Managing Diversity 4 How can employees respect differences? How can an organization attract and...
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Transcript of Managing Diversity 4 How can employees respect differences? How can an organization attract and...
Managing Diversity
4
• How can employees respect differences?• How can an organization attract and retain
a diverse workforce?
• How is diversity successfully managed? • How are affirmative action programs
linked to employee diversity programs?
Diversity and HR Challenges…
What is Diversity?
Diversity = human characteristics that make people different from one another
• Characteristics have no or little control over• Characteristics can adopt, drop, or modify
What is Diversity? (Cont.)
Affirmative Action vs. Managing Diversity:• Affirmative Action = providing opportunities for
women and minorities• Managing Diversity = set of activities involved in
integrating nontraditional employees (women and minorities) into the workforce and using diversity to the organization’s competitive advantage
Why is Diversity Important?
• Changing Demographics• Research (Rosabeth Kanter) has shown that
diversity in the workforce can bring about:• Greater Creativity• Better Problem solving• Greater system flexibility• Better Information
• Marketing Concerns
Why is Diversity Important? (Cont.)
“By 2050, the U.S. population is expected to increase by 50% and minority groups will make up nearly half of the population…. The population of older Americans is expected to more than double. One-quarter of all Americans will be of Hispanic origin…. More women and people with disabilities will be on the job.”
U.S. Department of Labor, Futurework: Trends and Challenges
for Work in the 21st Century. Washington, D.D. (Labor Day 1999).
Key Challenges to Managing Employee Diversity
• Individual vs. Group Fairness• Universal Concept of Management vs. Cultural Relativity
Concept of Management
• Resistance to Change• Group Cohesiveness & Interpersonal Conflict• Segmented Communications Networks• Resentment• Backlash• Retention
• Glass Ceiling: intangible barrier in an organization that prevents female and minority employees from rising to positions above a certain level
• Competition for Opportunities
Key Challenges to Managing Employee Diversity
Groups identified to be most likely left out of corporate mainstream:
• African-Americans• Asian-Americans• People with Disabilities• Foreign Born• Homosexuals• Latinos (Hispanic-Americans)• Older Workers• Religious Minorities• Women
Improving the Management of Diversity
• Top Management Commitment to Valuing Diversity
• Diversity Training Programs• programs that train and
educate employees on specific cultural and sex differences and how to respond to these in the workplace
Improving the Management of Diversity (Cont.)
• Support Groups• groups established to provided
nurturing climate for those that might feel isolated or alienated
• Accommodation of Family Needs
• Senior Mentoring Programs• support program in which senior
managers identify promising women and minorities and play an important role in nurturing their careers
Improving the Management of Diversity(Cont.)
• Apprenticeships• programs in which promising
prospective employees are groomed before they are actually hired
• Communication Standards• Diversity Audits:
• review of the effectiveness of an organization’s diversity management program (potential drawbacks)
• Management Responsibility & Accountably
Some Warnings
• Avoid Appearance of “White Male Bashing”• Avoid the Promotion of Stereotypes
• Cultural determinism• idea that one can successfully infer an individual’s
motivations, interests, values and behavioral traits based on that individual’s memberships
If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look like this. There would be:
• 61 Asians• 12 Europeans• 14 from the Western
Hemisphere, both north and south
• 13 Africans• 50 would be female• 50 would be male• 74 would be nonwhite• 26 would be white• 67 would be non-Christian• 33 would be Christian• 89 would be heterosexual
• 11 would be homosexual • 6 people would possess 59% of
the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the United States
• 80 would live in substandard housing
• 14 would be unable to read• 33 would die of famine• 1 would be near death;• 1 would be near birth• 7 would have a college
education• 8 would own a computer
• Diversity management is about full utilization of people with different backgrounds and experiences.
• Effective diversity management strategy has a positive effect on cost reduction, creativity, problem solving, and organizational flexibility.
In Summary…