Concept of Workforce Diversity

Discuss about the Organisation Behaviour.

Workforce Diversity is the diversity among the employees in an organisation due to cultural diversity. According to Ashby, (2013), every organisation consists of many employees who are belongs to different ages, different sex, social practices, cultural background and religious beliefs. This diversity is helpful for any company that enhances the skill base and the organisation become more competitive and innovative in the market. However, though it is beneficial for the organisations to improve their business opportunities, the misuse of diversity can bring number of challenges and issues in the workforce (Runhaar et al., 2013). Therefore, the study is going to discuss the importance of diversity in an organisation. Additionally it will focus on the issues regarding diversity that can be emerging within the organisation.

Diversity refers to the versatility. In an organisation, the employees are come from various backgrounds and cultures. The concept of diversity in an organisation can be explained with the nature, range of characteristics and experiences. These are the main element of any organisation that develops a good business (Jonsen et al. 2013). Diversity provides organizations with the ability to compete in global markets. In present time, diversity is very important in the workplaces as it helps the organisation to maintain the balance of work system. Additionally, it also helps to understand the necessity of compliance with anti-discrimination law. Generally, this practice of using various cultural backgrounds helps to manage a multicultural world that can increase the facilities of improving the business in the base. Organisations believe that various perspectives are very important to develop the business in the present time as it helps to gain the competitive advantages in the market. Therefore, it can be said that the diversity management in an organisation is a very essential task for the managements of any organisation.

In order to discuss the role and importance of diversity in context with business, there are many significant of this practice that enhances the provision of increasing business opportunity (Martín et al. 2013). Therefore, the significances are –

• Any company’s long-term success is depending on its business policies that were aquatinted by many ideas. These sources of variety in ideas come from the diverse workforce of an organisation. Therefore, the diverse workforce of an organisation can bring many fresh ideas, perspectives and views to the business activities of the company.
• Every organisation has a social responsibility and this also pursue a social cause. The diverse workforce has to manage the diversity in improving their quality of work as well as to help the deprived group of people (Podsiadlowski et al. 2013). In our society, there is a group of people who are considered to be the disadvantaged people. This perception can be removed with this diverse workforce management.
• The diverse workforce also helps to develop a good strategy for the organisation to gain the competitive advantage in the business market. It helps to provide various ideas, talent, experience, insight, imagination and knowledge that can improve the organisational behaviour. Therefore, this diversity practice benefits the deprived people to flourish and get chance to present their talent.
• The diverse workforce also helps to understand the different cultural views and expectations of the customers from any organisation. The difference in the employees such as, races, cultures or backgrounds can help to provide the insight to the organisation’s management about the customers’ views (Garnero et al. 2013). They can assume a vast customer to detect their product or services for them. It will increase their international business landscape as well as expand their business circle.

Moreover, it can be said that the diversity in an organisation can increase the adaptability of various new strategies, can broader service range with effective execution along with different viewpoints and ideas.

As the workforce diversity plays a vital role in improving the business situation of an organisation, therefore, it does not mean that it is all time beneficial. There are many issues and challenges have to be faced by organisations regarding this diversity practice. Mostly faced problem related to this workforce diversity is the discrimination that is practiced in many firms (Oswick & Noon, 2014). Apart from this there are issues like communication, resistance to change, implementation of diversity in the workplaces and management policies in context with diversity. As the study is discussing the organisational behaviour in Australia, therefore the issues faced by various organisations there are follows,

Significance of Workforce Diversity

Discrimination

Discrimination is the process when someone is treated in an organisation according to his or her races, religion or gender and not with the qualification that he or she holds for fitting in the job role. In an organisation, it is very essential to measure the characteristics of the personal as well as the professional. Someone cannot be employed or rejected only based on the personal characteristics.

Communication

In an organisation, the diverse workforce creates the problem of communication within the organisation. The employees are belonging to various races, backgrounds, cultures and languages. These are the barriers within the organisation to communicate with each one as they belong to different backgrounds. Sometimes these communication gaps become so large that the employees cannot connect with each other (Okoro & Washington, 2012). As a result, the communication becomes ineffective and the confusion increases. Additionally, it increases the reluctance to work in team and develop a low morale. Therefore, the communication can be a major challenge to maintain diversity in the workplace.

Resistance to change

The business is changing in a very fast manner, therefore, the rules and systems of works are changing. This change can be brought in an organisation with more regular practice of diversity. The organisation will be able to implement new strategies for the diverse workforce (Guillaume et al., 2013). However, in this implementation they have to face the stereotype questions regarding the change. The employees who are doing the business in an old pattern sometimes do not want to accept the changes in the workplace.

Management Policies to Handle Diversity

Diversity practice is a very complicated task for any organisation management to implement new policies for improvement. The presence of various races, religions and cultures, the policies can be harmful if the management implements it in a wrong manner. Therefore, it is very essential to implement a proper diversity strategy, training to create an environment that gives permeation to every employee and department to function properly in the organisation.

The most faced issue regarding the diversity is the discrimination. It is the process of judging people with their personal characteristics, which is not a right process to employ someone. This segregation can be done on the basis of age, gender, religion and culture (Tatli & Özbilgin, 2012). Therefore, the process of selection in a job role is depending on the characteristics of personal rather than professional qualification and skills.

Issues of Diversity Management

In Australia, it has seen in various organisations that the management of the organisations were selecting their employees based on the religion, gender and age (Jones et al. 2013). However, this procedure is illegal and restricted by the government. Many organisations are following the discrimination process in their organisations are not only at the time of choosing employees for them but also used in the various business policies within the workplace. These are –

Religious Discrimination – Religion is one of the foremost elements in context of this workforce diversity. Therefore, the practice of the diversity is indicating the differences of everyone’s perspectives, customs, or approaches to communication in the workplace. These differences can create challenges in the organisation. This is a process that is illegal and government has never supported this (Cortina et al., 2013). Such challenges can be addressed through appropriate training and education.

Gender Discrimination – The gender biasness in the organisations is a very controversial element. In business sector, the women employees have to fight with the other gender to establish their abilities in the workplace. They have to work harder than the men employees to remove the invisible barrier to attain the success in the platform. They do not get the opportunity to become top in the eyes of management (Boone et al., 2013). Women also face gender discrimination and sexual harassment in the organisations during their working time, for instance, sexual advances or other unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature. These problems has changed almost in the present time but still there are some areas which needs to be changed this practice with proper training and education.

Age Discrimination – In today’s diverse workforce generational differences has been seen in various organisations. This creates the differences of perspectives, ideas, thinking processes and execution procedures (Ghumman et al., 2013). It reflects the relationship between age and ability or professional worth.

Conclusion

While concluding the study, it can be said that organisational behaviour is maintained in the organisations with workforce diversity. This diversity helps to increase the value of the business of the organisations as well as increase the competitive advantage. However, it also discussed that the organisations has to face many challenges and issues due to practicing the diversity. They have to face many challenges like communication gap, discrimination, resistance in implementing new policies and successful management process. The discrimination process is the most discussed issue in this context that is elaborated here to analyse its pros and cons. Finally, it can be said that the discrimination has affected the organisational behaviour in a effective manner that should be overcome by the management with implementing appropriate policies.

Reference List

Ashby, W. (2013). Design for a brain: The origin of adaptive behaviour. Springer Science & Business Media.

Boone James, J., McKechnie, S., Swanberg, J., & Besen, E. (2013). Exploring the workplace impact of intentional/unintentional age discrimination. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 28(7/8), 907-927.

Cortina, L. M., Kabat-Farr, D., Leskinen, E. A., Huerta, M., & Magley, V. J. (2013). Selective incivility as modern discrimination in organizations evidence and impact. Journal of Management, 39(6), 1579-1605.

Garnero, A., Kampelmann, S., & Rycx, F. (2014). The heterogeneous effects of workforce diversity on productivity, wages, and profits. Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, 53(3), 430-477.

Ghumman, S., Ryan, A. M., Barclay, L. A., & Markel, K. S. (2013). Religious discrimination in the workplace: A review and examination of current and future trends. Journal of Business and Psychology, 28(4), 439-454.

Guillaume, Y. R., Dawson, J. F., Woods, S. A., Sacramento, C. A., & West, M. A. (2013). Getting diversity at work to work: What we know and what we still don’t know. Journal of occupational and organizational psychology,86(2), 123-141.

Jones, K. P., Peddie, C. I., Gilrane, V. L., King, E. B., & Gray, A. L. (2013). Not so subtle a meta-analytic investigation of the correlates of subtle and overt discrimination. Journal of Management, 0149206313506466.

Jonsen, K., Tatli, A., Özbilgin, M. F., & Bell, M. P. (2013). The tragedy of the uncommons: Reframing workforce diversity. Human Relations, 66(2), 271-294.

Martín Alcázar, F., Miguel Romero Fernández, P., & Sánchez Gardey, G. (2013). Workforce diversity in strategic human resource management models: A critical review of the literature and implications for future research.Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal, 20(1), 39-49.

Okoro, E. A., & Washington, M. C. (2012). Workforce diversity and organizational communication: Analysis of human capital performance and productivity. Journal of Diversity Management (Online), 7(1), 57.

Oswick, C., & Noon, M. (2014). Discourses of diversity, equality and inclusion: trenchant formulations or transient fashions?. British Journal of Management, 25(1), 23-39.

Podsiadlowski, A., Gröschke, D., Kogler, M., Springer, C., & Van Der Zee, K. (2013). Managing a culturally diverse workforce: Diversity perspectives in organizations. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 37(2), 159-175.

Runhaar, P., Konermann, J., & Sanders, K. (2013). Teachers’ organizational citizenship behaviour: Considering the roles of their work engagement, autonomy and leader–member exchange. Teaching and Teacher Education,30, 99-108.

Tatli, A., & Özbilgin, M. F. (2012). An emic approach to intersectional study of diversity at work: a Bourdieuan framing. International Journal of Management Reviews, 14(2), 180-200.