Diversity In The Workplace Paper

Creating a more inclusionary workplace

Introduction

Diversity has emerged to be one of the core organizational values today. Appropriately so, as organizations have realized the benefits that it brings including greater customer satisfaction, better financial performance and decision making.

In a survey by SHRM , respondents (including C-level executives) cited three primary reasons for their organization’s Diversity and Inclusion agenda - tapping into a broader range of backgrounds and skill sets, social and ethical concerns motivated by fairness and justice and thirdly, tapping new sources of talent to understand customers better and increase sales.

Hays-Thomas and Bendick (2013, p. 195) define diversity as “the mixture of attributes within

Some of these challenges are:

Communication - Cultural and language barriers need to be overcome for diversity programs to succeed. Ineffective communication of key objectives in combination with perceptual bias may lead to low morale and non-achievement of goals.

Resistance to change - Some employees will not take positively to the fact that the social and cultural makeup of their workplace is changing. The “we’ve always done it this way” mentality inhibits progress and ideas.

Implementation of diversity in the workplace policies - Build and implementing a customized strategy to maximize the effects of diversity in the workplace is by no means easy. Continuous tracking of performance with standards and revision of policies is crucial when the results may be falling short of expectations.

Successful Management of Diversity in the Workplace - Diversity training alone is not sufficient for an organization’s diversity management plan. It has been observed by diversity advocates and HR personnel that there has been a ‘diversity fatigue’. It has been reduced to a

When teams are given short term goals to work upon, they are better able to understand the value of working together. At the same time, managers should allow time and different ways of building trust and rapport among employees. They need to take measures to better involve minority members of the team in decision making, without issuing one size fits all statements.

Best practices

Management Structures

Lead the effort from the top

Build an infrastructure to support Diversity

Focus on Diversity in the entire talent pipeline

Revise business processes to support Diversity

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Notes from papers

Diversity inclusion and perceived organizational value

Mor Barak and Daya (2014, pp. 393–394) indicated that “an exclusionary workplace is based on the perception that all workers need to conform to pre-established organizational values and norms (determined by its “mainstream”), the inclusive workplace is based on a pluralistic value frame that respects all cultural perspectives represented among its employees.”

Winters (2014, p. 206) “perhaps the most salient distinction between diversity and inclusion is that diversity can be mandated and legislated, while inclusion stems from voluntary