Diversity initiatives help an organisation keep a competitive Human Resource advantage

Workplace Diversity

Diversity management is the key to growth in today’s fiercely competitive global marketplace. Organizations that seek global market relevancy must embrace diversity in how they think, act and innovate.  Diversity can no longer just be about making the numbers, but rather how an organization treats its people authentically down to the roots of its business model. In today’s new workplace, diversity management is a time sensitive business imperative. Modern work setting requires for people from different culture, religion, beliefs, background, race and so forth. In order to manage this, companies need to focus on the needs of clients, suppliers, employees and society and they need to implement diversity since it has a great impact in maximising productivity and high competitive human resource advantage. However, if an organisation fails to manage diversity wisely it may lead to high employee turnover, high probability of tension within the organisation which will lead to negative work behaviour reducing employee performance and also tarnish the reputation of the organisation.

Cox, (2001), defined diversity as the variation of social and cultural identities among people existing together in a defined employment or market setting. While, William and O’Reilly (1998) also defined diversity as a degree of heterogeneity among team members on specified demographic dimensions, their theory aims to explain how such heterogeneity affect team process and performance. Diversity management refers to the voluntary organisational actions that are designed to create through deliberate policies and programs greater inclusion of employees from different background into the formal and informal organisation structure Diversity can reduce lawsuits and turnover in a workforce and it increase team performance, better customer services and it enhances creativeness and innovation. Hence diversity initiatives helps an organisation keep a competitive Human Resource advantage.

According to Hubbard (2004), diversity management is about recognising that customers and clients come from different backgrounds. In essence, global diversity management is defined to relate to the management of workforces (citizens and immigrants) in different countries (Mor Barak, 2005). It is management discipline that concern how effectively a global workforce can be managed in achieving competitive advantage and business benefits, while being influenced to a large extent by organizational strategy and pressures from local labour and product markets (Florkowski 1996). Mor Barak (2005) recognizes that the cultural dimension of diversity program has strong sensitivity when corporations faced different type of customers and markets and it could be used to solve problem related to multicultural teams, gaining new market shares and product development. This, effectively managing a global workforce is considered to be critical in achieving benefits for business and in sustaining international competitive advantage (Florkowski 1996) as well as workforce mobilization (Konrad 2003). To cap, diversity initiatives helps an organisation keep a competitive Human Resource advantages.

Diversity improves customer services because the all range of customers could be represented inside the company. By listening employees’ needs, organizations could carry out customers’ needs. Diversity influences also the corporate reputation and environment. The environment improves employees’ satisfaction; consequently, if employees are satisfied, they will be more motivated and more efficient in their job. (Singh and Point, 2005), “diversity creates rich and unique work atmosphere”. That means, managing environment in which evolved the diversity is an important challenge for companies and permits to create a unique atmosphere in which each individual have his place and could develop his competences and skills in order to serve the organization and in order to achieve the firm’s objectives. Adapting to the needs of the employees helps an organisation keep a competitive Human Resource advantage.

Walson and al., 1997, (Mc Mahon and al., 1998), argued that heterogeneous groups are more efficient in identifying and solving problems. This idea is also develop by Bhadury and al. (2000). This argument makes diversity a component of the organization’s competitive advantage as well. This part will be really interesting to discuss later on the thesis because I would like to carry out why and how human resource diversity could be a strategic asset for organization. They also argued that diversity reduces discrimination and creates opportunities for employees. Singh and Point (2005), were arguing that diversity creates opportunities for organization. Hence diversity initiatives helps an organisation keep a competitive Human Resource advantage.

Diversity management within an organisation will create employee commitment since the workers no longer live and work in an insular market place they are now part of worldwide economy with competition coming from almost every continent. Employee involvement and participation will create a sense of belonging thus the employees will feel that they are part and parcel of the organisation thereby increasing productivity due to employee’s loyalty. Metzler (2003) emphasises the initiation of diversity management as a key to manage the competitive and commitment of employees in an organisation. These goals and objectives require a fundamental philosophy and shift in the strategies to account for more various and openness to diversity in employee characteristics and ways of working than member’s background are highly similar. To cap, diversity initiatives helps an organisation keep a competitive Human Resources advantages.

However, many organizations are finding that the goal of creating a multicultural work culture that both welcomes and leverages diversity remains elusive. In addition, Metzler (2003) lists the ten reasons why diversity initiatives fail: 1. Failure to address the deeper issues of discrimination and marginalization. 2. Failure to view diversity as organizational change. 3. Failure to examine how much change an organization can accommodate and in what increments. 4. Failure to address systemic issues such as organization's practices, policies, procedures and unwritten informal rules. 5. Failure to clearly and comprehensively articulate why an organization is devoting time, effort and resources to a diversity initiative. 6. Failure to engage white men in diversity discussion involving blacks or minority group. 7. Poor diversity training and education. 8. Lack of authentic diversity leadership. 9. Selecting incompetent consultants. 10. Lack of accountability. Though efforts are made, promoting workforce diversity has been challenging in the practical way.

In conclusion, it is acceptable to state that there is no "best way" to manage diversity. The execution of the workforce diversity concept could be vastly different from country to country, from company to company. The very success of its implementation is depending on business needs and workforce issues as well as situational factors, such as the organizational culture and workplace environment. While a broad range of issues is covered, it should be noted that "one size does not fit all" as organizations are in different stages of development regarding workplace diversity. Ultimately, the strength of commitment by the CEO, senior management and HR leadership will determine whether the organization successfully leverages workforce diversity, in achieving competitive advantage. However, many organizations are finding that the goal of creating a multicultural work culture that both welcomes and leverages diversity remains elusive. Efforts of promoting workforce diversity has been challenging in the practical way.