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Week 2

Diversity and Personality at Work

Andrew Funchess

Carl Nesmith

Victor Serna

MGT/312

10/02/2016

FRANK SCARPONE
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Week 2: Diversity and Personality at Work

<intro>

Team member's personality type

After completing the “What is My Big Five Personality Profile?” self-assessment, it is observed

that there is a diverse group of people on the team with different personality types. The results of

the self-assessment are spread among the big five personality dimensions; however, most of the

team member obtained high level of personality factors under the agreeableness, openness to

experience and emotional stability. According to Kinicki & Fugate (2016), people with

agreeableness characteristic are trusting, good-natured, cooperative, and softhearted. The

diversity of personalities is seen in the levels of extraversion and conscientiousness with scores

ranging from high to low. The ultimate results of the team’s personality should allow for an

overall well flowing team that is able to perform well and produce well-rounded assignments.

Advantages of working with different personality types

There are many advantages of working with individuals with different personality types,

but the ones that come to my mind are patience and learning how to cope with balanced strengths

and weaknesses that help a team strive to do its best because we all know that the team is only as

strong as its weakest link and in order to survive in the world of business we must have a well-

balanced team in order to survive. As an individual, working with different personalities

strengthens our patience level and our ability to deal with people who we feel are difficult. It

also motivates us to help those we perceive as weak or indifferent in for the betterment of the

team. Finally, working with many different personalities is an advantage because we learn a lot

of different things and ways of doing things that help us cope with our character and situations.
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Disadvantages of working with different personality types

In a workplace and/or team many different personalities can be viewed and it can just be

the subtle differences is personalities. Personality differences can result in conflicts, stress and

poor performance within the work place or on the team. When it comes to the variety of

personalities within the present team the biggest disadvantage will be the procrastination of team

members and the added burden to those who possess better time management. On the other hand

a team that has many high level extraversion personalities can cause a conflict in leadership and

without proper communication confusion of assignment and instructions can occur. The

personality types among the team all seem to have a moderate to high level of agreeableness and

emotional stability but this could result in an indecisive team that allows the attempt to be

accommodating to the other team members conflict with making a final decision on the tasks to

be assigned. The threat of conflict can affect the performance and organizational well-being in

the long run and is an issue that should not be ignored (2016,"Managing workplace conflict").

Ways organizations can manage a diverse group of employees

When managing a diverse group of people and bringing them together with different

backgrounds, religions and age groups there has to be some polices in place for all the employees

to feel that equality is important. Once polices are in place for all employees, then you can began

to implement different measures that assure equality throughout the entire organization. Make

sure all employees within the organization are rated on qualifications not your ethnic background

or age when going through the hiring process. The process of hiring an applicant must be fair and

based on having the right qualifications for the job. All raises and performance base bonuses

should also be in place for all employees within the organization no matter age, color or religion.
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If a person can do their job well and do it right it shouldn’t matter what someone else may think

of them personally they should receive all the perks of the organization also. Offer training and

workshops to all employees so they can always have in place if their lacking in any of their job

duties. Always asking for feedback from the employees on what can be done to make the

organization run better.

<Conclusion>

References

Kinicki, A., & Fugate M. (2016). Organizational behavior: a practical, problem-solving

approach. New York, NY. McGraw-Hill.

(2016),"Managing workplace conflict", Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol.

24 Iss 1 pp. 16 - 18