The Importance of Managing Diversity in Organizations
Discuss About The Managing Diversity In The Netherlands Case.
Human resources have been evolving for the last decades due to organizational changes that are taking place within the business environment. As organizations grow there is need to extend their business operations across their domestic home markets as a way exploiting the opportunities that exist in other areas (Horwitz & Horwitz, 2007). This calls for the need to embrace diversity in the recruitment processes to ensure that they develop equal opportunities for employees. The concept of open organizations is used for businesses that create greater opportunities to tap talents and creativity that are related to diversity.
Jesse & Martins (2012) suggests that the business case for diversity is the application of diversity by working with diverse employees. It is the move from monolithic organizations that fail to understand the needs and desires of different customers since their organizational framework does not reflect diversity. As CERA expand its business opportunities to other areas and working with other organizations, there is need for embracing diversity in its human resource system to reflect the changes in the organization. By hiring different diverse employees, CERA can reap the business benefits of diversity. This essay analyses the business case of diversity about CERA to determine how this can be implemented in the organization.
According to Kaiser, et al. (2013) diversity management is the application of different beliefs, values and way to embrace the global changes in organizations. Diversity is based on the need to recognize the variations like workforce and giving each an opportunity to work in the organization. By recruiting employees from different groups, organizations tap the potential and are seen by the public as embracing the needs of the society. By embracing diversity, organizations work with employees from different aspects like include age, ethnicity, gender, physical abilities, sexual orientation, race, marital states and geographical background which give the human resource management a wide choice of options that they can recruit from (Kramar, et al., 2014). This implies that diversity differences can vary from organization to organization depending on the nature of the task and the opportunities that exist in the organization. The most common differences that exist in the organization include gender where men and women are treated differently by some organizations. Traditionally, the gender role was defined based on productive roles for men and reproductive roles for women. This had limited the career of women making it difficult for them to advance to higher positions.
Business Benefits of Diversity in the Workplace
The business need for diversity embraces the benefits of diversity thorough a diverse perspective of employees from different groups in the society. The differences in employees have existed all over the globe and exist in work groups rather than individuals. When people are recruited into the organization, they come in as individuals but after sometime, they identify themselves with certain groups that meet their needs (Mazur, 2010). The essence is to develop work place identity that defines the way tasks are carried out in the organization. Such groups can improve organizational performance and at the same time can inhibit it when they are used to portray the diversity differences in the organization.
The business benefits of diversity define the implications that organization like CERA can reap from embracing diversity. Shore, et al. (2009) argues that the importance of diversity within the organization is to develop a diverse workplace that embraces the differences in the population which can be reflected in the products that the organization produces. When management harnesses the differences that exist within the workforce, different abilities can be yielded by taking advantage of the challenges that diversity produces (Subeliani & Tsogas, 2005). Through segmentation of the market, organizations define the characteristics that constitute their consumers and develop products that meet such dimensions. For example, when developing a product that fits the female segment, the team will work better if they have a female employee who can assist oin defining the real characteristics of the population. Diversity thus fulfill this business need by fillig the gap of the everchanging market.
Podsiadlowski, Groshke, & Kogler (2013) suggests that the benefits of diversity are related to business competitivenesss through bottom line returns as a result of linking external environments and internal systems to develop business competitivenesss. This is seen in reduced costs, easy resource acquisition, organizational flexibility and creativity. According to Williamson, Slay, Shapiro, & Shivers-Blackwell (2008), diverse groups lead to the rise and use of minority views which have never been exp;omitted before. Since all employees offer their views during product development, then minority views can offer positive ideas that the organization can use to explore and develop business competitiveness. This is seen in organizations like Samsung where employees are allowed to develop ideas that are used to define the future of the organization. Therefore, the essence of diversity is a range of ideas and options that offer a range of ideas that can be used in development and improved competitiveness.
Challenges of Diversity Management
Sometimes diversity extends beyond the busienss needs to include the moral benefits that organizations reap from diverse employees. This is attributed to the corporate social responsibility role that the organization achieves by working with all segments of the population (Simons & Rowland, 2011). There has been the need for organizations to recruit employees from within and outside the society or community that the organization operates in. For example, locals have been used as an easy market entry strategy that organizations use to enter certain markets or regions. For CERA to success well in the new region venture, there is need to incorporate diversity by working with employees from the locality that they operate in. Wilson (2011) suggests that this process leads to an improved corporate image and easy support from the community. The outcome is internal and external benefits of hiring employees from marginalized groups to balance the differences that exist in the community. Australia has suffered the challenges of diversity where marginalized groups have been left behind in employment. Therefore, if CERA can adopt the moral need of balancing the hiring process, then the benefits are beyond redeeming corporate image and improves brand.
However, Saxena (2014) argues that diversity presents challenges to the organization like damaging social integration as a result of varying work groups. When the diversity in the teams fails to work and produce adequate results, it leads to poor communication and conflicts within groups thus creating tension which affects performance (D’Netto, Shen, Chelliah, & Monga, 2013). Recruiting a diverse workforce does not always lead to organizational success since embracing diversity and making diversity work are two different processes. Jonsen, Tatli, Ozbilgin, & Bell (2013) argues that cultural differences like gender, age, race and education present social barriers that make it difficult for employees to work together. The tension that exists between these groups makes it difficult for the organization to unify employees and make them work together. Further, Ozbilgin & Tatli (2011) argues that diversity calls for mixing different employees from varying socio-demographic groups which leads to business challenges of maintaining the diverse group. A lot resources are in turn wasted on developing strategies for integrating the employees together.
Shore, et al. (2009) argues that combating discrimination in the workforce is another challenge that diverse organizations face. When diversity is not used well, it can lead to discrimination among employees thus killing team work and morale. Employees identify with organizational groups based on the cultural similarities that define them. This include gender, race and age which are common in the organization. There are social differences that exist between people of different ages, for example the millennials and baby boomers have different work approaches that make it difficult for the two groups to work together. Lauring (2009) states that race and gender have been used in many workplace organizations to define the who matters and who does not. Such barriers make diversity and inclusion a nightmare for the organization since harmonizing the employees to form a unified team becomes challenging.
Strategies for Managing Diversity at CERA
To achieve diversity at CERA French needs to focus on achieving strategic thinking through people-centered approaches to accommodate different types of employees. The basic of cultural diversity is creating an organizational culture that defines the differences in employees. Diversity is not all about employing but rather putting strategies in place to create conditions that make it easy for employing to work well in an organization. Organization culture allows the organization to create a climate of respect in the organization that allows employees to interact easily. Since culture defines the way employees interact, then creating a diverse organizational culture is the key to addressing these employee challenges. Mark French needs to put strategies in place for addressing the cultural differences that exist among employees to achieve collaboration among teams. For example, monolithic cultures work against diversity since they do not allow open hiring. This means that CERA has to adopt a universal cultural process that addresses the needs of the organization and integrates different employee characteristics to form a greater team that achieves organizational requirements for diversity.
Training and development is also regarded as one way of achieving diversity in an organization. This is through creating awareness among employees through capacity building. CERA can achieve this through training employees on how to be flexible and accommodate the needs of other employees. Training and development is used as an alignment tool that ensures employees understand the needs of the organization. Training allows employees to learn how to work with diverse groups to develop mechanism for addressing significant issues that affect them. Through training employees develop competencies that allow them to work in a diverse environment thus allowing the organization to reap its benefits. Training exposes employees through nee ideas that can be applied in the organizational context to achieve desired results. French needs to request the human resource management team to develop training and development programs that seek to address diversity issues in the organization. Israel Tobin and his team needs to carry out needs assessment to determine the areas that should be addressed in the training. The conditions relate to the problems being faced like employee complaint among others which form the basis for developing this strategy.
Another way that French can institute diversity in CERA is through developing of policies that address different diversity areas. Policies define the approaches that management and the human resource team take to achieve diversity. Some challenges faced in the organization can rectified to proper policies. These policy areas include recruitment, training, orientation, disciplinary actions and strategies for addressing ant other diversity related issues. Policies are thus used to break the glass ceiling by harmonizing structural, cultural and organizational barrier to achieve the benefits of diversity. The outcome is streamlined workforce that follows the established policies through following the mechanisms that have been put in place by management. This means that Tobin will be charged with the responsibility of ensuring that organizational policies are designed and addressed to meet the new requirements of CERA.
Lastly, recruitment and selection can be used to achieve a diverse workforce that reflects the diverse needs of the organization. Through strategies like job attraction, vacancies can be presented to the public in a way that defines what needs to be achieved. When job are advertised, applicants analyze the job brand to determine how it fits them. This means that Tobin can use job attraction to target a diverse range of applicants thus presenting an opportunity to recruit from a wide range of applicants. Without limiting the job characteristics to a certain segment of the population like men or women, CERA can achieve a diverse workforce and reap the benefits of diversity associated with such processes. This option reaches out to a wide range of applicants by moving away from the traditional of getting someone hired to hiring the right candidate that reflects the policy and requirements of the organization.
One driver of diversity is corporate citizenship which is driving what organizations are doing today. Corporate social responsibility has pushed organizations to engage in diversity as a way of giving back to the communities that they work in. Today organizations are required to engage in corporate activities as a way of balancing their activities and ensuring that they embrace the needs of the society. Diversity is one of the needs that organizations require to develop positive corporate image. By engaging in diversity CERA will be achieving its corporate responsibility role.
Another driver of diversity is the number of organizations that are putting it in their organizational processes. Rezvani (2015), suggests that more CEOs are piping up towards this trend thus making other organizations to follow suit. CERA will therefore similarly implement diversity as a way of embracing the business strategies that other organizations are using to improve their competitivenesss. By embracing diversity and reaping its benefits, successful organizations are pushing those that have not implemented diversity to apply the business strategy as a way of developing competitiveness.
Legislation on anti-discrimination and inclusion issues that have been implemented in Australia are key drivers of diversity. Toady, discrimination is a criminal offense, thus organizations are required to be as transparent as possible in all processes that they do (Gonzales & Denisi, 2009). This requires an open approach to issues of hiring where each applicant needs to be given a right to participate in the hiring process. orga izations that fail to honor this process fail legal charges if sued by any candidate. The outcome is an organizatiopnal situation where CERA needs to abide by different state laws when moving to NSW.
Lastly, the inclusion of diversity in innovation and organizational strategies is one of the drivers of diversity. Successful organizations that have implemented diversity in their business strategies have created diversity positions in their management system. CERA can adopt the same way by creating a diversity and innovation position that works on addressing inclusion issues in the organization.
Conclusion
From the CERA case, it is evident that diversity is a requirement that the organization has to implement to develop business competitiveness. This is both a strategic need and a business requirement of complying with the existing business requirements. Diversity is a broad concept that French can use to develop business effectiveness through working with a diverse team that meets the needs of the organization. Therefore the business case for diversity is the organizational benefits of applying diversity and reaping the benefits. Since there is no perfect formula for generating the benefits of diversity, then French has to work on determining the diversity needs required in CERA and link it to business performance to achieve the benefits. Despite the varying arguments that have been labeled against diversity, it is evident that the organization can benefit more by embracing diversity to reap the benefits of the strategy. Therefore, French and Tobin need to develop diversity strategies by working on a balanced framework that links the process to business strategy.
References
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