The relevance of workforce diversity is difficult to overstate, as it can create a better public image and perception, which brings investors, secures state subsidies or special taxation regimes for a role model company, and wins consumer support, all benefits translatable into profits in some ways. Furthermore, diversity leaves the door open to specialists from different walks of life or social positions and various educational backgrounds with unique ideas that can steer a company towards the future. Not having the diverse workforce or having constraints on the acceptance of such individuals can cost organizations all these benefits, with overlooked talents putting their unique experience and ideas to good use elsewhere. Therefore, Public Authority for Civil Aviation needs to think long and hard before deciding on its corporate diversity policy.
The majority of the workers for Public Authority for Civil Aviation are male Muslims. This has made male Muslims attain a demographic supremacy making it a characteristic of the Authority for its entire history. As of presently, women are responsible for no more than 15% of the workforce while African Americans represent only 4% of the staff. Ahmed(2015) considered two theories are rationalizing the lack of diversity in the Silicon Valley, such as the meritocracy and pipeline theories explaining the problem concerning the reliance on the network of referrals and a white talent pool. As from 2009, the Authority started working towards eradicating the comatose bias, which is a psychological theory claiming individuals to accumulate unnoticed biases based on surrounding political besides social forces. Cognitive bias advisors collectively known as Diverseo(2014) offered a range of techniques to eliminate the prejudices, such as exposing and counting biases with quantitative data and face-to-face interviews, offsetting biases at the individual and corporate levels, and avoiding the unconscious bias pitfalls.
Employers Network for Equality & Inclusion or ENEI(n.d.) offered services regarding the team and individual development, audit and inspection, and selection as the approaches to minimizing unconscious bias. If Public Authority for Civil Aviation proves unwilling to have recourse to the audition and intervention of organizations like ENEI, it can do the auditing by itself. The major recommendation will be for the regulator of civil aviation activities to conduct the routine survey and correction of the hiring psychology and philosophy of its recruitment staff so that valuable talents may not pass unnoticed. Thomas and Ely(1996) came up with interesting recommendations as to the adoption of diversity-promoting paradigms, such as the discernment and equality as well as access-and-legitimacy paradigms. However, the paradigmatic shift is infeasible failing a range of preconditions like organizational culture conduciveness to openness, its potential to boost personal development, and the ability to make the workforce feel esteemed (Thomas and Ely 1996).
The project will evaluate the possibility of employing specific paradigms in Public Authority for Civil Aviation, based on the current state of functional and organizational processes, mechanisms, and philosophy. The applicability of techniques and models addressing poor diversity as well as the scrutiny of issue scope will be the subjects of the case study. Thus, the project will list recommendations the company may implement to cope with the deficit of diversity, which will help it enjoy the benefits the workforce heterogeneity has to offer. The Public Authority for Civil Aviation should take the offered recommendation seriously and commence implementation at once to solve its diversity Woes.
References
Ahmed, S., 2015. Is Silicon Valley’s meritocracy ethos anti-diversity? Fusion, [online]. 18 March. Available at: <http://fusion.net/story/105627/is-silicon-valleys-meritocracy-ethos-anti-diversity/> [Accessed 8 March 2016].
Diverse, 2014. Reducing unconscious bias: A highly effective toolbox. How to avoid the unconscious bias pitfalls.Diverse. Available at: <http://weprinciples.org/files/attachments/Reducing_Unconscious_Bias-_a_highly_effective_toolbox.pdf> [Accessed 8 March 2016].
ENEI, n.d. Reducing the Impact of Unconscious Bias in the Workplace.[online].Available at: <http://www.enei.org.uk/pages/unconscious-bias.html> [Accessed 8 March 2016].
Thomas, D.A., and Ely, R.J., 1996. Making differences matter: A new paradigm for managing diversity. Harvard Business Review. Available at: <https://hbr.org/1996/09/making-differences-matter-a-new-paradigm-for-managing-diversity> [Accessed 8 March 2016].
Thomsen, M., 2014. Why Google’s employee diversity programs are doomed to fail. Forbes, [online]. 30 September 2014. Available at: <http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelthomsen/2014/09/30/why-googles-employee-diversity-programs-are-doomed-to-fail/#b911de7135c9> [Accessed 8 March 2016].
