Diversity means variety in something e.g. in people it may point to variety of sex, religion, race, national origin, family status, and etc. In business environment, workplace diversity usually refers to variety among people in the context of such factors as age, culture, education, employee status, function, gender, physical appearance, and thinking style. Applied broadly, it will also include religion, regional origin and corporate culture.

For establishing an effective workplace diversity one needs to plan the program that would cover points like: what the program will achieve; how the program will develop and be implemented; drawing links to organizational objectives; undertaking consultation; and assessing the resources required for maximum profit.

Any approach adopted for such kind of plans will require that senior executives and line managers of the organization should have sufficient input. Planning should include issues like: where an organization is at that time; where it wants to be; and how it will get there.

After planning comes the implementation stage, which deals with processing of the stages included in the plan. Next, the management tends to evaluation stage to analyze the results or the outcome achieved so far. What else can be done to make the project more successful is a question considered at the end of evaluation.

Benefits of Workplace Diversity

Some of the many benefits of artfully managing workplace diversity within an organization include:

• By employing a diverse workforce, a greater variety of solutions to problems in service, sourcing and allocation of resources can be ensured. Individual talents and experiences in suggesting ideas can be brought from the employees of diverse background and such suggestions can be flexible in adaptation to the fluctuation of markets and customer demands.

• An organization can provide services to customers on a global basis from a diverse collection of skills and experiences of their employees e.g. diversity in languages of the workers.

• An organization can make effective business strategies and identify the needs of customers more effectively from a diverse workplace because of the large pool of ideas and experiences.

• Organization-wide strategies can be executed that would result in higher productivity, profit, and return on investment if the management encourages diversity in the workplace.

Regardless of the benefits, an organization must be facing a few challenges with workplace diversity as well. These include:

• The primary challenge associated with diversity in an organization is hindrances in communication. Barriers of perception, culture and language need to be overcome for a diversity program to succeed. Ineffective communication leads to confusion, lack of teamwork and low morale.

• Most of the employees usually refuse to accept diversification in their workplace especially when the social and cultural make-up of their workplace is changing. They are addicted to the style they have adopted for their job. Naturally, they tend to create problems in response to a changing environment.

• One of the major challenges is an implementation of diversity in the workplace policies. Organizational policies should be flexible so that any necessary changes can be made easily.

Summing Up

For a successful organization, following are the recommended steps to take with respect to workplace diversity

• Assessment of diversity in the work-place

• Development of a workplace diversity plan

• Implementation of diversity plan within the organization

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