Workplace Diversity
Cultural diversification is a term that has become very popular in the recent years, especially among the people working in various organizations. A lot of concerns have arisen due to the flow of the immigrants into the major cities of the United States. Due to the arrival of the immigrants and the varying concerns of the people, a lot of human and civil rights organizations have started to ask the authorities to pay attention to this matter. There are many organizations where a need for the trainings and lectures regarding the cultural diversity has been felt by the officials for the employees. This trend and need has mainly taken place after the September 11 incident. Therefore, in today's world the understanding and acceptance of cultural diversity by employees in a workplace is of crucial importance for the successful management, leadership and running of an organization. Today the term cultural diversity is also known as multiculturalism. United Stated and Canada are known to have the highest number of immigrants in the higher-education institute. However, there are many other places where the ratio of multiculturalism is very high (Green et al., 2009).
One of the reasons because of which it has become very important for the people to understand and accept cultural diversification is globalization. In today's competitive business environment people from all around the world don't work in their separate business environment rather they are contributing to the economy of world. Therefore, now-a-days the profit-making companies as well as the non-profit organizations have started paying a lot of attention to the cultural diversity. In order to succeed all these organizations have accepted the fact that they have to be more open to change and creativity. Now-a-days for organization workplace diversity has become a very important factor in order to capitalize and maximize (Green et al., 2009).
In order to deal with this challenge of multiculturalism in a workplace it is important for the managers to have the effective managerial skills; as, only then will they be able to teach their employees how to deal with multiculturalism, not only with regards to the fellow employees, but also the customers (Green et al., 2009).
Definitions -- Diversity and Culture
If the word diversity is looked up in a dictionary, it can easily be noticed that it is mainly defined as the differences. Therefore, the basic meaning of the term cultural diversity is "different." If we observe we can easily notice that diversity can be seen in every culture, workplace, society or community on the basis of distinctions like religion, race, and nation of origin, ethnicity, language, age, gender, physical abilities, sexual orientation, class and occupation (Green et al., 2009).
Cultural has been described by many people and in many different ways over the years. Although, there are many definitions for it but a lot of them agree upon the fact that culture is set of learned actions. According to the people who have explained the phenomenon of cultural diversity, culture is a combination of related values and traditional ideas that an individual expresses through his/her actions. According to William Sonnenschein who is also the author of "The Diversity Toolkit," culture is something that is not only learned but also shared and transmitted over the generations. Sonnenschein also believed that culture helps us in organizing our lives by helping us in interpreting various situations and scenarios in life (Sonnenschein, 1999).
Cultural Diversity in Workplaces
According to Esty, et al. (1995), cultural diversity is a phenomenon which basically defines a person respecting, accepting, and understanding, valuing, celebrating and acknowledging the various differences between race, class, mental and physical abilities, ethnicity, sexual orientation, public assistance status and gender (Esty, et al., 1995).
It is of great importance for the companies to not only understand diversity but also look for various ways to become inclusive because it can help the organizations in getting a competitive advantage as well as increase the productivity (Esty et al., 1995). According to Stephen G. Butler who is co-chair of the Business-Higher Education Forum, America can't ignore diversity as it is an invaluable asset (Robinson, 2002). In order to improve the workplace productivity effective people management is a phenomenon of great importance which can be obtained by valuing and managing diversity (Black Enterprise, 2001).
Organizations need to alternate and make new policies according to the changes in the demographics such as: women working in the offices, restructuring of the organizations, equal opportunity legislation, etc. (Parvis, 2003).
Women in the Workplace
The need to understand diversity in today's world has also increased due to this increasing trend of...
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