With the advent of digital economy one of the greatest challenges facing the organizations is the increasing diversity of workforce. It has become an essential business concern. There is a talent war raging among companies to retain their best talent in a bid to retain their competitive advantage. Companies can ill afford to restrict their ability to attract and retain the very best employees available. The changing demographics in the workforce are quite significant.
Today’s labor pool is dramatically different than in the past. It is no longer dominated by a single homogenous group. People now overwhelmingly represent the workforce pool from a vast array of backgrounds and life experiences. Competitive companies cannot allow discriminatory preferences and practices to impede them from attracting the best available talent. It has become now a resource imperative for companies to have a diversified pool of talent. Workforce diversity should be treated as a business initiative and not a human resource or personnel department function. There is a strong business case for diversity in the workplace..
Diversity management and change management go hand in hand. They mutually support each other. Organizations that adapt themselves to change are more likely to be comfortable with managing diversity better. Likewise, organizations are comfortable with diversity and are more likely to be able to anticipate and adapt to changes in the globalized business environment. They will be nimble footed to react instantaneously to the situational demands. Organizations comfortable with change are inherently stronger as change entails boundary breaking and an ability to cope with complexity, contradictions, and paradoxes. The role of leadership is important in managing workplace diversity. The ability to manage diversity effectively should become a core job requirement for those in a leadership position, alongside technical competence, adversarial skills. In fact, the ability to manage diversity should be a threshold issue.
To stay competitive the workforce diversity helps the companies as a capacity-building strategy. They need to sprint in order to stay where they are. The dynamics of change is no more evolutionary in nature rather it is revolutionary. Companies that prosper have the capacity to decisively solve problems, quickly adapt to new situations, readily identify new opportunities and capitalize on them instantaneously. The range of talent, experience, knowledge, insight, and imagination available in their workforces can go a long way in building the capacity for the enterprise. In recruiting employees, successful companies adopt a conscious approach towards diversity as a distinct advantage. In addition to their job-specific abilities, employees are increasingly valued for the unique qualities and perspectives that they can bring to the table. According to Dr. Santiago Rodriguez, Director of Diversity for Microsoft, companies that “hire people who are different knowing and valuing that they will change the way you do business”, exemplify true diversity.
Some of the key principles that deserve special attention are:
The differences in ethnicity, culture, gender, age, and lifestyle impart variety of perspectives to the workplace. All perspectives are not only essential but should be actively sought.
Management takes these differences into account in spelling out HR philosophy that in turn motivates people to unstinted efforts for productivity. The sense of being valued and developed for opportunities motivates all employees to put forth their best efforts and therefore leads to higher productivity.
The spirit of mutual regard, cooperation and investment through conscious effort to foster development of staff leads to synergy the process in which working together yields results greater than the sum of individual efforts.
Proactively create and sustain an internal climate of equal opportunity for all through work force development initiatives such as job growth opportunities, through mentoring, job shadowing and training, tuition reimbursement, employee recognition, and improved communication on relevant issues and activities
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