Workforce diversification

Workforce Diversification. Diversity and diversification are rather subjective and abstract concepts which may be in the eye of beholder. There are many aspects of an organization that can be subject to scrutiny in terms of diversification, including work force diversification based on race, gender, and religious affiliation, process diversification based on standard procedures, target market diversification and many other aspects. However, in this particular endeavor, we will concentrate on definition of work force diversification and organizational behavior, process and goals which would lead to a generally agreeable diversification.

Background

As obviously implied by the word itself, diversification refers to inclusion of a greater and more unique poll of participant. According to Wikipedia “Diversity is the presence of a wide range of variation in the qualities or attributes under discussion.” This simply translates into greater unique individuals in terms of background, religion, race and gender. Naturally, as in any business related activity, measuring and controlling actions are the best way to collect data and create more effective ways of implementation.

Others have defined work force diversity as organizational commitment to value differences and uniqueness beyond statistical prove, positive internal reinforcement of individuality and diversity, legal commitment and reverse discriminatory actions in order to rectify historical discrimination against minorities. There have been also two dimension of classification within diversity. First dimension is based on natural factors “gender, race, ethnicity, age physical ability/qualities, sexual/affect ional orientation”. The second dimension which is considered changeable factors, include “educational background, geography, income, material status, religious believes and work experience”. However, there appears to be a lack of uniform and realistic ways to quantitatively measure diversity.

Necessity of Workforce diversification

One of the more important issues that has to be considered is the reason why diversification is not only necessary but increasingly vital. First and most importantly, there is an ever increasing trend in the diversified composition of the U.S. population. Secondly, there is a growing participation of foreign companies within U.S. territory and its economy. Thirdly, U.S. Owned companies increasingly conduct business in foreign countries. Thus leading to the logical conclusion that the growing poll of potential and actual participants and employees are composed of a greater diversification.

Impact of workforce diversification

Another important issue is the impact of diversification on organizations. One of the most significant issues within any organization is acquisition and retention of human capital: those firms that achieve an equal quantity of diversification within all levels of organizations are more likely to access the poll of talented minority employees. Further, a diversified workforce not only allows the managers to make better choices, it also enable the organization to market to untapped minority markets. Companies such as Wal-Mart have utilized such diversified force in order to serve to minority markets and minority consumer which feel that a diversified firm can more easily relate to their particular needs. All of these factors create a better platform for success by addressing multi dimensional aspects of business.

Levels of diversification

Further, it is important to differentiate between levels of diversification. There are three different level / stages of diversification: monolithic, pluralistic and multicultural. Monolithic refers to those organizations which are composed of a majority group with the expectation of minimal minorities to follow the norms of majority. Pluralist refers to those organization that have minority members because of creation of special programs to promote minorities, however, those minorities are still expected to follow the norms and standards of majority (Allen, Montgomery 2001; p.150).

 Multicultural refers to advanced organizations which strive for actual integration of minorities in the corporate culture by adapting values of minorities within the organization. Organizations which fall under the last category are the once which benefit the most from diversification programs.

Implementation of workforce diversification

Yet another significant issue is the ways in which diversification can be successfully implemented. One of the rather successful approaches has been social pressure on corporations to implement diversification. In this particular approach socially important goals are rephrased and reworked to fit the language and understanding of business oriented organizations in order to enable the decision makers to recognize the benefit.  This approach assumes that in order to initiate change, the internal cultural settings have to be in tune with the goals of the change. This will virtually always translate into profit, which can / should not be opposed buy profit oriented organizations. Another way to successfully implement diversification is information diversification. In this particular approach educational training which contains diversified material is supposed to benefit the diversified composition of organizations. Some studies even suggest that educational diversification may illustrate a better foundation to reach the goal of diversity than other modes of implementation. Further such approach may lead to better usage of information, knowledge advancement, knowledge creation, team work and decision making. Naturally there are other ways to initiate and implement work force diversification such as internal organizational pressure, internal and external legal actions, and customer demands.

One particular approach to manage and implement diversity effectively has been coined as “organizational diplomacy” referring to the process of deep commitment to resolving institutional and constituency conflict that may among other issues entail and oppose diversification.“Organizational diplomacy” is supposed to encounter the artificial and superficial commitments termed as “pacification”. The diplomatic approach is based on the premises that encouragement of employee input, proper policy design and implementation, and all possible attempt to minimize organizational conflict will lead to more effective implementation of diverse workforce. 

Ethics

One additional crucial factor in organizational behavior in implementing diversity is ethics. First and most importantly, a successful implementation of diversity has to be based on eliminating stereotypes within an organization. Second, emphasizing uniform and common organizational goal that will lead to increased value of diversity. Thirdly, an ethical approach will have to include affirmative action whereby it should be as a part of “valuing diversity” instead of caving into external pressure. Fourthly, the ethical implementation of diversification should be broad and inclusive of diverse workforce, thus resulting i

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Disclamer: This entry is intended to promote our partner StorageMart and some or all participants received compensation.

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