Discuss about the Business Rationale for Diversity Management.
Diversity management is a moldable business philosophy and is an applied practice based on the human capital requirements of the organization. Although generic in nature, these practices are available for customization and decentralized modification based on people, processes and technologies. Any organizational landscape demands varied and versatile diversity management processes that could be tailored as per seasonal, structural, economic, task-based or project-based requirements.
The task at hand for CERA is to reinforce the rationale behind this business philosophy by conveying the short-term and long-term benefits of diversity management. The subtopics focus on specifics of this HR model by analyzing its applications as a gender based model, the need for it in the 21st century, beneficiaries of this model and the benefits etc.
CERA also requires collaboration between recruitment & selection, human resource planning, and business strategy. The next step for CERA is to understand how to apply diversity management policies. There is also a business case of brand promotion and in this case CERA as a company will position itself as a viable employment destination. This is because a promotion of the company as an appealing employment destination can enable a company to harness the best of diversified talents.
Diversity management relates to an HR management philosophy that embraces the fact that people have diverse skill-sets. It can also relate to the acknowledgement, understanding, acceptance and valuing of divergence in the workplace with regard to ethnicity, gender, abilities, race, class, educational backgrounds, experience backgrounds, physiological traits and psychological traits etc. Companies that include diversity management as a tool in their business strategy develop well-rounded and competitive capabilities as per Green, Lopez, Wysocki, Kepner, Farnsworth, and Clark (n.d.).
(Heskett, 2015) Gender diversity in leadership roles has yielded positive outcomes. A McKinsey study has vindicated this fact. Women have the art of multi-tasking, greater analytical abilities, and propensity to adhere to company goals, visions, missions and values. Female leaders cultivate a diverse personnel framework in an organization. Women have a high social sensitivity index too. Women are high on emotional intelligence that could lead to an ‘’understanding and emancipating organization’’.
Francoeur, Labelle, and Sinclair-Desgagné (n.d.) contend that participation of women in top management has a significant impact on financial performance. In fact, it enhances organizational performance on several fronts. This is true of companies operating in complex business ecosystems. If these businesses have a high proportion of women leaders, they generate enough value as a holistic quantum which is not restricted to financial results. There is also no difference between male and female leaders when it comes to managing leadership positions (Virick, M., & Greer, R. C., n.d.).
The nomination of women successors by incumbent managers were based purely on performance more than gender in the long run. There is also an indication that the nomination of women for leadership roles is driven by a need for an inclusive and diverse workplace. Thus, gender diversity in leadership roles is a necessity for organizations to agglomerate varying emotional, practical, tactical and analytical leadership qualities.
Diversity management does not have a single definition as it is construed differently in different organizations, cultures and countries as per Kramar, R., (2012). In the 1960s and 1970s the word diversity was restricted to the natural systems and environment. Only in the 1980s did it become a business context. Diversity management then transitioned into a HR framework. Diversity is used to refer to personal characteristics of a prospective employee such as age, family, race and gender etc. On a broader scale, it relates to sexual orientation, physical and mental acumen as well. On a functional group-level it relates to a different set of functional group characteristics.
Therefore, diversity management processes differ by dimensions defined in an organization. The outcomes of diversity management are organizational competitive advantage. On a broader scale the outcomes relate to stakeholder value and corporate social responsibility. (Cox, JHJ., 1994) Diversity management models are evolutionary based on changing market and demographic facets. The current status is to integrate this into change management policies. The effort is to leverage diversity in decision-making and overall organizational culture development.
CERA seeks to be an innovative organization. Therefore, an innovative organization needs a confluence of ideas, sensibilities and sensitivities; which is a function of diversity management. (Diversity at Work. (n.d.).) A diverse workforce enables bridging of gaps in skill-shortage scenarios which is different from personnel shortages. It is proven that better client service can be achieved by letting a diverse portfolio of skills engage on a common ground with client-facing tasks. As per the employer survey of 2010 by HR Council, more than three quarters of the respondents identified creativity and innovation as the by-product of diversity.
Well-managed diverse teams are more efficient and creative than homogenous groups. (Watson, E.W., Kumar, Kamalesh., & Michaelsen, K.L., n.d.) When performance and process-adherence of homogenous and heterogeneous groups were studied in parallel, the former group showed immediate adherence and competence. But by the end of the study period, the heterogeneous group started showing remarkable improvement and also superseded the homogenous group. It indicates that initially a heterogeneous group takes time to assimilate and function as a cohesive unit.
The beneficiaries of diversity management are the organization itself as a whole. The organization constitutes a variety of stakeholders including employees, employers, shareholders, vendors, suppliers, third party logistics providers and indirect employees etc. Diversity management also helps in internal and external organizational perception management. It changes how people perceive others in an organization (Greenberg, J., (2004)). It leads to vanquishing of prejudices and pre-conceived notions. In the long run it leads to a harmonious environment within the organization that could percolate outside into the society as well.
When different people with different skill-sets collaborate, the perception that their contributions constitute the final outcome is established. It creates a non-hegemonic environment, driven my meritocracy, respect of each other’s inherent talents, recognition of personal abilities and an increased impetus to excel at one’s role. Ultimately, the foremost beneficiary is the customer. They receive better service, products, service range, increased responsiveness and an overall satisfactory customer experience. Diversity management is the new age approach to increase adaptability to changing technological and business paradigms.
CERA can undertake a recruitment strategy that focuses on making the organization appealing. The organization should attract candidates from varied labor markets (Marquis, P.J., Lim, N., Scott, M. L., Harrell, C.M., & Kavanagh, J. (n.d.)). A company that is already vested with a diversely skilled workforce is a potential employment destination for innovative and creative people looking for a diversely bestowed company. CERA can revamp their recruitment effort and make it a diverse recruitment team. The recruitment team of CERA can utilize varied connections to source talent that range from professional organizations, college campuses and employee referrals to job boards, community workshops and competitions etc.
While recruitment is only half the story, equal effort goes in retaining a diversely skilled and multi-cultural workforce. The retention philosophy starts with a learning and skills-need identification drive based on individual attitudes, aspirations and aptitudes. Financial support is an active ingredient in this long-term business strategy. CERA should be responsive to the training and learning needs of their employees; however related or non-related it could be to their incumbent roles. To top it off; an assessment of learning outcomes is undertaken by evaluation. It could be achieved by enabling a climate of innovation or through open channels of communication of ideas and strategies.
Although traditional recruitment sources are still valid as feasible sources of potential hires, communication and interaction with a diversely skilled candidate pool through diverse channels is the key to build a diverse workforce. (Pollock, S., 2015) Job titles and descriptions should be craftily worded to inspire interest. Research has shown that usage of certain words turns away women who could be able fits for the advertised roles. For example, the world determined looks masculine to a woman than the world dedicated. On the other hand, these words had no impact on the decisions by men, indicating that women act based on the vocabulary in job descriptions.
Some emerging recruiting methods are blind interviewing and anonymous interviews. The former recruitment strategy helps create a diverse workforce by negating the inherent biased recruitment and selection component. The initial phase may start off by posting projects for potential hires to complete. A potential hire completes the project and if it fits their skills, they proceed. On the other hand, anonymous interviewing is not disclosing the company details until the final stage face-to-face discussion.
Equality is the quality of an employer to offer a level playing field to all employees in the organization. Diversity is closely related to equality in that it offers people from different cultures and possessing varying skill-sets, an opportunity to contribute to an organization. But often equality and diversity do not co-exist. (Petty, L., 2016) Equality and diversity, although closely synonymous but not fully so, are two words that have the same relevance. In the UK, there were 31 million people who were employed in 2015. In the US, there were 121 million people. A study by SHRM revealed that 41 percent of respondents who took part in the survey felt that they were being discriminated.
In a 2011 census, in the UK, low-paying jobs were filled by people from Asia and Africa. But in stark contrast, upwards of 25 billion pounds worth of business in 2010 came from ethnic minority businesses. This means that if organizations can leverage the potential of all races of people, differently skilled, with different opinions, ideas, skills and techniques, they harness the collective wisdom of diverging yet converging worlds.
The unfair practices in the UK brought forth the Equality Act of 2010. This law sought to curtail unlawful labor discrimination. The Act was a harbinger of better opportunities and equality. All workplaces were made to comply with the act. The Act sought to preserve the sanctity of a set of protected characteristics of a person. These protected characteristics were not qualified as job-match assessment parameters when assessing a potential hire. Therefore, organizations were asked to lower their guard on personal characteristics of a potential hire such as age, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy, race, religion, faith, belief systems, sexual orientation and sex to name a few.
CERA should comply with this ACT and also lower its guard against personal characteristics of potentials. CERA should gauge the short and long term benefits of implementing diversity management. As a basic litmus test, they can assess the changes in their immediate internal and external environments. The possible external environments of CERA are namely customers, suppliers and stakeholders. The internal environment change indicators are highly driven employees, organizational adaptability, problem solving, innovation, creativity, cost reduction and effective knowledge transfer (Awang, F., Shafie, Z., Pearl, Ryan., (n.d.)).
Traditional approaches to diversity management are based on non-discrimination and fairness. It is based on the premise that different racial groups co-exist and collaborate. But of late, the process of assimilation into the workforce is based on integrating different skill-sets to co-exist and also co-create. Therefore CERA should consider enacting the following three tier approach.
Diversity management in CERA should be based on a set of principles.
Conclusion
For CERA to make headway into the paradigm of diversity management, it has to de-learn and re-learn. Traditional sources of recruitment can be kept as it is; but recruitment methodologies can change to include blind and anonymous interviewing. Diverse participation from the community can be elicited by establishing associations with institutions, colleges, professional bodies and workshops where talent can be spotted, attracted and nurtured.
Skill based assessment is part of diversity management principles, where individual performance is gauged on the value they added to the organization. A common platform can be created, such as a knowledge management system to foster cross-departmental collaboration through the use of open communication channels. The top-down effect to reinforce ideals of equality and fairness can be enabled by prioritizing employee goals and aspirations as a subset of management goals and aspirations. By including objectives that fulfill the potential of an employee’s ability that can also be a potential enabler of organizational change, the employee feels empowered.
CERA can attract people of diverging but relevant skill-sets and those with different abilities by positioning the company as an attractive playground to innovate. The climate of innovation is backed by financial incentives and the promise of gaining work related autonomy. While traditional cookie-cutter approaches to assess candidates and designate them still exist, a slow transition is made towards diversity. Project and task based selections that give potentials an opportunity to assess their fit for the company is a great way to foster a partnership or mutually disagree on a potential alliance at the outset.
The first steps or milestones or key performance indicators for a diversified workforce are to forge creative ideas into marketable or commercialize-able products/services. This is followed by the ability to be flexible by being able to change teams, work in groups, work individually or work in pairs etc. The next pertinent indicator is the ability to gather, retain, transfer and share knowledge.
References
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Virick, M., & Greer, R.C., (n.d.) Gender Diversity in Leadership Succession: Preparing for the Future. Human Resource Management. Retrieved from https://goo.gl/PSEQoI
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