Diversity in Workplace

Diversity in Workplace

Introduction

Workplace diversity is a topic that has gained so much popularity in today's business landscape that has proved its importance for the success of an organization. An increasingly large number of organizations are beginning to recognize the diverse nature of their workforce and the role this diversity can play for the achievement of overall organization's objective. Today's business organizations are aware of the fact that recognizing and respecting workplace diversity can help in increasing productivity of individual employees thereby resulting in overall growth of the business organizations. Diversity, thus, no longer carries negative meaning as it did some decades ago.

There are several instances where business organizations have started to implement diversity programs in order to reap the benefit of the diversity and there are still many more that hired special consultants for the purpose of assessing the current conditions of their workforce and to suggest as to what is required to make these organizations represent more diverse culture. One of the major focuses of business organizations today is to promote and encourage diversity programs in order to maximize the potential of their employees.

The Las Vegas Valley Water District is one of those organizations in United States that successfully implemented and practiced diversity programs in their respective workplaces. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the diversity program implemented by the Water District, its effectiveness and implications which is one of the important initiatives of its kind in US since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The paper will also review the relevant literature, which discussed many features and components diversity along with history of the idea.

Discussion

History of Diversity Programs

The United States federal government in has sponsored several equal employment laws since 1960. These laws deal with the issue of workplace diversity and prohibit cultural, ethnic, racial, religious, gender, physical ability and age discrimination in organizations. While these laws generally encourage equal opportunity and diversity, they do not present specific guidelines as to how these objectives should be achieved (Loden, 1996). Federal government introduced the Civil Rights Act in 1964 which prohibited all kinds of discrimination by employers who have 15 or more workforce in their respective organizations (Guy & Newman, 1998).

The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 mandated that federal personnel system must implement such policies for recruitment as to reflect the diverse population of the country. Moreover, the Civil Rights Act of 1991 provided additional measures to protect those from minorities against discrimination. Furthermore, the Civil Rights law was modified again in 1991 and President Clinton ordered to revise the Action programs. This was the first major revision of such programs but the president promised not end the programs completely. Prior to President Clinton's action, no actions in favor or against the program were taken since the Regan administration. Later, many public and private sector employers seeking to implement diversity programs have started to voice their concerns about the government's failure to uphold or oppose the Affirmative ...