Managing Workforce Diversity in 21st Century
-
Upload
nagendra-balaji -
Category
Documents
-
view
221 -
download
0
Transcript of Managing Workforce Diversity in 21st Century
-
7/27/2019 Managing Workforce Diversity in 21st Century
1/15
Managing Workforce Diversity in
21st Century
ByDr. Atasi Mohanty
Assistant ProfessorCentre for Educational Technology
Indian Institute of TechnologyKharagpurPin-721302
India
E-mail: [email protected]@gmail.com
-
7/27/2019 Managing Workforce Diversity in 21st Century
2/15
Workforce Diversity defined as:
Workforce diversity refers to respecting differences which exist between and among
us due to our respective inherited qualities and life experience.
It refers to the co-existence of employees from various socio-cultural backgrounds
within the organization such as race, gender, age, colour, physical ability, ethnicity,
nationality, religion, etc.
Todays global business economy creates a greater need than ever before to
understand and relate to people of every conceivable physical, geographic, language,and paradigm difference.
In the 21st century, the business houses need to create products and services for each
customer/consumer at the individual or the enterprise level, market and sell to them,
maintain healthy customer relationship as well as participate in socio-political and
economic activities.
Todays labour pool is dramatically different from that in the past. People now
overwhelmingly represent the workforce pool from a vast array of backgrounds and
life experiences.
-
7/27/2019 Managing Workforce Diversity in 21st Century
3/15
Different but Collaborative Workforce
-
7/27/2019 Managing Workforce Diversity in 21st Century
4/15
Thus, successful management of todays increasingly diverse workforce is amongthe most important global challenges faced by corporate leaders, human resource
managers, and management consultants.
Workplace diversity management practices refer to the organizations effort to
provide an inclusive corporate culture that values differences and promotes equalopportunities for all employees.
Traditionally, diversity programs were mostly focused on race, gender and other
physical dimensions. But todays definition of diversity covers a broad spectrum of
individual and group differences ranging from work styles and generationalperspectives to political and religious preferences. In recent years, the view of
diversity has dramatically changed to a more proactive concept. The organizations
need to celebrate the differences and utilize the variety of talents, perspectives, and
backgrounds of all employees.
-
7/27/2019 Managing Workforce Diversity in 21st Century
5/15
Benefits of Workforce Diversity:
Business leaders are now beginning to believe that diversity has important bottom-
line benefits. Diversity in the workforce can be a competitive advantage because
different viewpoints can facilitate unique and creative approaches to problem
solving, thereby increasing creativity and innovation, which in turn leads to betterorganizational performance (Allen et al., 2004).
Organizations with a diverse workforce can provide superior services because they
can better understand customers needs (Wentling & Palma-Rivas, 2000). As the
economies are shifting from manufacturing to service economies, diverse issues will
gain importance because in a service economy effective interactions and
communications between people are essential to business success.
In the business environment of the next millennium, the time available for
innovation and creativity in all aspects of the enterprise is shorter than ever before.
Creativity and innovation must now occur as a past of the normal functioning of theenterprise. Business houses are no more capturing the new ideas from their
competitions but now must focus on incubating the innovations and creations inside
their own organizations by using diversity of perspective and experience. This is
only possible from people with diverse backgrounds, paradigms, and social
experience that can enable them to interact in a way that will cross-fertilize andcreate new ideas.
-
7/27/2019 Managing Workforce Diversity in 21st Century
6/15
Staffing and organizing with optimum diversity is a challenge. Therefore,
significant and focused action must be taken to achieve balanced diversity, which isthe key to organizational success and prosperity.
Of course it is difficult to maintain balance. For example The young workers are
less concerned about retirement benefits and more interested in income, social
experience, career prospects, while the middle level workers are struggling toaccumulate wealth for retirement and secured job. The senior-level professionals
are expected to require more autonomy, independent portfolio and leisure time.
Hence, in order to accommodate these the companies will have to expand their
relationships with employees to engage this even under diversity of interests.
Valuing diversity and managing diversity require organizations to adapt a new way
of thinking about differences among people. Valuing diversity strive to recognize
the unique contribution every employee can make. For example Companies
cannot survive without the wisdom and experience of senior people, nor can they
invent entirely new ideas without new college graduates who havent yet beenconditioned by experience. Thus, age is one aspect of diversity that must be
balanced to achieve success.
-
7/27/2019 Managing Workforce Diversity in 21st Century
7/15
In todays global economy, consistently successful organizations have demonstrated
the importance of recruiting and retaining skilled workers irrespective of their race,
age, gender or other characteristics. Organizations cannot afford to discriminate
when it comes to hiring and promoting individuals particularly given the current
shortage of Knowledge workers such as engineering professionals and
technologists. Moreover, having persons of different cultural background and with
additional foreign language capabilities can make the difference in obtaining
business opportunities overseas.
In the business community workforce diversity will help employers to adapt to the
challenges organizations face in todays highly competitive and complex globalmarketplaces, enabling them to find opportunities to grow new business ideas,
identify new markets and keep ahead of competitors.
Thus, diversity is now seen as being a desirable attribute in any community,
whether a working environment, classroom or extra-curricular club. Rob McInnesof Diversity world notes that Workforce diversity is an immense and complex
issue-from what drives companies to be more inclusive to the programs, policies and
practices that are needed to make that happen effectively.
-
7/27/2019 Managing Workforce Diversity in 21st Century
8/15
Managing Diversity:
Real and successful workplace diversity policies go beyond simply ensuring compliance
with employment equity and human rights legislation. Many organizations have
policies and programs to support diversity, but there is room for improvement in the
strategies used to identify retain and develop a diverse workforce, and in the way thesestrategies are linked to performance outcomes and success.
Successful diversity initiatives require clear communication about intent, strong
leadership, commitment, and concrete strategies and objectives linked to
organizational needs and goals.
A core skill for the manager of the 21st century will be the ability to mediate the
natural disagreement and intolerance that come with diversity.
With balanced diversity the organization can create a diverse, yet functioning group by
taking into account the individual needs of each person in the group while making sure
these needs are compatible with the overall organizational mission, goals and
principles.
Each person brings to the workplace a different perspective and different needs
relative to the core needs of security, predictability, and dignity. Todays manager
needs professional expertise, new and stronger interpersonal and organizational skillsto succeed.
-
7/27/2019 Managing Workforce Diversity in 21st Century
9/15
The critical role of the human resources function in assessing, building,
maintaining, and changing balanced organizational diversity will become a key
business strategy if the enterprise is to achieve organizational excellence.
Achieving balanced diversity requires dedication and the constant acquisition of
external and internal social knowledge and understanding; a scientific
understanding of social systems, individual behaviour and motivation, and group
dynamics etc.. Diversity will not be leveraged without the special knowledge, skills
and experience of a competent HR practitioner.
Diversity creates an organizational strength and promotes better service from
workers suppliers and partners. It is the adventure of discovery that keeps people
interested; if there is nothing to discover, people and organizations stagnate. Hence,
diversity is absolutely necessary to a companys competitive advantage.Leading a diverse group is much harder than either managing or understanding
diversity. It requires participation in addition to managing and understanding
others. The globalization of the workforce not only forces diversity but also
increases geometrically the complexity of successful leadership. As more companies
become global more leaders must lead across geographies industries and societies.
It is diversity of perspective and experience that will provide a competitive
advantage. Good strategy, resources, management, employees, partners, customers
and leaders are all necessary for success in the 21st century.
-
7/27/2019 Managing Workforce Diversity in 21st Century
10/15
Multicultural Workforce
-
7/27/2019 Managing Workforce Diversity in 21st Century
11/15
Recommendations for leveraging diversity:
Research literature has also found that organizations that emphasize collectivism in the
work environment see more benefits of workplace diversity than organizations that
emphasize individualism (Chatman and Spataro, 2005; Dawyer et al. 2003). Thus,
teamwork fosters better relationships within a department and can promote identity
within the organization that move beyond surface level differences (Jayne & Dipboye,
2004). Hence, a strong work culture of involvement and ownership is suggested here.
The factors most likely to influence diversity in the workplace are demographic
changes, global marketplace, economies, comfort with being different, a diverse
customer base, equal employment opportunity and affirmative action programs.
Hence, actively promote recognition, celebration, and inclusion of diversity within the
organization.
Make sure inclusion is rewarded and exclusion is discouraged. Human dignity must
prevail as the key principle.
Ensure senior management commitment and accountability for the successful
implementation of diversity policies.
-
7/27/2019 Managing Workforce Diversity in 21st Century
12/15
Frame the diversity management initiative as an opportunity for integration
and learning.
The major reasons why organizations manage diversity are to improve
productivity and remain competitive to form better work relationships among
employees, to enhance social responsibility and to address legal concerns. Hence,
articulate how diversity is important to the overall functioning of the business.
Emphasize the value of diversity of all employees which can unite them under one
common banner.
Demand HR professional, and leaders who value diversity and whose behaviour
supports that value.
Hire people who augment a balanced diverse workforce. Recruiting new employees
through employee referrals work well, can be cost effective and results in higher
retention rates.
The best strategies for managing diversity are: training and education programs,
organizational policies that mandate fairness and equity for all employees,
mentoring programs, performance appraisal systems that are nondiscriminatory,
outreach programs, and career development programs.
-
7/27/2019 Managing Workforce Diversity in 21st Century
13/15
Make diversity an integral of the enterprises goals; to obtain top management
support, to create a corporate culture that supports diversity.
The major goals of diversity training are to increase organizational effectiveness
and personal effectiveness.
Capitalize on the existing diversity within your organization by ensuring that youinclude both senior and line managers on your diversity training courses as well as
employees from different departments having different skills.
Organize effective diversity training program by incorporating the components
like, commitment, organizational specific needs and strategic plans, accountability,inclusive programmes with diversity initiatives, trust, confidentiality etc.
Evaluate the effectiveness of diversity management programmes through
established metrics.
Create a company brand that communicates the diversity as the organization
employees, customers, suppliers and stakeholders will like it.
-
7/27/2019 Managing Workforce Diversity in 21st Century
14/15
Conclusion:
The extent to which managers recognize diversity and its potential advantages
and disadvantages defines an organizations approach to managing the
diversity. No organization in this world of globalization would survive without
workforce diversity. Thus, it is the duty of the management to critically
evaluate the benefits of workforce diversity in their organization. On the other
hand, the management should put in place conditions which would enhance the
workforce diversity in their organizations more specifically, in their strategies
such as creating a post of diversity officer, or diversity manager.
-
7/27/2019 Managing Workforce Diversity in 21st Century
15/15
Thank You!