Chapter One: Introduction
OC-7000-A
Introduction
Diversity in the work place according to Otike, Messah, and Mwalekwa (2001) refers to a situation whereby there is the existence of personnel from different socio-cultural backgrounds working in the same organization. It encompasses differences in age, color, creed, race, ethnicity, gender and physical ability. Workplace diversity has become an important aspect of carrying out business and other activities and operations in many organizations globally due to the impacts of globalization of the job market whereby companies hire personnel from diverse ethnic, cultural and racial social backgrounds (Beham, Straub, & Schwalbach, 2015). Nowhere is this diversity at the work place more evident, and as a matter of fact important and inevitable, as is the case of call centers. Though Saudi Arabia is largely a Muslim dominated nation, its job market economy is attracting an immense number of people from across the globe to look for jobs in companies offering call services. Ensuring and promoting cross-cultural diversity among the workforce in these call centers has therefore increasingly become an important factor to be taken into account by such organizations given the positive impacts that it has on the performance of the work force and also of the organization (Shahid & Azhar, 2013). Training employees and human resource managers or supervisors of an organization has also become relevant. According to a study by Shahid and Azhar (2013), team work in an organization such as a call center not only improves workforce productivity, but also enhances the quality of services offered to its customers, results in high organizational performance and most importantly, increases its competitiveness (p. 50). It is thus important for a culture of teamwork to be inculcated in the workforce through training on the value of diversity so that employees at a call center may appreciate the value and significance of recognizing and respecting each other’s cultural, racial, gender and ethnic differences for the common good of the company.
Background to the Study
A number of studies have delved into the topic of workplace diversity in organizations and its impacts on both employee or workforce team and organizational performance ((Elsaid, 2012; Joseph & Selvaraj, 2015). According to Karsten (2006), labor force demographic increase, increased global competition, unstable economy, rising costs of suits over discrimination at work and evolving consumer market are some of the factors that have made diversity management a top priority for almost every organization (p. 69). Most of the earlier studies on this issue have reported a positive relationship between workforce diversity and business enterprise performance (Ehimare & Ogaga-Ochene, 2011). Even though workplace diversity was not taken as a priority by most organizations in the world, Saudi Arabia included, it is in the 1970s that the need to ensure the recognition and promotion of workplace diversity arose particularly in the United States where racial prejudices and discrimination were a major hindrance to organizational performance with the onset of the Industrial revolution in Great Britain. Today, diversity covers a wide array of areas in an organization from persons with disability to racial and cultural minorities at the work place. As for the case of call centers in Saudi Arabia, the need to have diverse workforce in these organizations has been driven and informed mainly by the nature of work or business that these organizations are engaged.
Workforce diversity management through training enhances team performance of employees in an organization by improving their communication skills, enabling them exchange ideas, making them more productive and providing them with the opportunity to learn and grow from each other’s experiences (Simons & Rowland, 2011). In the long run, the overall result of this, the author argues, is that it also improves an organization’s performance due to improved customer service quality, which means more sales or turnover and customers and employee job satisfaction. A diversified workforce is more likely to be innovative, reliable, efficient, intellectually aware, informed and less likely to engage in conflicts or disagreements with fellow employees. In the whole, workforce diversity when encouraged within an organization enhances innovation, competitive advantage, efficient workforce communication product or service marketing success, better decision-making, team building and creativity (Gupta, 2013, p. 36). Kirton and Greene (2015) also note that the effects of diversity at work and group team levels in an organization are that it improves decision-making process, enhances workforce innovation and creativity, leads to effective problem solving, reduces conflicts among employees due to social integration and promotes commitment and job satisfaction (p. 245). Besides, workforce diversity improves a firm’s reputation or image and may be best promoted through networking and mentoring (Karsten, 2006, p. 155).
Statement of the Research Problem
Even though a plethora of literature exists on the effects that workforce diversity training has on organizations, there still exists concern in the context of call centers in Saudi Arabia, with regard to its specific impacts on team performance and, more importantly, how the diversity is measured within such organizations. Moreover, there exists a problem of lack of information in many Saudi Arabian call centers about the significance of having a socially diverse human resource to the organizations, given that the concept of employee training on diversity at the workplace is a new concept that has not taken deep roots in the Saudi’s business culture.
Purpose and Objectives of the Study
Limiting this research to a scope of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia Ministry of Foreign Affairs MOFA Call Center in Saudi, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects that workplace diversity training has on the team performance and organizational effectiveness. Specifically, the major objective of this research is to examine the extent to which workplace diversity training exists at MOFA Call Center including how they measure and implement workforce diversity and the effects that this practice has on performance of their teams. The study also aims to find out ways in which workplace management is carried out by this organization
Research Questions
In a bid to find solutions to the problem under investigation and study, this paper seeks to answer the following questions:
Does computer-based workforce diversity training enhance team performance?
Does face-to-face workforce diversity training enhance team performance?
Measurement of Diversity in MOFA Call Center
According to Kirton and Keene (2015), though diversity is not always easy to measure within an organization, the most common means of doing so include looking at the workforce profile, the nature of the relationship among employees, the level of teamwork, team productivity, innovation and creativity. At MOFA Call Center, workforce diversity may be measured by looking at the workforce profile of the Center in terms of representation of various groups in the hiring or recruitment process, level of employee satisfaction, pay equity, employee inclusion and customer feedbacks on the organization’s diversity initiatives.
Summary
The positive impacts that workforce diversity have both on employee and organizational performance in any organization can neither be gainsaid nor underestimated at any rate, more importantly by Saudi Arabian Call Center Organizations. As research across organizations around the world has shown, training company employees or workforce, executives, human resource managers and supervisors on ways of ensuring, maintaining and managing a diverse workforce is invaluable for overall organizational performance. There is thus the need for Call Centers in Saudi Arabia to fully embrace workforce diversity training as a means of leveraging competitive and performance through quality customer service and satisfaction.
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