Workplace Ethics: Diversity, Stereotyping, and Solutions

This report delves into the critical aspects of workplace ethics, emphasizing the importance of diversity and the detrimental effects of stereotyping. It begins by defining workplace diversity, encompassing various factors beyond race and gender, such as age, personality, and skillset, highlighting its role in fostering innovation and attracting talent. The report then examines stereotyping, its origins in prejudice, and its negative impacts on employee morale, productivity, and turnover. It outlines corrective actions, such as disciplinary measures and educational seminars, to address underperformance and high turnover rates. Furthermore, the report suggests preventive measures, including promoting diversity through strategic plans and fostering an inclusive organizational culture. By implementing these strategies, organizations can anticipate improved employee performance, reduced turnover, and increased productivity, ultimately leading to a more successful and harmonious work environment. The report concludes by emphasizing the significance of creating a workplace where all employees feel valued, respected, and empowered to contribute their unique perspectives and skills.

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Work place ethics
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Introduction
While the traditional notion of workplace diversity may refer to representations of
various races, gender and religious backgrounds, today’s concept of workplace diversity is
all-encompassing. 1 Apart from these variables, considerations are also made on age,
personality, education, skillset, cognitive styles, and background among others. Companies
that are focused to establishing a diverse work benefits from harnessing a pool of individuals
with unique qualities. They view combination of differences in workplace as a potential
growth rather than opportunities for conflict.
As time goes on, workforce diversity is becoming an important tool due to various
reasons. One of these reasons is that it makes employees to have various opinions and
perspectives. When staff members of different backgrounds and experiences come together,
they bring different perspectives, hence leading to effective solutions and approaches to
different problems that may impact the success of an organization.
Workplace diversity is also known to create innovations. 2 When performing duties
with colleagues of different backgrounds, skills and working styles, creative ideas can be
developed from bouncing concepts from each other. Creative innovations enables an
organization to attain a competitive advantage because consumers always wants to be
associated with firms that develop unique and high quality goods and services.
The other importance of workplace diversity is that it enables organizations to grow a
pool of talents.3 when companies encourage diversity, they attract wide range of potential
candidates to their vacancies because the applicants views them as more progressive and
unbiased. When this happens, the management gets a chance to select an exceptional
candidate.

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Work force diversity and stereotyping
Workplace diversity refers to the variety of differences among employees in an
organization. Some of the features which define diversity in an organization comprise of;
races, age, cognitive style, education, social status, tenure, cognitive style, religion among
others.4 Diversity in workplace means establishing an inclusive environment that
accommodates all differences among the employees, embraces their strengths and provides
opportunities for all staff members to attain their full potential.
Diversity involves how individuals perceive themselves and their counterparts.
5Valuing diversity allows all employees to contribute their unique experiences to the
workplace and can have positive influence to not only internal activities and relationships, but
also to the consumer experience and other stakeholders.
Stereotype on the other hand refers to the beliefs and assumptions which employees
have concerning their colleague’s culture, race, gender, or sexual preferences. 6 These type of
assumptions and beliefs lead to discrimination or other factors which can be harmful to the
performance of an organization. Stereotyping stems from prejudice, and is an unjustified
negative attitude based on individual’s group or class acquired either through past personal
experiences or preconceived wrong beliefs. It includes having an attitude, opinion,
perception, or certain belief concerning a person or a group.
Just like stereotypes are harmful and dangerous in day to day life, they can easily
impact morale and productivity in organizations. 7 Varying degree of stereotyping occur in
organizations irrespective of having high level of awareness and acceptance of diversity.
Employers should always ensure that they do not perpetuate stereotypes while trying to
discipline those who practice it.

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Corrective actions
Taking corrective actions to resolve negative impact in organizations plays a
significant role in running a successful business. One of the factors which might lead to
negative impact which can result from stereotype in organizations is underperformance. 8 In
most cases and especially where employees do not understand the importance of valuing
workplace diversity, the issue of discrimination arises because of various reasons like gender,
religion, education, race among other factors. When these happen, some employees end up
not performing as expected because they tend to develop a feeling that does not allow them to
dedicate their efforts fully for the success of an organization.
To correct this issue, it is fundamental for the management to take proper disciplinary
actions to employees who discriminate others because of the differences they have. The
disciplinary action should be aimed to not only assisting the person to change but also to
making others learn a lesson.
Another negative impact which may result is high employee turnover. When an
organization is dominated by stereotypes and lack of understanding how diversity can be
utilized to add value to workforce, employees tend to quite jobs from time to time because of
not having an environment that allows them to work well. 9 Managers should advise all
employees to accept each other irrespective of their differences. The management should
always hold seminars from time to time to assist employees in understanding why they
should appreciate each other irrespective of their differences.
Low productivity can also be a negative impact in an organization when employees
fail to accept diversity in the right manner. When employees fail to dedicate their efforts fully
for the success of an organization because of various factors that impact their morale, the
chances of decreased productivity are always high. Stereotypes and lack of perceiving

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workplace diversity in the right manner impacts employee perception towards work, which in
turn impacts the amount of units which he/she can produce in a day. To resolve the issue of
low productivity, the management should encourage team work and advise all employees to
appreciate the differences that exist among them and use them as an opportunity for learning
new things.
Preventive measures
Employee underperformance can have a significant impact to an organization. 10 To
survive in the competitive environment, organizations must have employees who are
committed to ensuring their organization remains competitive. To prevent employee
underperformance, it is advisable for the management to assist all staff members in
understanding that the differences that they have can add value to their organization if they
are utilized for the purpose of learning from each other. Companies can also prevent this
impact through appointing at least one of the senior leaders to be responsible for monitoring
institutional fairness.
To prevent high employee turnover resulting from stereotyping in an organization, the
management should educate all employees concerning how regular recruiting and training
costs an organization in terms of money and time. Letting the employee understand that
appreciating one another irrespective of their differences can serve a significant role in
improving employee retention can also assist in minimizing the impact of high employee
turnover rates. Educating organizational leaders concerning how stereotypes, especially that
are unconscious influence hiring and evaluation decisions can also assist in preventing this
problem. Focusing equally on establishing an inclusive organizational culture that encourages
diversity can also aid in preventing regular resigning due to stereotypes in workplace.

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The type of perception which employees have towards work and their colleagues
determines the level of productivity in an organization. 11 The manner in which employees
relate to each other also determines the level in which an organization is able to produce in a
particular period. To prevent the issue of low productivity in an organization because of
stereotypes, the management should encourage the essence of teamwork and group
employees of different backgrounds and characteristics together. This will assist the
employees to realize that they can attain the best by working together irrespective of their
differences.
The management should also play a key role in showing the essence of equality
among all employees. When assigning tasks, promotions, and other things, they should do
them in a manner that shows that all staff members are equal. 12 Demonstrating organizational
commitment to diversity through strategic plans, mission statements and other
communication to all staff members can also assist in preventing the issue of low productivity
which result from stereotypes.
Conclusion
By implementing the corrective and preventive actions, an organization can look
forward to experiencing various outcomes. One of these outcomes is good performance from
the employees. When employees feel the sense of being appreciated in an organization, they
commit their efforts towards attaining organizational goal. Positive performance from
employees adds value to an organization because it assists it to attain its goals and objectives.
High employee turnover rate has a significant impact to an organization because it
makes the management to keep spending a lot of money in recruiting and training new
employees. Implementing the corrective and preventive actions can assist an organization to
retain its staff members and hence save the cost of hiring and training processes. Employee

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retention is fundamental because it assists an organizations to avoid spending a lot of money
and time in recruiting and training new employees. Avoiding high turnover rates also enables
firms to keep experienced and employees who are familiar with different aspects of the
organization like culture, processes among others.
Implementing corrective and preventive measures can also make the organization to
expect high productivity. This is because preventing factors which negatively impact
employee’s attitude towards work will always make them to see the essence of committing
themselves towards attaining the best for the organization. When employees feel that they are
appreciated in an organization regardless of the differences which exist among them, they
feel proud to be associated with the company and commit themselves towards assist the
company to attain its short and long term goals.

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