Business Case Of Diversity In Recruitment And Selection In CERA

Workforce Diversity

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Human resource management has been evolving for the last few years forcing human resource managers to adopt new strategies for dealing with the workforce. The rise of globalization and the push for equality at work has led to the rise of diversity within the organization (Kramar, et al., 2014). This has forced many organization to consider diversity in the aspects of recruitment and selection of employees. This has been based on the pressure for organizations to adopt social inclusion strategies that seek to ensure organizations accommodate people from different social backgrounds. Although organizations are packaged in different sizes and shapes, human resource management” href=”https://#”>human resource management can be the leading catalyst for achieving diversity within the organization (Allen, Dawson, Wheatly, & White, 2004). This means that human resources can be the easiest measures of diversity within the organization. According to De-Cieri & Kramar (2003) Australia is one of the diverse countries in the world since it has a population with different people where majority of the population are immigrants. This means that diversity has to be acknowledged and appreciated. CERA is nonprofit organization that work in civil construction in Sydney. The company offers real-time construction planning, design and documentation through an employee attitude that prides itself in meeting the needs of clients (Civil Engineering & Research Associates, 2017). As an organization that works in different fields of construction, there is need to have a diverse team that can be useful in meeting the needs of the organization. This report analyses the business case of diversity in recruitment and selection in CERA.

Workforce diversity is the use of different beliefs, values and ways to view the world. This has been cause by rapid internationalization and globalization that has led to a diverse workforce available for organizations. Calls for diversity have been pegged on the need to give everybody who qualifies an opportunity to work (Martin & Woldring, 2001). The workplace has undergone tremendous changes and shifts in the 21^st century due to the need to accommodate diversity. Diversity is defined as otherness or the use of human resource qualities that are different from form the group that one belongs to. This creates dimensions that are not limited to one aspect but include age, ethnicity, gender, psychology abilities, sexual orientation, race, marital states and geographical background. These dimensions vary from organization to organization and individual to individual. Patrick & Kumar (2012) state that diversity differences exist in different situations depending on the nature of the individual and the attitudes that they have towards the diversity. For example, some people may see women as inferior at work as compared to men while others may see some race as not fit for a certain job. In most cases diversity exists based on attitudes and beliefs that people have toward each other. According to the consultant approach, recruiting employees from a diverse workforce leads to a pool of talents needed by the organization. This creates opportunities for improving utilization of available employee workforce rather than narrowing down to specific group of employees.

Dimensions of Diversity

Researchers have carried out research to determine how the dimensions of diversity affect performance and motivation at work. Gonzales & Denisi (2009) state that although many organizations are slowly embracing diversity within their workforce, some organizations have institutional barriers that reduce diversity through seclusion of people from certain diverse backgrounds. Such organizations lack strategies to control mosaic differences in the workforce and use them for strategic advantage. Many organizations struggle with managing diversity because they use it as an affirmative approach or a different human resource program that is not similar to what exists in the organization (Ozbilgin & Tatli, 2008). This means that organizations need to understand the importance of productive diversity within the organization. Australian forms have been on the forefront recently struggling with appreciating the importance of diversity and how to ensure that they embrace diversity. Diversity within organizations has been argued in two general classes. The social and individual outcomes class focuses on importance of the workplace to reflect the nature of the populations that they operate in while the other case suggests that diversity can be used to effectiveness, performance and innovation within the organization.

The business case for diversity is based on the benefits that organizations realize from diversity within their workforce. Researchers and scholars in the field have argued that organizations can reap heavily on the abilities of individuals.  This is based on the diverse perspectives and cultures that employees from different backgrounds bring to the organization. Kramar et al. (2014) suggests that differences in diversity among employees have been widely seen in work groups rather than individuals. In the past, most work groups in Australia had been predominantly male and white but mostly based on age, tenure and position in the organization. Cultural diversity brings different perspectives of employees. It has been argued that when individuals come from different cultural backgrounds, they come with different cultural characteristics like creative thinking and flexibility which may be in one cultural group and not the other (Williamson, Slay, Shapiro, & Shivers-Blackwell, 2008). This means that every cultural group will have certain strengths that can yield better results if used ion the organization. A combination of these different cultural traits leads better workforces. For example, the approach of women and men towards tasks will be different and thus a combination of feminine and masculine ideas can yield better advantages to the organization.

Diversity benefits for the organization relate to the competitive advantage that firms reap from a diverse workforce. Bedi, Lakra, & Gupta (2010) suggest that diversity has bottom line returns that are based on the link between external environments of diversity and internal organizational systems. These bottom line areas include cost, resource acquisition, marketing, creativity and organizational flexibility. Research on diversity has reported that minority views are based on ideas that have never been exploited in organizations before. According to Wilson (2011) diverse groups that have minority employees have been reported as being more homogenous and having better solutions for the organization. When developing organization products, every employee offers their views with regard with what the organization can achieve. This allows for different views that can be used in developing strategies to meet the needs of the organization. Diverse employee backgrounds offer a variety of ideas and options that can be used in product development within the organization.

The Business Case for Diversity

Arguments for diversity have been looked to corporate social responsibility. One way that organizations can be seen to have the interests of the society through recruiting employees that represent the overall view of the society. This will include recognizing the views of all groups within the society. Despite the cultural characteristics that are used to categorize and label different groups in the society. Individual abilities are not cultural based but rather skill based. Organization that reflect the face of the society that they work in are accepted as compared to those that do not accounting the diverse differences of the community.

However, sometimes diversity can lead to negative effects within the organization. For example, variations in work groups can have damaging effects on social integration of the workforce leading to poor communication patterns and conflict.  This may have effects on workforce productivity since team work is hampered and tension increased (Kaiser, et al., 2013). Cultural differences like age, gender, race and educational backgrounds have been seen as barriers in interaction that may lead to bitter outcomes. Horwitz & Horwitz (2007) research revealed that only task related diversity is connected to teams. It was reported that there are few reported effects of diveristy in teams and work groups. This means that group interactions are difficult when delaing with diverse groups of employees within the organization.

The key to diversity management in organizations is based on strategic thinking and people-centred policies that revolve around creating employee policies that work well to accommodate different employees within the organization. CERA can develop several strategies that can be used to achieve diversity within the organization. One way can be achieved through career planning to ensure that recruitment policies. When planning organizational policies within the organization to ensure that they reflect diversity. For example, when recruiting and selecting employees, gender balance can be achieved through balancing the gender of employees. Another way for achieving such is through balancing promotion of employees based on qualifications rather than employee status. Through providing equal opportunities CERA can ensure that recruitment and selection policies meet the needs of the organization. Employee appraisal strategies for assessing employees for promotion should be objective rather than subjective. Through having a broader recruitment and selection team, French can ensure that employees who are recruited in the organization reflect the workforce that exists in the country. Recruitment can be designed to appear inclusive and diverse to capture all cultural aspects that exist in the country.

Negative Effects of Diversity

Managing diversity in an organization entails strategies that are put in place tom plan and implement organizational systems to manage people to reap the benefits of diversity. CERA can achieve diversity awareness among employees can be increased through adequate training of employees. Work place flexibility can be achieved only through adequate training of employees to accommodate diversity among employees. There is need to train employees to ensure that they understand the importance of working together with othe employees. Mazur (2010) argues that employees need to learn how working with different diverse groups can allow them to address significant issues. Training opens up employee attitudes towards each other and how they can benefit. Team building strategies can be used to increase effectiveness of employees as a way of ensuring that employees can easily interact with each other.

Human resource managers need to understand the importance of diversity and put strategies in place to address them. French can ensure that CERA has a trained and an informed human resource system that recognises the benefits of diversity. Through understanding the elements of diversity, the human resource system can be tailored to recruit candidates that fit the best description of the society. This will entail recognising gender, race, age, education and geographical area among other attributes in recruitment. All employees should understand that hiring decisions are based on finding the best candidate and not by quotas (Triana & Garcia, 2009). Making the recruiting process more transparent can help ease the minds of skeptical employees. Also, be sure managers fully understand the benefits of a diverse workplace. They will be implementing personnel policies so should be fully committed to supporting the practice.

One way that CERA can achieve diversity in recruitment and selection can be through job attraction strategies. Attraction in organizations is based on how vacancies in an organization are presented to the public. Potential job applicants analyse how the job brand in the organization is advertised to determine whether it fits them or not. Some vacancies may be designed in such a way that they fit certain groups only. For example,, some job characteristics may fit men or women only while others may be specific for certain demographics. This means organizations can achieve diversity through job attraction to ensure that the applicants come from a dverse background. French can use jiob attraction to reach to a larger audience of the population by moving away from the traditional job attraction that is interested only in getting  someone hired rather than hiring the right candidates. Such job advertisements need not only meets the required volumes but rather it reaches the minds of diverse groups like those disadvantaged even with access to information.

Arguments on diversity have been based on poor leadership within many organizations. Research indicates that diversity becomes a problem in organizations since there are very few employees who fit  leadership positions within organizations. April, Ephraim, & Peters (2012) argue that business leadership can be used as a strategy for achieving workforce diversity. When employees are recruited at lower levels within the organization, they can be nurtured to work hard and acquire future leadership opportunities in the oragnization. This can include inclusive employee promotions and assignment of tasks. When organizations put proper strategies in place to meet the diverse needs of the organization, it becomes easy to achieve leadership diversity in future.

It is widely acknowledged that lack of diversity disadvantages some groups within the society. In a capitalistic market system, some groups will always be disadvantaged and never access opportunities even if diversity is made a policy issue (Podsiadlowski, Groshke, Kogler, Springer, & Zee, 2013). Small groups in the society like the Aboriginals of Australia have been widely marginalised making their access to opportunities limited. CERA can reach out to such groups by formin affinity groups that empower small groups that empower small groups of employees to brainstorm about improving products or expanding into different markets. Companies get new ideas and employees are reassured their differences are assets. This expands diversity options in the workplace to ensure that the organization can recruit diverse employees.

Conclusion

There is no perfect formula for generating the benefits of diversity within the organization. Every organization has different ways of embracing diversity and how to measure the effects. For example diverse managers understand the reasons when to include diversity and when not to (Jesse & Martins, 2012). This means that diversity is not an all-round business component but rather a situation based component. In some cases, diversity is a better business option for utilising employees from different backgrounds while on the other hand, some business activities may call for the need of specific cultural competencies. Every organization needs to determine the type of diversity that works well within the business area that they operate in. this is becasuediveristy alone does not lead to increased business benefits until organizations understand and develop the link between diversity and organizational performance (Kaiser, et al., 2013). This is seen in work place policies that embrace diversity. CERA needs to recognise the role of diversity in the work place and determine the key diversity areas that need to be addressed. The organization needs to focus on productive management of diversity which can be seen developing strategies to enable diverse teams to easily communicate and work together. 

Success of diversity can be achieved in  balance recruitment program where organizations define the needs in their workforce and recruit individuals from different background that lead to better innovative and creative ideas within the organization.  The importance of diversity will thus be seen in the ability of employees to see and approach problems from a diverse point of view which leads to more benefits in the organization (Simons & Rowland, 2011). Although different arguments have been labelled for and against diversity, it is evident that diversity offers more opportunities as compared to challenges. Organizations cannot run away from the issue of diversity since diversity is an issue that business today. Therefore CERA needs to put strategies in place to accommodate diversity and ensure that it reaps the benefits of a diverse work force. This will provide distinct advantages in an era when flexibility and creativity are keys to competitiveness. CERA needs to be flexible and adaptable to meet new customer needs. Heterogeneity promotes creativity and heterogeneous groups have been shown to produce better solutions to problems and a higher level of critical analysis. This can be a vital asset at a time when the campus is undergoing tremendous change and self-examination to find new and more effective ways to operate.

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