Diversity in the work place is one of the major trends in HRM as a specialist in the area discuss

the context of managing diversity, implementing diversity initiative ,challenges and limitation .
critique of global diversity management. Do diversity initiative deliver.

Workplace diversity is the process of developing an inclusive environment in which different

skills, cultural perspectives and the background of individuals are valid. The various
characteristic of diversity include; age, ethnicity, gender, disability, language, gender belief,
gender identity, intersex status, life stages, education.
Diversity management is the systematic and designed obligation on the part of the organization,
to recruit, select, reward, promotes and retains a diverse workforce at any particular time with the
aim of combining and utilizing the blend of the uniqueness of the culture every time. Diversity is
not easy to handle since any inability to manage diversity effectively can adversely affect the
wellbeing of the organization. This can lead to;
 Job dissatisfaction
 Poor performance
Benefits of diversity in the work place `
1. Diversity helps to boost employer employee relationship
2. Builds and develop effective customer relations
3. It facilitates innovation , creativity and flexibility in the functioning of the organization
4. Helps stabilize sustainable organization development and competitive advantage of the
firm.
5. Widen talent pool
6. Benefit employer brand
7. Align organization culture with demographic make up
Ways of managing work place devise
Effective communication with employees- policies procedures and safety rules should be
designed to overcome language and cultural barriers. For example, by translating and use of
pictures or symbols where necessary.
Treat each employee as an individual-avoid making assumptions about employees from
different background. Treat employees as an individual and judge success or failure on the
individual merit rather than attributing actions to their background.
Encourage employee to work in diverse group-it lets employees to know and value one
another as an individual basis and can help solve conflicts and cultural misunderstandings.
Base standard on objective criteria- set a one standard of rules for all groups of employees
regardless of their background.
Be open minded- encourage and help employees recognize that one’s own experience
background and culture are not the only value for the organization incorporate a diverse range of
perspectives and talent into effort to achieve organization goal.
Hiring-build a diverse work place, recruit and hire talent from a variety of backgrounds. Top
management and leaders who make hiring decisions to avoid biasness in interviewing and
assessing talent, hiring a diverse workforce can be reached through,
1. Incorporate diverse interview panel
2. Managers training on what is ethical and unethical during interview
3. Get creative when recruiting for example, if organization want to hire more women in the
engineering department , they could reach out to professionals’ group that cater women
engendering in the organization and ask them to advertise the post.

Policies and practices

Organization to embrace diversity should ensure policies and procedures are in place to protect
employees’ rights and stay compliant with legislation. Organization should get feedback from
employees to test the effectiveness of the diversity policies for example through surveys and
interview. The firm should be ready to adopt change if the feedback is negative and obstructions
to employees.
The policies which are written should be thoroughly explained to all employees to communicate
company values and culture to all workforce effectively.
Documentation of policies and procedures
Once concrete plans are ready to be implemented, documents that outline each policy should be
included in the employee handbook.
Diversity policies should be reviewed every new hire and when updates to policies are made and
shared with current employees. Employee handbook should cover diversity in the following
section
1. Code of conduct
2. Non-discrimination policy
3. Compensation benefit policy
4. Employee condition and termination
Zero tolerance policy
Having a diverse work place off-color jokes about ethnicity ,gender, and sexual orientation or
religion should be with zero -tolerance enforcement. Slurs , name-calling and bullying
employees is not entertained.
Employees should feel safe reporting any instances of in appropriate behavior by co-worker by
establishing complaint policy.
Sensitive training
Employees need to be aware of how to co-exist with a diverse range of people and organization
of cultural sensitivity.
Training helps organization manage diversity in the workplace and help employees become self-
aware which plays avital role in help[Ing employees understand their own cultural biase3s [and
prejudice .the benefits include
1. Employee examine and adjust their perspectives about people from different background.
2. Employees can learn to appreciate the views of others
3. Shows employees what actions are offensive and why are perceived as so
4. Teaches employees how to calmly communicate that co-worker has offended them and
resolve conflict calmly
5. All employees included in sensitive training make it more impactful.
Stay a breath List of disadvantages of workplace diversity
Business needs to keep abreast of changing employer related laws and trend for example
diversity related changes. Organization should regularly review internal policies for example
harassment and equal opportunity

How to best implement diversity strategies in the workplace

To compete in a market place experiencing significant demographic changes, businesses

must develop and implement a diversity management strategy to attract and retain the best
global talent. But what is the best practice to do so?

As a term, diversity generally refers to the differences among people, such as race, colour,
gender, religion, age, sexual orientation, political affiliation.

As a management practice however, it involves much more than “just” a set of HR policies.
Diversity management is about the culture of the organisation and the source of its strategic
thinking.
In a world where globalisation has brought a diverse set of customers to companies that
previously dealt with a homogenous customer base, and in a world where innovation is one of
the key competitive advantages; composing a diverse workforce has become a necessity.

The reason why is simple; no one can genuinely understand a culture or a customer segment
better than the person with the same background. Likewise, no other workforce can keep a
company innovative, flexible and vibrant then the one that is composed of people possessing
different assumptions and ways of doing things. Because, besides bureaucracy, is there any
bigger killer of innovation than people with the same way of thinking?

Diversity is hard to implement

Despite the importance, diversity strategies are difficult to implement. Once in place they often
do not deliver the benefits they promise.

Why is this the case?

One reason is definitely the attitude of the company. Diversity programmes are likely to fail if
they are set up because it is perceived to be the right thing to do without reflecting a true
commitment to creating a work environment that fosters the best workforce.

The other thing is that many companies underestimate the time and effort required to implement
such strategy. Rather than working towards integrating diversity into the organisation’s strategy
and all HR activities, companies often see it as just another “stand-alone project”.

Finally, large companies especially often fail to address the more hard-wired aspects such as
management style, hierarchy and culture. Because of that, the implementation often fails.

How to work around this?

Best practice experience suggests at least five crucial steps when implementing a successful and
lasting diversity strategy. These are listed below:

1. Involve the entire top management team

The senior leadership must be involved and visible throughout the whole diversity project.
Visionary speeches have little impact alone. The CEO and other senior leaders should be visible
at workshops, training programmes

An important first step in showing the way is also to implement diversity at top management
level.

2. Adapt the organisational structure

The organisational structure must support the diversity effort. This can be done by creating a
diversity office and appointing a Chief Diversity Officer (CDO). If the organisational structure
supports the diversity offers, it is more likely to be taken seriously across the whole business.

3. Communicate about the initiative on continuous basis

Communicating about why diversity is crucial for the success of your business is highly
important. The communication must be plentiful and include variety of channels such as social
media, newsletters, intranet, seminars, meetings, posters and so on.

4. Create a formal project plan

Create a formal project plan to support the diversity strategy with measurable objectives that is
integrated with the rest of the company’s strategic objectives and operations.

During the years, various research has shown that if such project is not carefully planned in
advance using tested and robust processes, critical elements will not receive the proper attention.

Such project plans should take into consideration the length of time taken to cultivate a mind-set
that acknowledges that diversity is part of the overall strategy. The project should also include a
performance evaluation programme that functions as an accountability mechanism.

5. Change all HR initiatives to include diversity

A company should consider how it can reach a wider talent pool by initiatives such as:
Challenges and limitation of gender diversity

1. The hiring manager pays too much attention to the quality of leadership. Diversity in the
workplace seeks experts who excel in the chosen profession, job role, and team environment.
The goal is to create a series of advantages so that everyone can grow over time. These are all
benefits, but if the hiring manager is hiring people who want to be responsible, they can become
a problem. Competition can be healthy, but it can also be dangerous when it gets out of hand.
When the goal is to improve the individual rather than the team, the diversity plan fails. You
must go beyond what you see to create a complementary team. This means there must be leaders,
people who are happy with the current position, and people who work with passion. There must
also be emotional diversity.
2. Diversity can cause workers to be overqualified in certain jobs. As the economy gets into a
comfortable mode, the community naturally grows and declines. The diversity of the workplace
can create a stable environment and more job security, but it also creates a number of problems
that make workers too qualified for their work. If the person is unemployed for any reason, it
may be difficult to find a new job elsewhere. During the Great Depression, we saw this problem
all over the United States. Employers are hiring people who are willing to work for almost any
salary. You have someone who has a Ph.D. Try to fill cashier positions at fast food restaurants
because there are no job opportunities in your area.
3. Diversity in the workplace generates too many opinions. When hiring managers focus on
diversity, they will have many different opinions, making it easier to find the right direction.
Sometimes, the large number of available opinions can cause problems for your organization.
When everyone has the opportunity to express their opinions, the speed of the project can be
slowed down, or it can be speeded up. If you cannot reach a consensus with the team, then the
task of making the decision falls on the supervisor. This means that some people will be "right"
and others will be "wrong". Over time, this process will cause divisions in the team. People who
feel that their opinions are ignored may stop sharing their ideas because of this problem, which
first reduces the benefits of addressing diversity.
4. Offshoring can become the focus of workplace diversification. Domestic diversity can become
an expensive proposition. Between salary and benefits, the cost of hiring the best people to fill
vacant positions is high. Because of this problem, companies often look for offshore
opportunities to help them add a unique perspective to their corporate image without spending a
lot of labor. This problem will cause existing employees to lack job security, thereby limiting
their concentration and productivity. Platforms such as Upwork and Fiverr have also attracted
freelancers to join this combination. If companies can hire independent contractors at lower
prices for equal or higher jobs, then they will do so. The reason why the middle class is growing
all over the world is diversification, which means that there may be fewer job opportunities
available locally.
5. Diversity in the workplace will weaken existing trust. When an organization decides to make
diversity planning its top priority, trust in the workplace drops immediately. This disadvantage
affects all population groups in the population, including people from the same culture,
educational background, and professional experience. Although this disadvantage does not cause
silos or team isolation, it can create obstacles to collaboration. Some people will reduce their
interaction with others, and if forced to do so, they will feel fear, and this problem will ultimately
limit productivity.
6. In the process of increasing diversity, some teams have become hostile. Different perspectives
will produce unique perspectives and lifestyles, which can lead to serious differences in the
workplace. It is not uncommon for everyone to believe that their personal opinions are correct,
which is why they share this information with others. If someone disagrees, some will see it as a
personal attack on their character, integrity, and even spirituality. When South Bend Mayor Pete
Buttigieg criticized Vice President Mike Pence's political actions early in the 2020 election
season, Pence said it was an attack on his Christian faith. Some people do not separate the
different elements of their personal, professional or spiritual life. When there are polarized
differences in the team, the focus on diversity can be hostile.
7. Diversity in the workplace can cause communication problems. People of different cultures
may not speak the same language as their primary means of communication. Hiring people from
different fields can provide a unique perspective, but it can also cause problems in the way
colleagues communicate. Even if the same language is used, there may be differences in the
meaning of certain words or problems with understanding the jargon, which can cause confusion
in the workplace.
There are a variety of tools that can help you solve this problem, including the Google Translate
tool. Unless there is a direct translation in the team; however, there may be misunderstandings
that ultimately lead to conflicts.
8. Diversity initiatives are usually implemented by one person. About two-fifths of companies
hand their diversity initiatives to one person or sponsor. This person is usually the CEO or
another member of the leadership team. If the CEO or other members of the C-level executive
don't have a lot on hand, then this task is fine, but the process is usually placed at the back of the
priority. It's easier to talk about making this a priority than to develop new policies and
procedures that can make it happen. For other companies that use multiple people to create
diversity in the workplace, islands can be created to customize the process so that similar results
can be produced. For this process to be effective, there must be full approval from the leadership.
9. The level of complaints generally increases with diversification initiatives. Compared to an
environment where most people have the same opinions, there is often more conflict between
individual team members in a diverse environment. Different habits and work styles can produce
annoying results. Imagine sitting next to a colleague who needs to keep tapping the pen to think,
this is how some people view the process. If there is no active administration, complaints and
appeals will generally increase, which means that more time and money must be spent on
investigations. This disadvantage can become so severe that some companies will see an increase
in resignations because they do not like to be put in an "awkward" situation. This means that the
organization must pay the costs necessary to replace lost employees, so it can take months (or
years) to recover the investment.
10. By pointing to individual stories, it is easier to verbally support diversity. In today's Fortune
500 companies, less than 5% of companies have female CEOs. In this leadership position, there
are more men than women with the same name. Many companies claim to be diverse through the
personal stories they can find, and when the reality is completely opposite, they mistakenly
believe they are progressive. Having only one woman on the board does not diversify the
leadership team. Hiring an African-American woman to work on a team of white men is not
diversity either. Companies must be honest with themselves and the work they do to make this
process work.