Free Essay On Workforce Diversity

Nowadays, more and more organizations have started to recognize the importance of diversity in the workplace as a strategy to maximize creativity, productivity and even the loyalty of their employees, while meeting the desires and needs of their customers.
A company’s performance and value is reported to the competences of its employees, therefore, it is of utmost importance for its success to hire and retain only the most suitable for the jobs, talented and capable individuals. In this respect, employers have come to understand that a diverse workforce means a larger pool of candidates of which to choose from, so that they must accommodate their management techniques and hiring practices regardless of their employee’s religion, race, gender, sexual preferences and even physical disabilities in order to gain advantage over other players on the market who are not so open to this new and ethical vision.
Having in mind the fact that even if a diverse workforce means similar organizational motivations, the employers must be aware that it is a challenging and not easy to implement business maneuver. It is very important to have good diversity practices that will help decreasing absenteeism, employee turnover, legal complaints and low productivity issues.
In accordance to what Michalle E. Mor Barak states in her “Managing Diversity Toward a Globally Inclusive Workplace” book, the ideal working organization has the following organizational features: it accepts and utilizes its workforce diversity, it is active in the community, it alleviates the needs of disadvantaged groups in its wider environment and it collaborates across national and cultural boundaries, being focused on mutual global interests. (Workforcediversitynetwork.com, 2008)
Managers who are effective came to understand that diversity in workforce brings great contribution to an organization’s capability to meet its goals in a cost-effective way. By valuing and encouraging diversity, employers are able to diminish the dissatisfaction of their employees, to increase their productivity and improve the overall morale. Maintaining workforce diversity also contributes to reducing the risk for employee harassment or discrimination lawsuits. Moreover, by setting up programs to recruit, attract, train and hire individuals from different cultures and backgrounds, the organizations increase their chances to find and produce innovative, creative solutions to the issues they are facing. (Cheah, 2013)
In order for an organization to remain competitive in the global marketplace, its employees have to be able to function in a productive and safe environment, meaning that the existence of clear rules on the intolerance of discrimination and harassment have to be instated and respected. When management acts fairly and consistently, an organization’s employees are likely to be more committed, more loyal and focused on their tasks. In addition to that, by preventing lawsuits, there is the insurance that nothing may interfere with the ability of the personnel to stay focused on its tasks, delivering services and products to schedule. (Cheah, 2013)
Given the above arguments, one must observe that it is becoming a must for an organization to increase their diversity efforts in order to keep pace with their competition. Workforce diversity that is embraced and encouraged by an organization brings great contribution to its organizational goals accomplishment. With the growing number of minority groups all over the world, as well as with the increase in business global transactions, it would be unwise for an organization not to adopt and implement a workforce diversity model, as the more alike to its clients a company is, the better it can satisfy their needs.

References

Cheah, L. (2013). Why workplace diversity is important for every organisation. myStarjob. Retrieved 26 March 2015, from http://mystarjob.com/articles/story.aspx?file=/2013/4/20/mystarjob_careerguide/12948229&sec=mystarjob_careerguide
Workforcediversitynetwork.com,. (2008). Diversity in the Workplace - Leading Association for Diversity Conferences and Collaboration. Retrieved 26 March 2015, from http://www.workforcediversitynetwork.com/news_0806_impt.aspx