Challenges Involved with Managing a Diverse Workforce - Coursework Example

CHALLENGES INVOLVED WITH MANAGING A DIVERSE WORKFORCE By (Student’s Name) Course Title: Professor: Institution: Date Challenges Involved With Managing a Diverse Workforce Introduction Workforce refers to a group or collection of individuals who carry out tasks for a given organization, company or business entity. This could be in any sector of the economy, as it’s the workforce that provides the labor which in turn drives economies. The workforce of a given organization or business entity is tasked with various activities all geared towards meaningful output and productivity for the said organization. It is the backbone that ensures the activities as well as the goals and objectives of an organization or business entity are realized. Diversity on the other hand simply means the availability of a variety or differentiation of some things in life. When it concerns a group of employees working for a particular organization or business entity, diversity means the variation and/or differences between the workers of a given organization as a result of gender, sexual orientation, race, nationality and cultural background among others. Discrimination, Equality and Diversity in the Context of HR Practice The concept of diversity in the workforce, referred to as workforce diversity in common parlance, denotes the variations, or similarities and differences among a particular group of workers employed in a given organization or business entity. The diversification parameters in a workforce can vary from cultural background and race differences and similarities, to gender, sexual orientation, religion, disabilities and physical abilities as well as age. Workforce diversity normally presents a wide variety of workers from different ages, nationalities and also cultural backgrounds. Due to the general advancement of modern technology and globalization, the movement of workers beyond their national territories has become a very common thing, especially over the past century. With many major countries in the world now having many foreign and migrant workers employed in their organizations and business entities, the general trends in the composition of various sectors workforce is one of high diversification. This is because most of these foreign and migrant workers come from varying cultural backgrounds and nationalities, as well as varying gender, sexual orientation and age (Harvey, 2012). Workforce diversity has become a modern rapid growing trend in the labor sector of the world economy, heralding a big change in the demographics of workers and employment. An increase in workforce diversity in the labor economies of many countries can be attributed to different reasons. These reasons have proved beneficial and popular thereby leading to many organizations and business entities adopting workforce diversity policies. Some of the reasons include; the potential of a diverse workforce to generally stimulate economic growth as such a workforce will have a wide variety of workers who bring different qualities that easily enhances productivity (Labedz & Chester et al, 2013). A diverse workforce further has the apt potential of presenting a more qualified group of workers, as with diversity comes the best talents and skills from different regions of the world, gender and age. This also means that a diverse workforce is more likely to be creative and very innovative if compared to a workforce that lacks diversity. Yet again, a diverse workforce can easily increase the market share of a business organization, since workers from different cultural backgrounds can help penetrate their home cultures better than other employees. However, with all the above reasons that have made workforce diversity quite popular comes various challenges. These are challenges that can be very difficult to counter, due to the numerous differences in cultural and nationality backgrounds as well as gender differentiations. Opposition to increased diversification of the workforce by local managers and employees may also prove to be a big challenge in diversified workforces (Holloway & Carnes, 2011). Communication and language barrier is another potent challenge to successful implementation of workforce diversity. With different employees’ forms different ethnic, cultural and national backgrounds working together without a common first language, the potential for miscommunication and misunderstanding is quite high. This most often than not leads to a sharp decrease in the productivity levels of such an organization or business entity. Another problem associated with workforce diversity is harmonizing the numerous differences that exist among the employees of such a workforce. These include; cultural and nationality differences, differences in gender and sexual orientation, religious differences and age differences too (Roosevelt, 2013). Furthermore, issues to deal with inequality, discrimination, unfair treatment rejection and non-acceptance are very rife within diversified workforce frameworks. Discrimination generally refers to treating a person in a manner filled with prejudice because the individual belongs to a particular group, nationality, race, age or even gender. In the context of workforce diversity, discrimination refers to treatments of prejudice of employees at a work place because of their cultural differences and the other differences earlier mentioned. Equality generally means a correspondence or uniformity of various aspects relating to human beings such as ability, rank, receipt of services etc. As regards the modern labor trend of workforce diversity, equality implies the uniform treatment of all the employees of a given organization’s or business entities’ workforce. This means all employees have to be treated with the same standards, not taking into account their background or origin, nationality, race, religion, gender or age (Alcazar, Fernandez et al, 2013). Both inequality and discrimination can have quite detrimental effects to the diverse workforce of a given company or organization. These are effects that will in the long run hurt the organizations or companies, making it lose customers, profitability and even reputation. This is because the workers to whom the discriminatory treatment or inequality practices are directed to will tend to lose their interests in performing their tasks, owing to the above treatment. Such employees will feel like outsiders and not part of the workforce team of the entire organization or business entity. As a result, essential business practices such as teamwork will be greatly affected, resulting in the reduced productivity of various departments of an organization or business company (Bryd & Scott, 2012). Furthermore, such backward business policies will ensure that the targeted employees become disgruntled about their work, making them to lose focus on achieving essential company or organizational objectives such as rapid growth and expansion. This normally happens especially in situations of irregular promotions based on prejudicial decisions and not merit, leaving those who deserve the promotions really demoralized and demotivated. Increased absenteeism and even resignations by discriminated employees in a diversified workforce setting will all but slow the progress of the businesses of the organization or company. In the case of resignations, recruiting new employees may involve other financial costs, while potential employees who get wind of the discriminatory practices in a certain organization may avoid being recruited by an organization or company. All these are negative connotations that accompany discrimination and inequality in a workforce with different cultures and nationalities, and these practices are never in any way beneficial for the organization or company involved (Katiuzhinsky& Oketch, 2014). Benefits of adopting effective HR Policies Adopting equality and diversity policies by any particular organization or company will always result in a lot of advantages in this presented dynamic and globalized world. Firstly, promoting policies that adhere to fairness and equality will provide an atmosphere and work environment where employees have a high boost of morale, due to the equal treatment of very worker. Such high morale will improve the effectiveness of employees, since bonuses, rewards and promotions will be based on meritocracy and not on prejudiced decisions. All this will act positively towards the growth, expansion and increased profitability of a given company of organization. Employing diversity policies in the workforce of an organization or business entity will serve to improve the general productivity and innovativeness of the operations of a given organization. This is because a diverse workforce increases the chances of hiring a highly qualified workforce that can work with optimum efficiency and effectiveness. A diverse workforce further makes it easier to be able to increase a business entity’s or organization’s consumer market base, due to incorporating workers from different cultures and nationalities. Another essential advantage of using diversity work policies any business entity or organization is benefitting from increase language skills which will permit an organization to easily penetrate the foreign markets (Wilson & Roscigno, 2014). Application of HR Policies: Marriott’s Case There are many multinational corporations and businesses, which owing to their global outlook, have huge diversified workforces carrying out activities for them. This is because such corporations and companies operate in very many countries, which practice varying religion, traditions and cultures. Therefore to be able to successfully penetrate such foreign markets and to cut on costs of transferring all the required employees from overseas, these organizations have resorted to increasing workforce diversity in their branches worldwide. One such multinational corporation is the Mariott International, Inc. which is an American multinational corporation that deals in the provision of hospitability, hotels and lodging facilities and operates in over 80 countries and owns over 4000 lodging and hotel properties globally. Mariott provides to its customers a variety of lodging and hospitality facilities and service (Grey & Kish et al, 2013). The corporation offers extended, select service as well as full service services. To continue in its global growth and expansion, it needs to employ more and more diversity and equality policies to better its workforce efficiency and effectiveness. These two progressive policies will ensure that the workforce of Mariott International, Inc. is highly qualified within the tourism and hospitality services sector. The tourism sector is a very sensitive service industry that requires real professionals and talented workers to be able to keep up with rivals while at the same time maintain one’s customer base. As such Mariott International, Inc. will be able to operate with a highly qualified workforce, giving the company a competitive advantage over other rivals and competitors (Featherstone, 2013). Implementing diversity and equality policies will also improve the innovativeness and creativity of the employees working for Mariott International, Inc. Such improvements will enable the multinational corporation to increase its market share in the global tourism and hospitality industry as well as general profitability of the company. These two policies will also make it highly attractive to the best talents and skilled employees out in the tourism and hospitality services sector. If the corporation can attract more qualified professionals, it will continue to expand in being the world leader in the hospitality, hotels and lodging facilities business (Gaine, 2012). In conclusion, it is quite evident that ensuring equality and diversified policies in many organizations will, without doubt, improve on the productivity of the organization’s activities as well as accelerating growth and expansion too. A diversified workforce offers too many advantages that any serious business entity or organization ought to consider, even as the world becomes more and more of a global village. References List Harvey, Carol 2012. Understanding and Managing Diversity. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc. pp. 51–55 Labedz Jr, Chester S and Berry, G. 2013. Emerging Systemic-Structural Threats to Workforce Diversity: Beyond Inadequate Agency. Journal of Organizational Transformation & Social Change.Vol. 10 Issue 3, p218-237 Holloway, M; Carnes, W. J. 2011. Using the New Approach to Diversity in Assessing the Effectiveness of Achieving Managing Workforce Diversity Course Objectives. Review of Management Innovation & Creativity. Vol. 4 Issue 9, p79-91. 13p. Roosevelt R. T.2013.The Management of Workforce Diversity: A Continuing Evolution. Employment Relations Today (Wiley).Vol. 38 Issue 3, p1-9. 9p. Byrd, M. & Scott, C. 2012. Handbook of Research on Workforce Diversity in a Global Society: Technologies and Concepts. Business Science Reference. Hershey, PAE-book. Available from: http://www.sageperformance.com/sites/default/files/kcfinder/4/files/Downloading/DiversityCurriculumGavrilovaBraceyAllen.pdf Alcázar, F., Fernández, P and Gardey, G. 2013. Workforce Diversity in Strategic Human Resource Management Models: A Critical Review of the Literature and Implications for Future Research.Cross Cultural Management. Vol. 20 Issue 1, p39-49. 11p. Review of Workforce Diversity Content in Organizational Behavior Texts. 2008. Academy of Management Learning & Education. Vol. 7 Issue 3, p424-428. 5p Katiuzhinsky, A; Okech, D. 2014. Human rights, cultural practices, and state policies: Implications for global social work practice and policy. International Journal of Social Welfare. Vol. 23 Issue 1, p80-88. 9p Gray, B, K & Jennifer J. 2013.Encountering Social Class Differences at Work: How "Class Work" Perpetuates Inequality. Academy of Management Review. Vol. 38 Issue 4, p670-699. 30p Featherstone, L.2013. Economics That Work, Workplaces That Don’t.New Labor Forum (Sage Publications Inc.). Vol. 22 Issue 2, p100-102. 3p. Wilson, G; Roscigno, V. J. 2014.The Relational Foundations of Inequality at Work II: Structure–Agency Interplay. American Behavioral Scientist. Vol. 58 Issue 3, p375-378. Gaine, C.2010.Equality and Diversity in Social Work Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Print. Read More