MANAGING ORGANISATIONS

Managing Organizations

Managing Organizations

To understand fully what the “business case for diversity management and equal opportunities” really is, it is important to know the meaning of business case. Business case pertains to a planned proposal for business change based on terms of costs and benefits. This is an initial requirement before a huge project is undertaken and is necessary for a number of project management processes.

The “business case for diversity” simply means that companies believes that employing a diverse workforce allow them to be in a position to understand the demographics of the customers they serve much better making them better able to thrive in the marketplace than companies that hire only a limited group of employee demographics. Also, a company that supports diversity of workforce is better able to address employee satisfaction and retention issues.

It is important to note that diversity in workforce means employing people without discrimination to gender, age and ethnic or racial backgrounds. Since globalization is the current overwhelming trend in business, diversity in the workplace is a better accepted and applied concept now more than ever.

The business case for diversity has been examined by a number of researchers and no research support was found to support the “diversity business case”. Also, in US companies are not allowed to hire on the basis of race or ethnicity for whatever profit reason it may be.

An important requirement of the business case is how a company uses its diversities. This is called inclusion. If the company has a diverse workforce yet the employer does not take advantage of the wide range of experience within his organization then it could not enjoy the advantages offered by background diversity.

Diversity issues change with time. Implementation of diversity is more often than not limited to the Human resources department. UK companies see it as a tool to a good economic case that enables them to reach new markets. Diversity then becomes an extra marketing tool to bring in new customers.

Diversity could either be superficial or deep-level. Superficial diversity refers to differences in gender, race and nationality. Deep-level refers to differences brought about by knowledge and cultural values. It is often noted that in a company setting increase interaction among a diverse workforce lessens the significance of superficial diversity and increases the importance of deep-level as the team learns how to function as a unit. According to studies, in deep level diversity, the informational diversity or the differences in knowledge contributes positive results to the performance while value diversity or differences in cultural views could lead to negative results.

Certain processes could have positive contribution to deep level informational diversity. One is the need to share unique views with others. In a group setting though, members tend to discuss what they have in common rather than their differences. In order to encourage sharing of unique knowledge, it is important to let the group know who has knowledge on certain things.

Also, instead of group information sharing, debate should be encouraged so as to allow members to ...