Ddiscuss about the positive and negative side of diversity management and whether it is needed to apply in a given business or not.
This study deals with understanding the concept of diversity management. In this particular assignment, proper emphasis has been given on discussing the debates about diversity management in CERA (Wilton, 2016). The next segment provides with an argumentative debates that discuss both for and against the topic on diversity management. The current report even recommends to CEO of CERA on matters relating to business case as it focuses mainly upon diversity management in CERA. The business report clearly explains about the fact that there is a need for diversity management at CERA so that there is smooth functioning of business practices. The information was collected from recent peer-reviewed journal articles, books and websites of CERA (Sparrow, Brewster & Chung, 2016). Entire study revolves around a company named as Civil Engineering and Research Associates (CERA). The vision statement of CERA is to become one of the famous and renowned consulting companies in civil construction in Sydney. The approach adopted by CERA was to provide high quality as well as timely planning and civil engineering advice and solutions to the clients. At CERA, they have experienced and responsive consultants, who work together to plan, design as well as document all the aspects relating to structure of in-house activities (Vivares-Vergara, Sarache-Castro & Naranjo-Valencia, 2016).
The business rationale for diversity management explains about the process that is used for managing similarities as well as differences in proper ways (Brewster, Mayrhofer & Morley, 2016). This management is built upon certain set of values that aims at identifying the differences between people who are the real strength for the business enterprise. Furthermore, diversity management is one of the processes of management that creates an environment as it allows all for contributing to achievement of organizational goals as well as experience of personal growth (Tyson, 2014).
Diversity takes into account all individuals and it is not presumed by any specific race or gender. The term diversity is extended to attributes such as age, personal as well as corporate background and personality. Furthermore, diversity takes into account lifestyle, geographical origin as well as status (Tung, 2016).
Equal Employment Opportunity- It is important to understand about the concept of Equal Employment Opportunity where it is connected to attempt made by the government that ensure all the individuals have an equal opportunity to get access for employment irrespective of their age, gender, national origin and religion (Tenhiälä et al., 2016).
Affirmative action- It is essential to understand the fact about affirmative action that is directly associated with rendering quotas as well as other forms of reputation used for compensating for past injustices suffered by a given class or group (Sparrow, Brewster & Chung, 2016).
Figure: Model of Diversity Management
(Source: Shields et al., 2015)
Diversity is all about managing similarities as well as differences of employees where it is important to identify the needs that differentiate between objectives as well as subjective components. Furthermore, it is important to specify the dimensions of diversity that is needed to be managed as far as possible (Sparrow, Brewster & Chung, 2016). However, the management of a collective as well as all-inclusive mixture of differences as well as similarities along specific dimension
It is important to understand the concept of diversity management as well as bringing improvement in the level of organizational performance (Brewster, Mayrhofer & Morley, 2016). It is understood that diversity management provides a source of competitive advantage as well as process give a means of bringing effective adaptability to change. There had been several ideological grounds that need to be taken into account where it is required to maximize either the potential within the individuals who are gifted or being creative in their actions. Diversity management will be source of innovation that is used for generating a wider range of ideas as well as frameworks as it results in innovative and gaining opportunities for future analysis purpose (Sheehan, 2014).
Several initiatives need to be taken for managing diversity as far as possible. Strategic initiatives identify diversity as critical for attainment of success of an organization. In addition, managerial initiatives links with formulating management practices as well as structures as it facilitate for maintaining effective diversity management (Reiche, Mendenhall & Stahl, 2016). The other initiatives that can be taken are operational initiatives that aim at implementing several practices in and across workplace.
The term diversity management came into existence since 1980 and it is ambiguous to properly understand how a particular business enterprise makes strategies to handle their diverse workforce. Addition to that, there are several diversity consultants as well as trainers and experts who have proper understanding about each type of diversity for paying a fee. Nowadays, organization is bringing diversity management into practice by enhancing a new position that needs to be aligned to human resource department functions (Sparrow, Brewster & Chung, 2016).
As rightly put forward by Riley (2014), proponents of workplace diversity explain studies that shows diversity mostly have positive effect on the bottom line of a given business enterprise. Diversity management has several benefits and it is advantageous to have diverse workforces. The synergy takes place between people from varied backgrounds, work values as well as cultures. Furthermore, collaboration among different population will give rise to creativity, without diverse workforce; here will be bland work teams. On analysis, it is found that employees feel good about diversity that takes place naturally rather than forcing diversity management into the workplace (Sparrow, Brewster & Chung, 2016).
It is not difficult for a company to recruit diverse pool of applicants if they are engaged in providing fair employment as well as good business practices at the same time. To further explain about benefits of diversity management, it is essential to put forward one of the tangible aspect where the company does not have additional expense of consultant fees. It is necessary to compare the cost of hiring, training and retaining employees with the cost to engage in outsourcing diversity management (Reiche, Mendenhall & Stahl, 2016).
One of the reasonable ways that should be adopted by organization where they can save money is staffing human resources department with diversity expert. It is not possible for any consultant who will remain available all the time with each of the individual employees. For this reason, the client base of the company may increase due to the reputation of the business as the values diversity in the workplace increases within the suppliers as well as customers at the same time (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014).
According to Kramar (2014), opponents of diversity, management in the workplace shows valid arguments against management. It mostly happens that employees are always reminded about diversity management while working with their peer groups, recruiting methods as well as work teams. Sometimes, members of non-minority groups feel themselves excluded as they feel that minority groups are getting the preferential treatment as far as diversity is concerned. Other misconception that is always is heard and need clarification is that both diversity as well as affirmative action is the same. To explain each of the concepts in detail, it is important to provide details about affirmative action as it can be either voluntary or mandatory as the case may be. In one of the article where it was written about Diversity that it is not about quotas or any types of affirmative action (Baum, 2016). Rather, it takes into account conscious recognition by looking at the changing face of nation as well as operational economy at the same time. Several researchers had opposed against diversity management that is manifests itself in several ways. Most of the employees become resentful on matters relating to diversity management. Other employees just believe that mandatory diversity training is not treated as panacea for workforce and for this reason, the training is useless. One of the important concerns that need to be taken into consideration is cost. For instance, a small business during the initial stage aims at developing or enhancing diversity management program as it further need to hire an expert for developing a program (Jackson, Schuler & Jiang, 2014). However, there are millions of dollars that needs to be made especially at the time of diversity consulting business. Thus, most of the diversity experts are of the opinion that thousands of dollars are needed for implementing diversity program. At the end, it is said that still the business fails to get guarantee as to receiving a type of metrics that concern with the effectiveness of a new diversity management program in the most appropriate way (Paillé et al., 2014).
Necessity of diversity management
Diversity management is important nowadays as it help in meeting the needs of a multifaceted marketplace. Most importantly, diversity management respect varied cultures as well as ideas and philosophies (Beardwell & Thompson, 2014).
Innovation- Innovation is one of the attributes that after applying add value to an organization. One of the biggest reasons to employ a diverse workforce is because of broad base of cultural experiences as it drives towards innovation. Problem solving become easier when there are diverse workforce groups at each level of management. A new perspective that failed to match the group link is more likely to bring improvement in the business in a unique way (Marchington et al., 2016).
Attracting talent and customers- At workplace, it is often seen that employees aims at working in a company that has diverse workforce. Even though, customers make preference in purchasing goods as well as services from diverse companies. To explain in detail, business need to be engage in implementing diverse activities and develop a new model that embraces diversity as a central growth enabler (Greer, Carr & Hipp, 2016).
From recruitment to strategy- At the time of recruiting or hiring pool of applicants, it was noted that authentic diversity management is needed (Sparrow, Brewster & Chung, 2016). Addition to that, business organization are engaging in recruiting chief diversity officer who can have greater control over areas like strategy, sales as well as marketing. It is necessary for the companies to engage in diversity of actions and work within the management staff as it will help in fulfilling the needs of a broad customer base (Brewster et al., 2016).
Cultural Intelligence- One of the biggest reasons to employ a diverse workforce is cultural intelligence. Adopting values as part of business idea enables in fostering understanding between the diverse cultures. In that case, when business operates by keeping diversity of actions in mind, then the opportunity has shared values in terms of both profits as well as society in an effective way (Brewster, Mayrhofer & Morley, 2016).
Applying evidences to CERA and how Human Resources can help with implementation of diversity at CERA
It is recommended to Mark French (CEO of CERA) for implementing diversity in CERA as it is one of the most positive aspects that connects employees together. Diversity management is such as concept where employees are able to known about other people values, cultures and traditions. CERA need to engage in developing diversity management plans as it should be tied with written diversity policy within CERA Brewster, Mayrhofer & Morley, 2016). It is necessary for the HR to manage diversity plans as well as programs in the most appropriate way. There are three broad steps that need to be understood and it is mentioned below with proper justification:
The HR department needs to provide training series on power as well as privilege and how far it connects with the given workplace. For this, awareness can be treated as the first step that is needed to create a truly multicultural environment. After employees get to understand about their power and privilege, it is easy to train that takes into account laws relating to diversity as well as discussions are based on biasness. It is even needed to discuss on how to bring improvement in the HR plans like job analysis, selection as well as recruitment for creating a multicultural work environment.
The HR Department should look at some of the aspects at the time of creating a training focused upon maintaining multiculturalism at CERA. It is needed to know about the culture and have proper knowledge on diverse customs, histories as well as religions. It is important to discuss about how to treat people rather than as part of the group. It is necessary to teach each of the employees to listen actively that can help in raising cultural awareness in the near future. It is thereby important to work upon resistance to change as most of the employees are of the opinion that working in a diverse workforce is difficult. It is needed to ask or understand about the multiculturalism leadership team as well as ethnic backgrounds and even the traits in representative form (Reiche, Mendenhall & Stahl, 2016).
Conclusion
At the end of the study, it is concluded that there is a need for every business organization to adopt diversity management in their operations and it is the case with CERA. The above analysis briefly explains about the positive and negative aspects of diversity management so that it is easy to understand from both points of view as to whether CERA should adopt diversity management in their operations. Diversity management has so many positive aspects and this was the reason why CERA should adopt diversity management plan in their operations in the most appropriate way. The HR department should engage in recruiting diverse pool of applicants and it finally help in decision-making process. All individuals are unique by nature and diverse culture at workplace make the working place interesting where there will discuss ranging from diverse cultures, norms, values and attitudes.
Reference List
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