As society becomes more accepting of diversity, organizations should follow suit. Diversity in the workplace can be measured in a number of ways, including age, ethnicity and experience, which incorporates both years of tenure and professional background. Although difficult to properly implement, organizations strive for team diversity in order to better represent their clientele and hopefully a team’s overall ability to solve a problem. This can either lead to an increase in talent, creativity, and thoughtful deliberation, or a more hostile work environment with noticeable biases and little to no cohesion.
A major advantage of a diverse workforce when implemented properly is an overall increase in creativity. Having a group that includes multiple …show more content…
The first goal is to shift into a diverse company culture slowly over time. An overnight shift in the company dynamic due to demographic change will make current employees concerned and uncomfortable, leading to the likelihood of subgroups. The next goal would be to train and support the managers within the organization. If managers are unaware of how to manage different work styles, they may alienate workers of a certain race, gender, background, or tenure, which will create faultlines and uneasiness within the workplace. Workers need to be encouraged to complete tasks with a diverse group of people by indicating a companywide need for collaboration and communication. Workers are more likely to work in diverse groups if they are results-driven and assume a diverse team will lead to greater results. KW Phillips and OL Lloyd suggest that this will occur because the mere presence of diversity causes members to be more open-minded in their views, which is what leads to discussion and creativity. Groups then need to be assembled so that no one group seems dominant in the discussion. A Korean study found that these issues can be fixed but having a group where every member has a high need for achievement, but only some have a high need for power. Finally, the workers need to be rated objectively. At consulting firm Spencer Owens and Co., management was more concerned with fitting a diversity quota than hiring workers with qualifications that matched the needs of their firm. Thus, workers showed up late, would not complete tasks on time, and complete the task below managerial expectations, creating a large rift between subgroups. Hiring a diverse workforce that also meets job qualifications is a far more effective
A major advantage of a diverse workforce when implemented properly is an overall increase in creativity. Having a group that includes multiple …show more content…
The first goal is to shift into a diverse company culture slowly over time. An overnight shift in the company dynamic due to demographic change will make current employees concerned and uncomfortable, leading to the likelihood of subgroups. The next goal would be to train and support the managers within the organization. If managers are unaware of how to manage different work styles, they may alienate workers of a certain race, gender, background, or tenure, which will create faultlines and uneasiness within the workplace. Workers need to be encouraged to complete tasks with a diverse group of people by indicating a companywide need for collaboration and communication. Workers are more likely to work in diverse groups if they are results-driven and assume a diverse team will lead to greater results. KW Phillips and OL Lloyd suggest that this will occur because the mere presence of diversity causes members to be more open-minded in their views, which is what leads to discussion and creativity. Groups then need to be assembled so that no one group seems dominant in the discussion. A Korean study found that these issues can be fixed but having a group where every member has a high need for achievement, but only some have a high need for power. Finally, the workers need to be rated objectively. At consulting firm Spencer Owens and Co., management was more concerned with fitting a diversity quota than hiring workers with qualifications that matched the needs of their firm. Thus, workers showed up late, would not complete tasks on time, and complete the task below managerial expectations, creating a large rift between subgroups. Hiring a diverse workforce that also meets job qualifications is a far more effective