Managing Diversity Expanding the Diversity in Our Workplace

¶ … Managing Diversity

Workplace diversity can significantly improve a company's working environment in several ways. The first advantage is that it will enable employers to tap into the knowledge, talents, and experiences of individuals from a variety of backgrounds. This can in turn lead towards improving a company's products and services. The second advantage is that diversity can lead to improved rates of employee retention; according to a national survey conducted by Linkage, Inc. And Diversity Best Practices, ninety percent of the employers surveyed believed that diversity helped their companies to retain employees (Goodison, 2003).

The third advantage is that will foster more inclusive working relationships among coworkers, especially among those engaged in teamwork initiatives. This will come about as employees begin to appreciate learning about the many experiences and lifestyles of people from different backgrounds. A fourth advantage is that a company that values workplace diversity will be more likely to attract female and minority applicants, according to a survey conducted by San Francisco-based WetFeet.com (Leonard, 2001). This in turn can help prevent a company's image from being tarnished by accusations of intolerance and discrimination. The survey by Linkage, Inc. And Diversity Best Practices revealed that seventy percent of its respondents believed that workplace diversity initiatives prevented employment discrimination lawsuits from being filed.

Finally, a fifth advantage is that companies who value workplace diversity will be better able to better serve customers of diverse backgrounds. This has become increasingly necessary for companies to do so today in order for them to maintain a competitive advantage in today's multicultural society. According to projections by the U.S. Census Bureau, one in three Americans will be African-American, Hispanic/Latino, or Asian-American by 2005.

Implementation of workplace diversity initiatives could be measured in the following ways. Van Eron (1995) lists several steps that a company should take towards assessing the impact of workplace diversity. Prior to this assessment, a company should first review its organizational culture in order to learn about what aspects of its culture need to be changed for the benefit of enhancing workplace diversity.

This can ensure that a company is implementing initiatives unique to its organization instead of relying on the use of initiatives, which other companies are employing towards improving their record of diversity. An understanding of its culture can occur from the collection of findings from HR systems records, employee surveys, interviews and focus groups. Based on this information, a company can create an internal baseline against which it can track its progress in implementing workplace diversity initiatives.