Changing times, company reputation and customer demands have led to business practices in companies that profit and benefit from being seen as diverse. Workforce diversity was first presented as an issue of equality by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
EEOC was established in 1963 and is responsible for enforcing federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of the person’s race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information.
It is also illegal to discriminate against a person because the person complained about discrimination, filed a charge of discrimination, or participated in an employment discrimination investigation or lawsuit. Defining diversity is a controversial topic because there are many ways a group’s diversity can be measured. Diversity of appearance, such as demographics, age, sex, and race are the typical way that diversity is measured.
But this touches only one aspect of diversity and does not cover the whole spectrum, such as differences in thinking that can be traced to educational or socioeconomic backgrounds. The study, “Why Differences Make a Difference: A Field Study of Diversity, Conflict and Performance in Workgroups” by Jehn, Northcraft and Neale, suggests three definitions of diversity: Social category diversity: Social category diversity (diversity is usually defined this way) refers to visible physical differences among individuals, such as race, gender, and ethnicity.
The Essay on What Is the Difference Between Race, Ethnicity, and Culture?
Race is biological categorized, which is eyes, hair, and skin. Ethnicity shares racially similar people of similar origin. Culture is the sharing of values, beliefs, and ideals of a group of people, regardless of their race. Race or racial group refers to the categorizing humans into groups, or populations on various heritable characteristics. The term race or racial group usually refers to the ...
These are the differences that are first seen between group members and are the first and foremost way that group members categorize each other. Group members will tend to identify more with other members that are more socially similar to them. Value diversity: Value diversity occurs when members of a workgroup differ in terms of what they think the group’s task, goal, target, or mission should be. In many cases, these differences could lead to disagreements about delegation and resource allocation. For instance, group members who value effectiveness are likely to have disagreements about duty and resource allocation with group members who value efficiency. Similarity in group members’ goals and values enhances interpersonal relations within the group. This similarity of values will likely decrease relationship conflict among members.
Informational diversity: Informational diversity refers to differences in knowledge and perspectives that members bring to the group. These differences occur because of variations on education, expertise and work experience. They increase the likelihood that diverse perspectives and opinions exist in a workgroup. If one group member has a business administration background and one has a degree in psychology these two members would disagree about which task is best to focus on and how to proceed about it
Diversity, however, breaks the affirmative action framework and goes beyond race and gender. In fact, the new diversity paradigm defines it as the process of creating and maintaining an environment that naturally enables all participants to contribute to their full potential in the pursuit of organization objectives. The following model can be helpful to more fully understand what it means to enable all persons to contribute their full potential to their organizations. 1. Primary Dimensions
The inner circle shows the primary dimensions of diversity which is fundamental to a persons’ self-concept or core self. These dimensions, though not necessarily visible, are unchangeable in that they are not a matter of choice, form the basis on which people make instantaneous judgments about one another, often through the process of stereotyping. 2. Secondary Dimensions
The Term Paper on Diversity and Cross Cultural Differences in Work places
Diversity and Cross-Cultural Differences in Workplaces Introduction Different people have different mental structures due to the diverse type of personality and cultural background. The study of psychology has enabled people to know about the mental functioning of others making it easier individuals and groups to understand one another. Since people must interact in the day-to-day ...
The middle circle consists of secondary dimensions of diversity. These are aspects of a persons’ identity that are important to a definition of self, but are not as fundamental as the primary dimensions. 3. Tertiary Dimensions
In addition, it would be possible to add a third circle that consists of the tertiary dimensions of diversity, such as learning style, personality, and professional orientation.
All three categories (primary, secondary, and tertiary) contribute to the formation of a person’s unique life experiences, perspectives, and skill sets. An effective organization can learn to recognize, understand, appreciate, respect, and utilize these multiple aspects of a person in the pursuit of its mission and objectives. This broadened definition of diversity sheds light on another reason for misunderstanding the connections between diversity and organizational change.
Diversity is often perceived as a program, not a significant and complex organizational change process. Defined in this way, diversity frequently is dealt with as training program for employees (usually managers only).
Training programs by themselves, however, rarely have the muscle to change the organization’s culture. Diversity effort that focuses primarily on training is, therefore, not likely to achieve long-term or long-lasting result.
The European Commission3, in the study Cost and Benefit of Diversity outlines the five most significant advantages that companies with active diversity policies apply to Diversity: Reinforcement of cultural values within organizations
Enhancement of the company reputation Attract and retain high-talented people Increase of the employees´ motivation and efficiency Increase innovation and creativity among employees.
Diversity is synonymous of Difference. Gardenswartz and Rowe are the authors of one of the classic models to analyze differences by 4 levels or dimensions of diversity. It should be remembered that:
The Term Paper on Diversity Management Employees Organization
... diversity be managed? The hard truth, however, is that inequalities exist for employees within organizations due to stereotyping and preconceived ideas about a person ... make you unique as an individual and organizational dimension is the work content/ field, division department / ... and management support and commitment, education and training, culture and management systems changes and continuous ...
An individual can obviously belong to more than one category. Belonging to an identity group is not a permanent or unchangeable circumstance. Each group is heterogeneous.
