Abstract
Diversity Management is quite complex to understand and to understand the same, a good understanding of diverse management is required first. Diverse management includes many aspects such as the age, gender, and ethnicity of the employees working in an organization not only does it include all the above aspects but also aspects like physical ability, sexual orientation, physical characteristics, religious beliefs are included when considering diverse management. This paper will throw light upon whether or not diverse management is good for a business, the pros and cons will be discussed and a conclusion will be reached.
Pros of Work Force Diversity
Implementation of Diversity undoubtedly strengthens organizational and human capital in an organization. Diversity in work force also provides an organization with knowledge capital and it is an intangible asset which is used by many organizations to create a lot of value. The leading companies calculate the cost of investing in workforce diversity, most go by the saying “What gets measured gets done second, good practice requires the measurement of the costs and benefits of all forms of investment, including investments in intangibles; third, measurement provides a justification for the continuing use of scarce resources; and, finally, measurement enables managers to learn lessons for future, similar investments. (The Costs and Benefits of Diversity, 2008).
Work force diversity is implemented to maximize the economic benefits which usually exceed the implementation cost. Every company aims at getting more than their implementation cost and diversity is a very powerful tool which ensures the same when implemented by an organization, this is the only reason why more and more organizations are implementing workforce diversity in their organization. More and more organizations are investing huge amount of money in workforce diversity in order to keep pace with the customer requirements and customer satisfaction. Work force diversity often plays an instrumental role in satisfying the needs of a customer. Diversity also provides good social value to an organization and this is another reason why it is implemented. Diversity workforce is pivotal in the success of a company when considered from a perspective of long run; it generates constant cash flow which in turn satisfies the shareholders of a company. This whole process is extremely important for any organization looking to expand or for that matter looking to sustain its growth.
“Buying power, particularly in today’s global economy, is represented by people from all walks of life (ethnicities, races, ages, abilities, genders, sexual orientations, etc.) To ensure that their products and services are designed to appeal to this diverse customer base, “smart” companies, are hiring people, from those walks of life – for their specialized insights and knowledge. Similarly, companies who interact directly with the public are finding increasingly important to have the makeup of their workforces reflect the makeup of their customer base.” (Work Force Diversity, 23 November 2008). Work force diversity has also become a legal requirement these days, companies have to stick to a policy of non discrimination and recruiting people from diverse backgrounds also satisfies the legal requirements of an organization. Diversity focuses upon the maximum utilization of the resources, the labor market has changed completely these days, it is no longer dominated by the whites, the talent available is huge and if discrimination takes place in an organization it would lead to devastation so implementation of diversity also satisfies a company’s resource requirements. By recruiting people from diverse backgrounds an organization makes sure that no discrimination takes place and the organization utilizes the resources at hand to the maximum extent possible. It is extremely important as a marketing tool also, only diverse individuals can satisfy the needs of diverse customers and there are no two ways about this so considering this, it becomes inevitable for an organization to recruit train and develop diverse individuals who can take the organization to places.
“The challenge of creating a multicultural, diverse organization is becoming an increasingly prominent concern for the chief executive officers (CEOs) of companies in Australia and around the world. Top executives such as IBM’s Lou Gerstner and his successor Sam Palmisano have expended considerable energy and company resources on achieving diversity (Thomas, 2004). Many of Their competitors have followed suit, seeking to replicate what they perceive to be best practices in diversity management. By the end of the 1990s, three out of four Fortune 500 companies had launched diversity programs (Caudron, 1998). Today, a cottage industry of consulting Firms specializing in diversity management have emerged—along with a plethora of articles in Academic and professional journals—to help corporate executives identify the keys to diversity and launch diversity programs in their companies.” (Rand.Org, 2008).
Many a time the minorities in a company face discrimination and end up putting the company into legal trouble but they are not to be blamed for this, this situation arises because the company ignores the minorities and never focuses upon diverse management. Diversity management focuses upon actively recruiting different kind of people, to be very precise different in ethnicity, age, race and other attributed, the company does so, to make the most of these diverse individuals. The ultimate benefit of these people working together goes to the company because all will have their unique way of working and the company can utilize their talents in more ways than one. The sole aim of recruiting diverse individuals is to get the maximum out of these individuals and research goes to show that, an organization with diverse people is more innovative and has more ability when compared to an organization with people who are not so diverse in their makeup.
“Groups made up of diverse personnel do a better job of analyzing and attacking problems (Cox, 2001). More than one source suggests that to be competitive today, businesses must maintain a cadre of personnel who are both highly qualified and highly diverse (Hubbard, 2004). Generally, however, studies of diversity outcomes in the business world have shown that “the positive impact of diversity was dependent on explicit and effective diversity practices,” whereas unmanaged growth in diversity tended to reduce corporate performance (Kochan et al., 2003; Riche et al., 2005, pp. 2–3).”
A company which is looking to make the most out of diversity should do research in order to accomplish their aim, a good research is very essential in order to make sure that the mind set of diverse individuals is read. Companies should rely upon facts rather than beliefs simply because general beliefs can be wrong at times but facts speak for themselves and no company can ever go wrong in diverse management if facts are stuck to by a company. There are numerous benefits of being diverse, for instance if there are leaders who are form diverse backgrounds, they will surely bring new methods of leadership and the company will have more options to choose from. Another major advantage of going diverse is that, diverse individuals will understand consumers differently and the company will again have options and ultimately this will result in the expansion of consumers and which company would not want to have a firm and reliable consumer base. “In the health care industry, Cohen, Gabriel, and Terrell (2002) argue that a more diverse workforce would increase the likelihood that minorities would receive high-quality medical attention: Minority patients would be more likely to seek medical services from minority doctors and, in theory, minority doctors would be more interested in serving heavily minority populations and better able to address their specific needs.”
Diverse management has many more pros, like it creates an ideal platform for development of employees and the most important aspect is that it provides the employees with higher levels of job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is very important, without job satisfaction, no employee can ever produce results and diverse management provides job satisfaction to the employees, hence it can be said that diverse management plays a pivotal role in the success of any business. Diverse management also provides flexibility, which is extremely important to achieve the goals of an organization. If an organization is very rigid and does not treat its employees properly, the focus of the employees will never be on their work, so it becomes extremely important that a business should be flexible towards the employees. For a company to become diverse, it is very essential that the leaders of the organization are form diverse backgrounds, if the leaders don’t belong to diverse backgrounds, the organization can never inculcate diversity. Everything starts form the leaders, in the sense that all the instruction passed on to the subordinates come from the leaders, considering this an organization has to have leaders from diverse backgrounds. “The company’s leadership should cultivate a mindset that acknowledges that diversity requires long-term cultural change, views diversity as good for people, and interprets diversity to include all people (Loden, 1996).
Diversity begins right from recruitment; leaders have to look out for the most diverse individuals who can really make a difference by being a part of the organization and work towards the betterment of the same, next is the promotion of those diverse people. The leaders have to make sure that those diverse people should not take a back seat upon joining the organization; the leaders should make sure that the diverse individuals are given enough chances to showcase their talent. The last step is to retain the diverse individuals because it is very important to hold on to the diverse individuals because they really can a make a difference and no company can afford to let go of these talented people. Even the people who recruit should belong to diverse backgrounds to pick the most efficient and diverse individuals. Retaining employees can sometimes be a difficult task for organizations because each day new businesses come up and new offers are made to the diverse people and holding on to these diverse people becomes a challenge. To retain these employees, a company must first of all provide a friendly environment to work in, because the work environment often plays a key role and acts as a deciding factor as to whether an individual changes hi/her job or not. So it becomes very important for a company to provide its employees with a good environment to work in. The next is to promote these employees, promotion will give a good and much needed boost to these employees and this will also make sure that the employee has a good image of the company in his/her mind. The last step of retaining includes monetary benefits wherever possible, for instance reimbursement of any expenditure made by the employee on an official trip. All these needs have to be realized by an organization if they are to retain the most diverse employees.
Conclusion
Diversity Management is very good for a business; this is proved by the advantages of diversity management provides to a business. Diversity management, if done properly can turn around the fortunes of a company within no time. The benefits provided by diversity management are inexhaustible and hence it is advisable for every business to follow diversity management and to reap the rewards of the same.
References
- Caudron, Shari, “Diversity Watch,” Black Enterprise, Vol. 29, 1998, p. 91.
- Cohen, Jordan, Barbara Gabriel, and Charles Terrell, “The Case for Diversity in the Health Care Workforce,” Health Affairs, Vol. 21, No. 5, 2002, pp. 90–102.
- Cox, Taylor, Creating the Multicultural Organization, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001.
- Hubbard, Edward, The Diversity Scorecard: Evaluating the Impact of Diversity on Organizational Performance, San Francisco: Elsevier, 2004.
- Kochan, Thomas, Katrina Bezrukova, Robin Ely, Susan Jackson, Aparna Joshi, Karen Jehn, Jonathan
- Leonard, David Levine, and David Thomas, “The Effects of Diversity on Business Performance: Report of the Diversity Research Network,” Human Resource Management, Vol. 42, No. 1, 2003, pp. 3–22.
- Loden, Marilyn, Implementing Diversity, San Francisco: McGraw Hill, 1996.
- Managing Diversity. In Rand,org. Web.
- Thomas, David, “The Truth About Mentoring: Race Matters,” Harvard Business Review, Vol. 79, No. 4, 2001, pp. 98–107.
- “Diversity as Strategy.” Harvard Business Review, Vol. 82, No. 9, 2004, pp. 98–108
- The Costs and Benefits of Diversity. In Employment and Social Affairs. Web.
- Work Force Diversity. In Diversity World.