WORKPLACE DIVERSITY

MANAGING WORKPLACE DIVERSITY

Managing Workplace Diversity

Introduction

Workplace diversity refers to a mixture of people with different group identities within the same work environment. Globalization, understood as the growing interdependence of all national markets for the establishment of a global market in the context of the internationalization of capital, has deepened the diversity and heterogeneity of the forms of inclusion of diverse work groups in different work situations and employment. This paper presents the issue of 'managing workplace diversity' in a holistic context. The paper first explores the basic meanings and concepts of diversity and then moves to assess the needs of diversity management within the workplace (Ibarra, 1993, p.63). A socio-historic picture of workplace diversity forms the major part of this paper. The paper also presents the concepts and issues of diversity management within UK and gives an account of developments in this subject area.

Discussion & Analysis

The meaning and context of Diversity

The term diversity includes two sub types, demographic and cultural. The demographic variables that form the characteristics of an organization's workforce constitute the demographic diversity. These variables include gender, age, physical status, religion and sexual orientation (Pollitt, 2006, p.15). On the other hand, cultural diversity constitutes the variables of culture that exist within the workforce. Among these cultures are the Hispanic cultures, the deaf culture, the Muslim culture, the Jewish culture, the Native American culture, and the Inuit or the Eskimo culture. It is possible for people with the same demographic characteristics not to share the same cultural characteristics. A deaf person who went to school with hearing people, whose parents are hearing, and most of whose friends can hear as well, may be deaf from a demographic point of view, yet the person does not identify with the deaf culture (Eagly, 2001, p.781). Following a common practice, the term diversity is used to reflect both the demographic diversity and the cultural diversity.

The Need for Diversity

In recent years, companies invest a lot of manpower, material and financial resources for the various forms of training to enhance the organizational performance and strength and competitiveness of its members. However, the practice in many enterprises such as stop-gap measures and spoon-feeds training proves to be a temporary solution (Swanson et al, 2009, p.102). This type of training, at best, can only improve the skills and increase knowledge, but cannot infest the true sense of organizational direction in its members to enhance performance so that it leads to enhancing the competitiveness and the purpose of the organization. Given the vast amount of resources an organization puts to get optimal production levels, it is highly imperative that diversity management is properly dealt (Laband & Lentz, 1995, 792).

Only in the European Union has 27 member states, 22 official languages, over 300 other languages and dialects, 52% of the population is female, 12% are disabled, 10% homosexual. Only Spain is home to more than four million immigrants from outside (Barberá, 2000, p. 46). Unemployment, economic growth, use of technology, legislation, country size, income per capita, all vary ...