Diversity in the workplace in Singapore. 'Surface-level diversity' and 'Deep-level diversity' - Essay Example

?Why understanding ‘surface-level diversity’ and ‘deep-level diversity’ is good business practice for managers working in organizations: Diversity inthe workplace has become a subject of prime importance in the contemporary age as more and more people are crossing borders in search of better education, jobs and a better lifestyle. Owing to its great importance, diversity has been studied at various levels and with respect to various aspects. In order to simplify the concept of diversity, it has been categorized into two fundamental types i.e. surface-level diversity and deep-level diversity, with the former indicating the apparent factors like age and gender while the latter depicting diversity of hidden factors like personality traits and opinions. Diversity is used as an umbrella term to represent the dissimilarity of the individuals that make a team on the basis of their individualistic characteristics (Jackson, 1992). Surface-level diversity has been referred to as visible (Pelled, 1996) and demographic (Williams and O’Reilly, 1998) and is conventionally understood as inclusive of such variables as gender, ethnic origin and age (Harrison et al., 2002; Lawrence, 1997; Tsui et al., 1995). Denying demographic attributes is cumbersome, though people may find several ways to categorize themselves. Deep-level diversity, on the other hand, reflects a disparity of characteristics that are not apparently noticeable. Such characteristics include but are not limited to viewpoint, ideology, extremism and connectedness. Managers need to have a fair understanding of both in order to deal with the frequently arising problems in the contemporary workplace. With the rapid expansion of economies over the last twenty years, diversity and inclusion have become factors of extreme significance in many Asian countries including Philippines, Hong Kong and Singapore. Increased workforce diversity in these countries can fundamentally be attributed to the fact that more women enjoy management positions in organizations in these countries as compared to the trend in US or Europe. According to 20-First (n.d.), Singapore’s share of women senior managers is the maximum among all Asian nations. In their research, Dimovski, Skerlavaj, and Man (2010) examined if growth of women managers in the organizations of Singapore are restrained by a glass ceiling. The term “glass ceiling” is a “well enshrined phenomenon supported by conclusive evidence” (Simpson and Atlman, 2003). Dimovski, Skerlavaj, and Man (2010) studied the perceptions of female mid-level managers in Singapore regarding whether or not they have to deal with a glass ceiling in the workplace with respect to corporate climate, corporate culture and the general practices. Dimovski, Skerlavaj, and Man (2010) concluded that the promotion of female managers in the Singapore organizations is inhibited. Female mid-level managers expressed lack of development opportunities including initiatives that are family-friendly, mentoring and networking. 32.5 per cent of the respondents said they had encountered the invisible women syndrome in the workplace and 37.5 per cent women managers said that the judgment of their work performance was unfair. 35 per cent respondents of these respondents said that the organization in which they worked valued diversity and had a corporate climate. Women expressed dissatisfaction for the organizational practices and culture in place and rendered them generally unsupportive for them. Despite this, when so many women express dissatisfaction towards the work environment, it means much needs to be done in order to address the concerns of surface-level diversity and deep-level diversity. A lot of women managers in Singapore are still caught in the issues of sexual harassment and intellectual underestimation. Surface-level diversity is visualized as a potential threat by many local workers of Singapore because of the managers’ biased behavior in favor of the foreign workers in general and the Chinese workers in particular. Singapore has been home to millions of foreign workers for decades. These foreign workers have not only replaced the local workers in the organizations, but have also minimized the opportunities for the local workers to avail. In Singapore, foreign workers are stereotyped as privileged. People generally think that foreign workers are offered better positions and entitlements as compared to the local people. Foreign workers from mainland China have been snapping hundreds of blue collar job vacancies owing to their lower overhead charges. This has cultivated negative feelings in the hearts of local people of Singapore towards the foreigners and the two may frequently indulge in conflicts when they have to work together in the workplace. In the recent days, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has expressed his resolve to restrain the in-pour of foreigners into Singapore, though his father’s speech hinted the arrival of many more. At the Tanjong Pagar GRC Family Day Celebrations, Lee made a speech in which he spoke of the need of Singapore to hire up to 900000 workers from abroad and allow them to work in Singapore for two years. “‘Please remember. We need 900,000 foreign workers. They do the construction and other heavy work, jobs Singaporeans are not willing to do” (Lee cited in Joseph, 2011). Having said this, Lee Kuan Yew seems to have overlooked the complaints of the local people of Singapore. Many Singaporeans are of the view that they are denied access to jobs that they are capable of doing with the education they have been receiving in Singapore for years. “Singaporeans are not against blue collar migrant workers taking up jobs they are unwilling to do but against the so-called foreign ‘talent’ on S and E passes who are competing with them directly for jobs which can otherwise be taken up by them” (Joseph, 2011). An EDB agency with the name of CONTACT Singapore arranged an overgenerous job fair few months ago. The fundamental purpose of this job fair was to hire Chinese people from Shanghai in order to allow them work in PMET positions in Singapore. Events like these agitate the local people of Singapore because hundreds of them with diplomas and degrees are able to do the work that the Chinese are being called into Singapore for. Apparently, it seems that the agitation of Singaporeans with the foreign workers in Singapore may sustain at least for as long as the migration policies are shaped by PAP. Many Singaporeans see the next elections as the final opportunity to raise their voice for their rights. Last, but not the least, managers in Singapore need to develop a fair understanding of the surface-level diversity and the deep-level diversity because that is the need of the hour particularly today, when the organizations are recovering from the consequences of the global financial crisis. Companies all over the world are making effort to increase their productivity and hence, reacquire the momentum of profits they had temporarily lost while the financial crisis was on its peak in 2008 and 2009. The diversity programs have been significantly affected by the building-up of such environment. By gaining an in-depth understanding of the surface-level diversity and the deep-level diversity, managers can not only avoid the risks of diversity, but can also change those risks into opportunities. Although the diversity of employees’ personalities may make the coordination of employees and communication cumbersome, yet it may actually be advantageous if appropriately manipulated by the managers. Managers can help the workforce manage its diversity only after understanding all types and categories of diversity. Diverse groups which go an extra mile to perceive one another and accept one another’s personalities tend to display better decision making skills as compared to the homogenous groups or groups which are bad at managing their diversity (LeaderLetter, n.d.). A potential way for the Singapore managers to understand surface-level diversity and deep-level diversity is by measuring it in the workplace. Some ways to measure the deep-level diversity tend to analyze the level to which the organizational personnel feel that they do or do not share several unobservable traits with their colleagues. This can be achieved by asking the workers to rate on a 7 point scale how much they generally resemble their colleagues in such factors as personality traits, attitudes, likes and dislikes, norms, values, culture, lifestyle and education. The scale should range from “very similar” for “1” and “very dissimilar” for 7. Alternatively, managers can personally estimate the differences between individual workers by comparing an individual’s personality traits with the average personality traits of other workers. Similar methods can be employed for measuring surface-level diversity with the change of variables. Legislations related to diversity have a long history in Singapore. The Penal Code of Singapore consists of numerous regulations about the protection of women and harmony of religion. Some of the laws are related to “Uttering words, etc., with deliberate intent to wound the religious feelings of any person [and another is about] Assault or use of criminal force to a person with intent to outrage modesty” (Shuen, n.d., p. 2). In spite of that, for a vast majority of managers working in Singapore organizations, diversity remains to be a code word for assenting action. The criterion of success for companies that have implemented diversity programs is the frequency of recruitment and promotion of employees of different colors and women. Few companies that are progressive actually realize that the management of diversity calls for much more than mere compliance or “hitting the records”. “It includes a wide range of activities designed to proactively create an inclusive work culture – succinctly describes by the U.S. Military’s Officer Training Corp. as an environment that gives “all members of the workforce the opportunity to be productive, without disadvantaging anyone”” (Clayton, 2010). Owing to the fact that Singapore has the maximum share of women in the senior management positions of all nations in Asia, there is dire need to take objective measures to improve their level of satisfaction for better organizational efficiency and performance of organizational personnel. In addition to that, the agitation of Singaporeans with the Chinese and other migrant workers is a very sensitive issue which has the tendency to make the surface-level diversity in the Singapore organizations more of a threat than an opportunity. Managers in Singapore organizations need to realize the gravity of these issues. This can fundamentally be achieved by creating a better understanding of the surface-level diversity as well as deep-level diversity in the Singapore managers. Understanding these terms will help the Singapore managers eliminate inter-personal differences and conflicts in the organizations and promote a culture that does not distinguish between employees on the basis of gender, culture, ethnicity and such other factors. This will also enable the managers in Singapore to recreate the diversity programs, now that the effect of financial crisis is retreating. Hence, it is a good business practice for the Singapore managers to learn about surface-level diversity and deep-level diversity. References: Clayton, CB 2010, A new way to build the business case for diversity based on the numbers: The Diversity Profit Equation, The Diversity Factor, vol. 18, no. 3. Dimovski, V, Skerlavaj, M, and Man, MMK 2010, Is There a ‘Glass Ceiling’ for Female Managers in Singapore Organizations? Management, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 307-329, viewed, 16 August, 2011, . Harrison, DA, Price, KH, Gavin, JH, & Florey, A 2002, Time, teams, and task performance: changing effects of surface- and deep- level diversity on group functioning, Academy of Management Journal, vol. 45, no. 5, pp. 1029–1045. Jackson, SE 1992, Consequences of group composition for the interpersonal dynamics of strategic issue processing, In P, Shrivastava, A, Huff, & J, Dutton (Eds.), Advances in strategic management (pp. 345–382). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Joseph 2011, MM Lee: Singapore needs 900,000 foreign workers on work permits (only), viewed, 16 August 2011, < http://www.temasekreview.com/2011/04/24/lee-kuan-yew-singapore-needs-900000-foreign-workers-on-work-permits-only/>. Lawrence, B 1997, The black box of organizational demography, Organization Science, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 1–22. LeaderLetter n.d., Appreciating Personality Diversity, viewed, 16 August 2011, . Pelled, LH 1996, Demographic diversity, conflict, and work group outcomes: an intervening process theory, Organization Science, vol. 7, no. 6, pp. 615–631. Shuen, YH n.d., The challenge of diversity in Singapore and a Baha’I perspective, pp. 1-8, viewed, 16 August 2011, . Simpson, R, and Altman, Y 2003, The time bounded glass ceiling and young women managers: Career progress and career success; Evidence from the UK. Journal of European Industrial Training, vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 152–162. Tsui, AS, Egan, TD, & Xin, KR 1995, Diversity in organizations: lessons from demography research. In M, Chembers, S, Oskamp, & MA, Costanso (Eds.), Diversity in organizations: New perspectives for a changing workplace (pp. 191–219). London: Sage Publications. 20-First n.d., Singapore Leads in Women in Senior Management; China Is Tops in Junior Management, viewed, 16 August 2011, . 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