This made me realize how the significance of a hiring employees
who belong to distinctreligious, cultural as well as ethnic background. Again, the research about
the objectives of the MNCs as well as large organizations to attract talents from different ethno-
cultural background, helped me to understand how skilled employees from different ethno-
cultural background can make a substantial contribution to the total productivity as well as
growth of a company (Sabharwal 2014).
One question that arose in my mind while writing the thesis that, how work culture can
be affected while recruiting employees from distinct ethnic, religious or cultural background. As
I proceed with the research required to complete my thesis, I come to know the answer.Firstly,
the narrowness of the mind of the employees or staffs to accept their peers who are from distinct
cultural background, can affect the work culture of an organization. Secondly, if the policies of
the organization are biased to the people of a particular community or country, people from

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diverse ethnic, cultural as well as religious background who work in the organization will find
the work environment adverse for their assimilation (Prause and Mujtaba 2015).
This project also enlightened me about the challenges faced by the managers to manage
workplace diversity. One of the challenges is the difference in the language of the several
employees who are from different ethno-cultural background (Wrench 2015). Often managers
are unable to communicate to the employees who spoken language are not same. For example, if
car technicians from Russia, are recruited in Japanese companies, then managers at the Japanese
companies will face a problem of communication due to the diversity in the language of the
employees from different countries. Again, due to this difference in languages another challenge
arises in front of the managers, the challenge to form and retain understanding and collaboration
among a group of employees who are from different cultural as well as lingual background.
Another factor that make me curious is the impact of the workplace issues related to the
inclusion of employees from diverse ethno-cultural background, on the employee performance
and productivity. As I was about to complete the thesis I realized the lack of communication,
miscommunication due to lingual differences, again the lack of understanding and collaboration
hampers the productivity of each and individual employees along with the performance of the
team. Finally, I realize the lack of supportive attitude of the indigenous employees, or employees
of the home country of the organization towards the immigrant employees is also considered to
be one of the challenges in front of the human resource managers, assigned with the
responsibility of diversity management (Wrench 2016).
Finally, I can conclude that, as I proceed to complete my thesis, I come to know about
some of the ways to improve diversity management. One of the effective ways to manage

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diversity, is to form unbiased policies favoring the assimilation of the multicultural employees
within the work environment of an organization. Secondly, all immigrant employees should
undergo language training, so that they are able to learn the language of the home country of the
organization they are working in. Thirdly, there should be campaigns and trainings to educate all
employees about the significance of a culturally diverse workforce. Again, there should be strict
policies to prevent bullying of the employees in the name of different cultural, religious or
ethnical background.

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Bibliography
Dike, P., 2013. The impact of workplace diversity on organizations.
Prause, D. and Mujtaba, B.G., 2015. Conflict management practices for diverse
workplaces. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 6(3), p.13.
Sabharwal, M., 2014. Is diversity management sufficient? Organizational inclusion to further
performance. Public Personnel Management, 43(2), pp.197-217.
Urciuoli, B., 2016. The compromised pragmatics of diversity. Language & communication, 51,
pp.30-39.
Wrench, J., 2015. Diversity management. Routledge International Handbook of Diversity
Studies. New York, 254, p.262.
Wrench, J., 2016. Diversity management and discrimination: Immigrants and ethnic minorities
in the EU. Routledge.

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