- Diversity and Affirmative Action are basically one in the same and both are no longer required in the workforce.
Diversity in most organizations can be challenging or beneficial to the management. Its contact on employee behavior in the direction of other employee’s cultures can be negative or positive. Global expansions of many organizations result to cultural mergers; hence the need for affirmative action that may play an important role in the operations of the business. However, diversity and affirmative action make up a series of efforts or/and strategies that may be designed to provide equivalent consideration for all employees within an organization including promotion, hiring, and also terminations. However, affirmative action may no longer a requirement since it unfairly discriminates or stigmatizes some of the workforce.
- Analyze the diversity practices of your organization to determine if it is engaged in surface-level or deep-level diversity. Provide specific examples to support your response.
Some of the diversity practices in my organization include culture awareness that is inherently available in the progression of individual attitudes. Kinicki and Kreitner agree that this may be a learned predisposition to act in response to a consistently unfavorable or favorable manner with regard to a given object (Kinicki & Kreitner, 2009). For instance, when my boss maintains promotion detour towards me; this affects my outlook towards my work productivity and performance.
Another diversity practice in my organization include perception acknowledgement that enables the interpretation and understanding of our surroundings (Kinicki & Kreitner, 2009). There are numerous instances in my organization where one employee will at one time have a wrong perception towards another employee. These results to unfavorable behavior and it may be important especially when considering surface-level diversity.
Diversity may be used to craft a competitive advantage in most companies. A healthy competition in the midst of the employees may be generated through the application of diversity. For instance, where employees come from diverse backgrounds, they crop up new innovative ideas so as to prove their superiority; in turn, this healthy competition may assist the organization to lead in the business competitive environment.
Another excellent example where diversity may be used is in the modes of payments in any company. There may be some consumers who may be convenient in paying in person while others may be convenient in paying online, via credit cards. If an organization goes for only one mode of payment, there may be a likelihood of losing customers. On the other hand, if an organization adopts the both modes of payments, this may attract more customers. This strategy may be an advantage of diversity in the payment modes.
References
Kinicki, A., & Kreitner, R. (2009). Organizational behavior: Key concepts, skills & best
practices (customized 4th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin. ISBN:
9780073381411. Print.
