Workforce diversity as a factor of globalization
The whole world is a community. The basic unit of this community is an individual with unique features and characters. Individuals differ in both the visible and unseen features. The visible features include gender, race, ethnicity, religion culture and even sexual orientation, amongst many other variables (Mannix and Neale, 2005).
The non-visible features may include talents, abilities and disabilities, and experiences. All these factors are what constitute global diversity. A community should recognize diversity, ensure the accessibility of resources and uphold equity in the treatment of its constituent individuals with complete disregard of race, ethnicity, abilities and even sexual alignments.
Workforce diversity is a necessary topic since globalization, as an issue, carries with it an element of diversity. It involves diversified interactions in culture, economy, social aspects, ethnies and many other areas of human interactions (Thomas, 2001).
The workplace, being part of this diverse community, has to reflect the same values in its operations and very importantly, its human resource. The current political, social and economical events induce managers, entrepreneurs and politicians to regard diversity management as a priority of their agenda.
Workforce diversity implies the inclusion of individuals from all walks of life into the workforce. It also acknowledges that people vary in abilities, gender, socio-cultural, age and experiences (Hind and Moss, 2005).
Personal impact and appropriate analysis
As modern organizations and companies are coming up with new technologies, there is even more pressure upon these companies to beat competition. Companies have to evolve and strive to provide new and better products and services. One tested and proven way of putting up or even beating competition is through installing an efficient workforce (McCuiston et al., 2004).
This can be achieved through employing a diverse workforce with a rich source of knowledge and ability. Globalization has been perceived as a major economic phenomenon and one that needs additional integration and interactions (Sheen et al., 2009).
The workplace entails handling of clients from diverse backgrounds and with different characteristics. Since this is so, then it would be important that the human resource or rather the employees be enabled to handle the diverse clients.
Organizational impact of this issue
Just as in specialization and division of labor, individuals have been proven very resourceful in their areas of expertise and ability. The optimistic view holds that diversity leads to an increase in the variety of perspectives and approaches brought to a problem and to opportunities for knowledge sharing.
Therefore, this leads to greater creativity and quality performance at the workplace (Mannix and Neale, 2005). This step would ensure a pool of human resource capable of handling duties with an all-sided approach ensuring success in an organizational sense.
How to achieve work force diversity
Achieving workforce diversity in an organizational setting is a function of the human resource management. The HR – considering the great role of workforce diversity plays in ensuring the success of an organization – has to come up with various propositions.
The HR has to look at the basic elements of workforce diversity, strategize and suggest on ways to arrive at solutions. These basic elements include diversities in race, gender, abilities, disabilities, age, religion and socio-culture (Ely and Thomas, 2001).
Secondly, the Human Resource Management will have to identify avenues of achieving the desired diversity. With the basic knowledge that this task is targeted to cover a global aspect, the HR has to incorporate ways and means of global coverage. This entails the breaking of national boundaries or rather denationalization in order to achieve internationalization (Williams et al., 2006).
In order to achieve this, it would be in order to invite applications and carry out special interviews to come up with this selected group of intended persons. The applications and interviews could be done both online and in-office. This involves the carrying out of separate interviews for the disabled, separate ones based on different religions, races, cultures, gender and even different and separate interviews for the disabled persons (Shen, 2009).
To obtain the above candidates, it will be necessary to approach the various relevant groups. These groups include religious and local organizations, cultural bodies and even colleges. An organization can also enlist support from the non-profit organizations.
The Hospitality industry
The hospitality industry is one of the major beneficiaries of this approach when selecting or coming up with its workforce. This industry has to maintain a perfect image in order to satisfy clients. Clients emerge from different races, cultures, ethnic groups, sex and even sexual orientations (Lindgren and Bandhold, 2009). The hotel industry is an example.
This is a sector that handles people with different personalities and of diverse backgrounds. For example, some clients from particular religious groups would never touch food prepared by individuals from different religious group. This issue would challenge the hospitality organization, which has not ensured diversity in its labor force.
The success of any hospitality industry lies squarely on the shoulders of its labor force. This is so majorly because the organization interacts with the entire world through its employees.
References
Ely, RJ, Thomas, DA 2001, ‘Cultural Diversity at Work: The Effects of Diversity Perspectives on Work Group Processes Outcomes’, Administrative Science Quarterly, vol.46, no.6, pp. 229-273.
Hind D & Moss, S 2005, Employability skills for students, Business Education Publishers Ltd, Sunderland.
Lindgren, M & Bandhold, H 2009, Scenario planning: The link between future and strategy. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.
Mannix, E & Neale, MA 2005, ‘What Differences Make a Difference? The Promise and Reality of Diverse Teams in Organizations’, Psychological Science in the Public Interest, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 31-55.
McCuiston, VE, Wooldrige, BR & Pierce, CK 2004, ‘Leading the diverse workforce. Profit, prospects and progress’, The Leadership & Organization Development Journal, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 73-92.
Shen, J, Chanda, A, D’Netto, B & Monga, M 2009, ‘Managing diversity through human resource management: an international perspective and conceptual framework’, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, vol. 20, no.2, pp. 235–251.
Williams, D, Brown, P & Hesketh, A 2006, How to get the best graduate job: insider strategies for success in the graduate job market, Prentice Hall Business, Harlow.