People today are all for hiring a workforce that is ethnically diverse and constitutes a fair ratio of men and women. One challenge that intercepts their efforts is the culture of the organization. Even though people come from very different backgrounds and ideas, they have to put aside their own cultures to adopt the organization’s ideas and expectations regarding how they are supposed to get things done and after a long time of following the routine, the diversity gets lost somewhere in the efforts. But if we do not enforce this culture within the organization and retain the employees regardless of the way in which they differ in their values and through processes, getting that workforce to interact with one another would become quite a problem for the managers and the executives within the organization.
For all of these reasons, managing a workforce that is diverse is a very complex challenge, and requires especial consideration and expertise. Some may ask; why is diversity important at all? More and more companies are moving towards a more global setup, and they want to target consumers in every part of the world. Understanding this consumer, however, requires inside knowledge, and this is why these companies want to recruits minds that understand the needs and wishes of all of these consumers.
Now we understand why workforce diversity is essential and also that managing a workforce that is diverse is a complex challenge to overcome. Let’s see how the Google Company does that. In the mid-2014, the company gave a release announcing the compositions of its workforce which reveal that only 17 percent of the company’s technical professionals are women. Going further, it was also revealed that women in the company held merely 21 percent
of the total management positions. 72 percent of the leadership roles, however, were being overseen by white and the Asians held just about 23 percent of these positions. These figures reflect the company’s practices in a dark light, but the aim of the release was quite the opposite of that. These figures reflect that the company has not been managing the diversity in its workforce well enough to retain it at an acceptable ratio of racial males and females which meant that they had to work a little on their workforce.
There is also another way to managing diversity which involves efforts to get the employees to coordinate more effectively with one another. The company in this regard lays great emphasis on team building exercises and activities which could encourage its entire staff to work together as a team to achieve the company’s goals. All complaints and hard feelings amongst the staff are resolved through meetings which focus on problem definition where all of
these employees present ideas to move towards viable solutions. The company also maintains an open door policy with its managers in order to encourage more open communication between the different tiers of the organization so that the managers, as well as the junior staff, could work towards eliminating all the complaints in the organization.
The managers of the company are specially trained to keep an eye out for any discomfort or hostility amongst the employees and to work towards the resolution of these problems. These managers are also taught the importance of keeping in touch with the different cultures so that they could understand the people in their chain of command better and find new ways to interact with them. The office overall also has a setup which encourages interaction with the workforce even if they are from different departments. The company provides them with access to a number of facilities like childcare and the cafeteria, and since all of the employees share these facilities, they have to interact which integrates them better within the company.
Diversifying workforce could help the organization, and this is an asset which could really carry the company ahead to achieve the unachievable, provided the employees are motivated to work for the organization. Just a little bit of effort in policy making and implementation can help the organization derive the optimum efficiency of its labor force. All it requires is some planning and setting of achievable yet achievable goals.
List of References
Bersin, J. (2014, May 30). Diversity, Inclusion, and Culture: Google and Zappos' Set the Tone. Retrieved from Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140530234916-131079-diversity-vs-culture-google-and-zappos-announcements
Vijayan, J. (2015, October 05). Google, Other Tech Giants Step Up Workforce Diversity Efforts. Retrieved from eWeek: http://www.eweek.com/it-management/google-other-tech-giants-step-up-workforce-diversity-efforts.html
