Managing Workforce Diversity

Executive summary

Managing a diverse workforce enables companies to achieve a harmonious working relation amongst its numerous employees. Organizations benefit from a diverse workforce in several ways, including retaining workers for longer periods, attracting the most competent skills in the market, and high motivation amongst workers, which translates to huge profits for the organization. Many organizations are also targeting global markets and, therefore, they can only succeed in their business if they consider a mixed workforce. On the other hand, failure to manage workforce diversity can easily harm the organization in several ways, including low morale among workers thus affecting productivity and leading to very low profits. The organization’s overall competitive advantage diminishes with poor diversity management of the workforce. Buy this excellently written paper or order a fresh one from acemyhomework.com

Managing Workforce Diversity

Introduction

There has been growing demand in the recent past about the need for organizations to expand their workforce profile and include workers from all backgrounds. The urge to have organizations with such comprehensive outlook has particularly been emphasized by globalization which has narrowed down the confines of the world through enhanced communication and interactivity. This paper seeks to explore in detail the aspect of workforce diversity and why companies need to seriously consider it even as they pursue their corporate goals and objectives.

Managing workforce diversity

Organizations employ people of all walks of life to help them run their daily activities towards achieving their objectives. Often, the workers posses both similarities and diversity in very many aspects, including their ages, cultural background, religion, gender, sexual orientation, levels of physical abilities, race, among many other personal characteristics.

Managers who run organizations are supposed to ensure that this diversity is used positively in a way that would help the organizations attain their goals and objectives. This harmony is what managers desire in order to enable workers work together as team in the organization. In the contemporary day and age, globalization has brought about high integration among people and communities from varied locations of the world. The idea of physical boundaries and borders has completely been eliminated and people are free to move from one point to the other as they search for employment. In essence, global organizations are now emerging where people from different creed, tribe, race, and language form one community of workers. These workers need not feel that they have been curtailed to perform at their full capacity because of their different culture or orientation. Instead, the organizational goals and objectives should act as the binding factor that succeeds to bring all these workers with diverse backgrounds together (Lawrence, 1998, p. 309).

Benefits of workforce diversity

Organizations attract highly skilled and competent workers by virtue of adopting and employing workforce diversity. Managing workforce diversity in itself creates a harmonious environment within the organization that is also all inclusive. This, in turn, helps the organization to build a very good reputation with workers which comes in handy when it comes to attracting the best skills in the market. In other words, all workers are seeking better working environments where they can be provided with equal opportunities to advance their professional careers. An organization which promises to create such ample working environment wins the hearts, as well as commitment of many workers as they are assured of growth opportunities (Moreland & Levine, 2001, p. 62).

Workforce diversity also directly promotes motivation. Once an employee feels included in the organization, he has little room to worry about his career failing to attain its greatest heights. There is also little worry in such an employee that he may be dismissed or lose his job because of very flimsy reasons. Instead, the employee gets more engaged in his roles, duties, and participation. Employers who manage workforce diversity also ensure they reward the workers equitably and value their presence within the organization. These are the hallmarks of diversity management and often produce better results for the individuals in particular, and the organization in general (Miles & Snow, 1986, p. 62).

With enhanced workforce diversity management, an organization is set to benefit from very low instances of worker turnover. Organizations spend a lot of resources in acquiring new workers, training them and generally developing their careers such that they may provide the organization with the much needed competitive advantage. When these workers finally decide to quit the organization because of different reasons that relate to poor management of workers’ diversity, such as low morale or poor esteem, the organization then benefits little from all these investment. It is forced to re-hire new workers to replace the ones who might have quit. The whole cycle begins again where the organization spends a lot of resources developing the new workers but chances of them quitting the employment also remain higher as the organization still does not regard managing diversity among its workforce (Pelled, Eisenhardt & Xin, 1999, p. 61).

In as much as the composition of workers in the contemporary organizational environment is global, the market where the same organization sells its goods or services is also highly comprehensive. The performance of organizations in the global market, therefore, is likely to correspond to its workforce makeup. Consumers are likely to remain loyal to organizations which accept and treat diversity among its workforce in a positive manner. In the contrary, organizations that fail to recognize diversity among its workers is likely to find it difficult and hard penetrating the global market. Consumers will shun its goods and services as a way of expressing their disapproval to the manner in which the firms handle workers. It is, therefore, prudent to point out that managing workforce diversity within organizations leads to higher profitability while the opposite is true for organizations that disregard and fail to uphold diversity among its workers (Zenger & Lawrence, 1980, p. 353).

Problems for organizations that fail to consider diversity management

Failure by organizations to consider diversity management among their work force is likely to cause problems of cohesion. Organizations need to operate as teams since they all pursue an objective or goal which also requires the collective contribution from individual workers. Where the management does not consider the diversity of its workforce, the workers are likely to group themselves together within the organization according to common features among each group. For instance, workers may decide to selectively form a group that is made up of individuals from one race as a way of protecting their interests which could be in jeopardy. Such a grouping will treat other workers who are not of the same race as opponents who should not be tolerated at all. Where individuals in these groups have very high competency skills or experience, the organization as a whole might not really benefit because they will be less willing to share it out with other members of the organization (Webber & Donahue, 2001, p. 141).

Failure to consider and manage diversity of workers in organizations also generally affects the overall performance of that organization. It becomes difficult for workers to work together towards the accomplishment of organizational objectives because the issue of their own security bogs them down in the first instance. That is, the workers, by virtue of their gender, skin color, race, tribe or language feel they are being sidelined in favor of the other workers. It thus affects their motivation to work, despite their skill, competency, or level of education and generally their commitment levels remain very low. Their productivity is affected in turn and this also goes a long way in affecting the overall productivity of the firm. Its competitive advantage or position in the market is also negatively affected and hence leading to losses.

It is expensive for any management of an organization to think or imagine they can succeed in the present day global world without giving much emphasis to the aspect of diversity. With a diverse workforce, it is more likely that the organization will penetrate a wider market as it seeks to consolidate its profitability. The different workers from different backgrounds could easily appeal to different global markets, particularly where the common population in that market shares an aspect with a worker from the organization. It is therefore difficult for organizations that fail to consider diversity to imagine that they could do well in expanding and spreading their activities to cover a wider geographical or even global span. A diverse workforce also brings with it the advantage of varied skills. Different people have different capabilities and it is only through succeeding to make these varied populations work as a unit that the organization will benefit. On the other hand, having culturally varied populations and skills, and being unable to make them work as one is disastrous to the organization as it might never meet its overall objective at the end of it all (Alagna, Reddy & Collins, 1982, p. 801).

Types of workforce diversity

Within organizations, diverse workforces could be based on a number of characteristics that distinctly differentiate individuals or groups of workers from one another. This diversity could be in reference to the following characteristics or features;

Cultural diversity

Culture refers to the unique way of life that defines the way people were brought up. It actually refers to the beliefs, language, and unique practices that people subscribe to, often nurtured right from their birth. Organizations often intend to integrate workers with different cultural backgrounds together in order to achieve synergy in their operations. Businesses, particularly those that operate in the global market should be in a position to understand, embrace, as well as operate in a world environment that is multicultural in almost all ways. This should not only be case at the work place but rather should be extended to the marketplace as well.

At the giant soft drink manufacturing company Coke, policies have been formulated and enacted which specifically promote the idea of cultural diversity. The company realizes the crucial role that a multi cultural workforce plays in sustaining long term corporate objectives.

Coke has in effect fashioned a 2020 objective referred to as the Vision People goals. This is diversity journey that the company is currently undertaking whose aims include building corporate practices on diversity, as well as inclusion and fairness. To achieve these, Coke bottling company involves their business associates through collecting feedbacks from them, both via formal surveys and other informal participation activities. To showcase their full resolve to achieving culturally diverse workgroups, the total workforce employed at Coke comprises of 20 percent African Americans, 5 percent Asians, and 65 percent Caucasians. The Hispanic population at the firm makes up 9 percent of the total while other small ethnic groups collectively make up 1 percent of the entire workforce. Coke is a multinational corporation that sells its beverages in almost all the countries of the world and therefore understands how important it is for its workforce to reflect a true representation of the entire market (The CocaCola Company, 2012, para 2).

Gender Companies also endeavor to offer equal opportunities of employment to both male and female workers for as long as they hold the requisite qualifications and skills. In some instances where responsibilities and tasks are considered difficult for either gender, organizations offer the support employment opportunities to the opposite gender as a way of balancing their composition of workforce. The general society where we all live is made up of men and women who, together, succeed in bringing up families and generations that grow successively. Thus, organizations must also reflect this natural gender composition and balance in their workforce compositions if they intend to achieve overall success in their performance (Ely, 1995, p. 589).

Coke bottling company has demonstrated the importance of employing a workforce that is balanced along gender lines. As a way of promoting women whose position has long been considered to be weak in society, the company’s total workforce comprises of 41 percent female workers while the remaining 59 percent is made up of male workers in its USA plants (Watson, Kumar & Michaelsen, 1993, p. 590).

Sexual orientation

Individual workers could be having different orientations and preferences in as far as their achieving of sexual pleasure is concerned. There are those who are straight, who would consider members of the opposite sex as their love companions while others are gay and lesbians, meaning they would consider male counterparts, or female counterparts as their love companions respectively. Sexual orientation has long remained the basis of discriminating others, especially for gay and lesbian communities. Managers and indeed organizations need to draw a line of distinction between sexual orientations and workers’ skills and capabilities (Friedman & Krackhardt, 1997, p. 316).

The Coca-Cola Company, in its efforts to recognize and encourage diversity among its workforce, has played an emulative role in providing specific leadership in as far as employing gay and lesbian communities in its American subsidiaries are concerned. Both bisexual as well as transgender equality is provided at the workplace, an exercise that has since seen the company achieve 100 percent in performance results in as far as the Corporate Equality Index is concerned. Although Coca-cola has been on the receiving end, especially from conservatives who insist that gayism and lesbianism should be uprooted from the society, the company has continued with its resolve to agitate for the rights of such members of the community. This has helped in building a reassuring business environment, especially for workers with competent skills who fear working for other organizations because of their orientations (Ashforth & Mael, 1989, p. 20).

Workforce diversity management strategies

Managements for different companies pursue different plans that all aim at ensuring that they successfully achieve a diverse workforce in their organizations. These strategies could be varied in one way or the other but all target the single objective of oneness. One strategy is through the use advisory councils which provide recommendations to management in their efforts to achieve corporate diversity goals. The makeup of these councils often include associates from the various functions as well as units of the company (Milliken & Martins, L. L., 1996, p. 402)

Coca-cola Company employs this strategy of managing employee diversity through numerous groups that it has formed, and which specifically advice the management accordingly in as far as their areas of jurisdictions are concerned. The company’s African-American business resource group mainly centers its operations on issues that touch on the African Americans. The group advocates for adoption of corporate cultures that promote and prioritize inclusion, respects diversity, as well as valuing talent pool.

A similar group that focuses its attention on the Asian community, the Coca-Cola Asian group of business resources particularly promotes the corporate commitment on diversity in this regard. The group provides opportunities for business insights that directly touch on American of Asian descent. Through the group’s advices and activities, Coca-Cola has managed to connect with its main consumers and their groups, through people development, through peer education, as well as through community engagement and knowledge sharing.

Another resource group, the Coca-Cola Company Business Support Professionals enhances the delivery of value addition to both its employees and customers, through its numerous activities. The group is particularly charged with the responsibility of ensuring it comes up with varied career programs that fits the desires and wishes of its diverse workforce. Particular career talents tend to be preferred by different people from certain backgrounds and therefore supporting their strength in these areas offers the company a very competitive advantage. The resource group, in no way, does it discourage members of a given race, creed, gender, or religion from venturing into certain areas of expertise. Instead, it only creates more enabling environments that gives support towards achieving greater career goals and objectives (Nkomo, 1992, p. 17).

The gay, bisexual, transgender, lesbian, and ally business resource group of the CocaCola Company, known in short as LGBTA is yet another of the company’s efforts in fostering oneness among its workforce. In particular, this group advices and also helps the management to determine working conditions that will enable workers of mixed sexual orientations to feel at ease while at the organization. Coca-Cola intends to pass the message to all its workers that fall within these categories that their diversity is welcome and is needed to contribute towards the successful achievement of corporate strategic priorities.

The Latin communities have also not been left out in the Coca-Cola’s quest to pursue interests that directly take care of diversity. It is in this regard that the company has formed the Latino business resource group whose main responsibility is to advice management, as well as come up with acceptable activities that would assist in the management and handling of this group of workers. Such activities include programs that involve the Latino in community activities apart from the direct employment opportunities that they are offered.

Another unique resource group whose existence underscores the importance that CocaCola places on workforce diversity is the Military Veteran’s Business Resource Group, MVBR. The focal concern of this group is to link veterans, together with members of their families, as well as branches of all USA armed forces. Coca-Cola realizes the fact that many marketers have little regard for these important groups of Americans and therefore has taken the lead role in according them special care and service within its employment ranks. Such workers, although might be rare, help the organization to achieve a full workforce community that is representative of the society at large (Wagner, Pfeffer & O’Reilly, 1984, p. 74).

The final group that was formed to help the Coca-Cola management achieve a diverse workforce that is also replicate of its policy on diversity is the Women’s Business Resource Group, often referred to as the women’s linc. This group focuses on engaging, inspiring, as well as women workers employed at Coca-Cola. Currently, the company has a slightly biased and unbalanced population whose representation is in favor of men. Thus, the women’s business resource group is currently wooing women workers, as it tries to establish a reputation that will easily attract more women to be part of Coca-Cola. In overall, the strategy adopted by Coca-Cola Company is an all-inclusive plan that not only lures diverse workers to work for it but also lay out future formidable plans that ensure the company can sustain this diversity for the long term without encountering problems that can jeopardize its performance (The Coca-Cola Company, 2012, para 1).

Conclusion

There is need for every organization to promote and practice good management skills that enhances and sustains diversity in work groups. The benefits of this practice include high motivation among workers, which is brought about by confidence and the all inclusive workplace environment. It also helps organizations to retain their workers for longer durations as there would be limited reason for quitting such an organization. Diversity among workers could be in different aspects, including culture, sexual orientation, and gender among many others.

Management of companies needs to come up with strategies for workforce diversity that will specifically enable their organizations to achieve positive diversity.

Recommendations

A diverse workforce should be the target of many managers as the globalization trend takes root in the business environment. With the heightened competition being witnessed among players in an industry, companies need to enhance their competitive advantage in order to compete effectively. One way through which this advantage can be acquired is by a motivated workforce which feels part and parcel of the organization. Diversity management promotes this motivation as it offers equal opportunities for all workers. The resultant performance will be positive to the organization as it will increase profitability levels. Failure to promote diversity management curtails a worker’s performance and in essence could result in poor performance as a result of very low esteem from the workers. Diversity can be in different levels and ways, including cultural backgrounds, gender, sexual orientation, skin color, race, among many other distinct characteristics. Managers must, therefore, design strategies that will ensure workers are drawn from all these numerous backgrounds.

References

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