Definition of diversity
The essay discusses the variety of diversity among the people in the community service organization. It discusses the definition and importance of diversity, the principles, objectives and benefits of the diversity policy. It also discusses the methods with which the organization will deal with the diversity problems. It follows the relevant legislation for applying the diversity policy as measure the success after applying it.
The diversity in an organization refers to the variety or differences of people in the organization. Diversity increases variety thus encompasses acceptance as well as respect. It is the idea of considering diversity that means that every individual is unique in their own way. It is the recognition of their individual differences (Winfield and Weiler 2017). These varieties include ethnicity, age, gender, physical abilities, sexual orientation, family status, perspectives, religious beliefs, experiences and other ideologies. The increasing support for embracing diversity in an organization has become necessity and provides workplace benefits such as mutual respect among the co-workers and commercial gains.
The Synergy International is a community service organization that has become popular through its numerous activities, including the development and application of different policies that guide its operation, maintains its commitments to support the sensitivity to cultural diversity. The diversity policy aims to value and manage the diversity and demonstrate it as the asset to the organization. It links diversity for betterment of economic performance. Diversity is an integral part that demonstrate the positon of the business and indicate the success of the organization. The diversity policies recognise that the organization needs to reflect its customers as well as local communities. It builds a diverse as well as inclusive workforce that can result in improving the organizational services for the customers along with returning of the shareholders. It creates a situation where employees work in open, fair as well as diverse ambience thus get more engaged.
As the workforce demography is diverse in any organization diversity policy is important to be applied. It chiefly discusses about the complex idea of values, attitudes as well as beliefs that create differences among the employees (Whitehouse and Nesic 2014). The community service organization recognises, respects, promotes as well as celebrates the importance of the cultural diversity among the people and adopt and impose inclusive cultural diversity policy that advances the different factors by demonstrating it as a beneficial force in the lives of the diverse community.
The Synergy International follows the diversity policy within the organization that has certain principles that aim for implementing practices in order to maximise the respect for all the individuals associated with the organization. It will encourage the idea of dignity of risk and reduce disadvantage and create accessible services. The policy will increase the social participation through building effective community as well as encouraging a greater voice along with greater responsibilities. It aims to develop relationships based on trust and collaboration with diverse cultural and linguistic community as well as aboriginal communities. This will help in developing awareness and mutual respect for diversity of culture as well as lifestyles (Cho 2017). The principles of the policy will encourage equal employment opportunities and recognise benefits of the cultural diversity as well as effective workplace diversity.
Rationale
The goals and objectives of the of the diverse policy are for the organization in its work, research as well as community engagement. The objectives of The Synergy International are: Providing specific acknowledgement along with support to the culture, language, experience and background of the people associated with the organization. The policy recognizes and values the multicultural environment of the society where it operates as well as its diverse community (Hindorff et al 2017). It aims to provide a varied, flexible work environment that acknowledges, funds, values as well as encourages the cultural diversity. It promotes the development of the understandings and insights into an array of cultures. The policy facilitates the successful participation and contribution within the workplace, its activities of the staff with different cultural backgrounds. It emphasises on the importance of cultural diversity by strengthening its commitment to cultural inclusiveness. It aims to educate the employees in order to make them capable of reacting sensitively, sympathetically as well as justly in varied cultural context. It attempts to redress any discriminatory, unfair and illegal practices that may result directly or indirectly due to cultural differences, identity and context. The policy aims to promote some cultural activities that may celebrate the diversity of the staff in the organization (Kaya 2017). The policy intents to provide culturally apt support services where reasonably practicable to the indigenous and international staff.
The cultural diverse policy takes an active approach for developing a healthy service environment which promotes active participation along with respects to the different cultural background and the beliefs of the clients who are from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds and including those with indigenous heritage (Downing 2015). This policy will help in seeking diversity which is a reflective of the community to which the organization provides services in membership of its Board, working groups, Committees and staff by actively addressing barriers to complete participation. By understanding Customers along with their needs the organization will obtain precise information regarding the community’s demographic profile which it serves (Kirton, Robertson and Avdelidou?Fischer 2016). Later it will use this acquired information for planning service provision aiming to serves the culturally diverse groups.
The Synergy International inform itself to promote and deliver best services to the diverse groups and seek partnerships with other organisations that represent cultural groups to identify the basic needs through operative service responses. The policy will celebrate the cultural diversity among the communities that the organization serves by contributing and supporting in the community festivals, cultural events so that it can provide opportunities for the people with different cultural background for sharing their culture with other people thereby indorsing respect as well as reciprocity (Nivet, Castillo-Page and Conrad 2016). Data collection at intake for all the services provided will include their country of birth and preferred language. The basic strategies are-
- Understanding cultural diversity in all interactions between the staff, clients as well as the wider community
- Acknowledging the rights of the clients by ensuring that they do not clash with law as well as demonstrate traditions without any fear of discrimination and harassment.
- The policy will identify the recruitment opportunities as well as seek skilled staff from different cultural backgrounds
- Training needs to be undertaken for familiarising all staff with different cultural beliefs of the Indigenous citizens along with the immigrant groups within the Community
- The policy will help in gaining knowledge about its community via participating in cultural festivals and relevant networks (Vink, Prokic?Breuer and Dronkers 2013)
- The organization will proactively consult, collaborate build partnership with specific cultural groups to provide culturally appropriate services according to the demand
- This cultural diversity policy commits to incorporate an inclusive, cross-cultural perspectives in their design of the services to community
- Work collaboratively with indigenous and cultural minorities for improving service provision
- It creates guidelines to mandate the case specific consultations with cultural specific agencies when appropriate
- It will ensure that the key messages will be translated into the community languages
- The organization will use numerous photographs of the indigenous people to make it relevant symbols of cultural as promotional materials (Banks et al 2016)
- The organization needs to develop protocols with accredited language service providers as well as services that provide cultural specific information along with support
- It will ensure provision as required of an accredited interpreter during service delivery and have the key service papers translated for the clients whose proficiency in the chief communication language requires it
- The organization will have staff properly trained in effective use of the language services.
The policy of The Synergy International is based on three different yet relevant acts of Australia. These are Racial Discrimination Act of 1975, Equal Opportunity Act (Victoria) 2010 and Racial and Religious Tolerance Act (Victoria) 2001. The Racial Discrimination Act of 1975 prohibits racial, sexual, religious, political and age discrimination among the employees of any organization. The Equal Opportunity Act 2010 encourages the identification as well as elimination of any kind of discrimination, victimisation and sexual harassment and their reasons (Bruna and Chanlat 2015). It promotes and facilitates the progressive realisation of equality among the employees.
The organization will monitor the policy implication and it success through seeking feedback from its clients obviously in their language of origin. the process will ask about the experience of the services based on the new policy. The success will be measure if people actively participate from community backgrounds as volunteers for a variety of roles. The organization will have proper mechanisms for consulting with these community groups for improving service planning (Cerna 2013). The representative community advisory committee will monitor if these have influence in the internal governance of the organisation. Therefore, it can be concluded that the organization policy for managing diversity is helpful for growth in the business by encouraging diversity.
References:
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Cho, A.Y., 2017. Practical Implementation Issues for the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Nagoya Protocol from a Korean Perspective. The Korean Journal of International and Comparative Law, 5(1), pp.61-82.
Downing, J., 2015. European influence on diversity policy frames: paradoxical outcomes of Lyon’s membership of the Intercultural Cities programme. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 38(9), pp.1557-1572.
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