Opportunities for diversity
Diversity offers many opportunities to organizations. It broadens the talent pool in a company. The main rationale for developing programs for diversity and inclusion is its ability to tap on a wide range of skills that promote business efficiency. Diversity also has a moral side. Corporate policies can also be based on the grounds of morality and fairness. Diversity further improves business outcomes mainly because of the fact that it produces better decisions. From a legal perspective, there are laws and regulations that require companies not to discriminate against the marginalized or the underrepresented communities.
The challenges of implementing diversity in organizations
There is internal resistance from the organization. Implementing diversity is largely affected by organizational culture. For many organizations, implementing the diversity implies changing HR policies, and this is a very difficult process. Challenges in assembling diversity outlook data affect the implementation process of diversity. In some countries, it is difficult to collect such data because it can provoke emotions. Another big challenge is that of the dominant white males feeling left out in D&I programs. Every other D&I program seeks to include people from other races and females, but fails to consider the learning needs of white males who dominate corporate management teams.
Addressing the challenges
Work can be positioned to address the learning needs of white males, engage them in the D&I programs and handling the fears that white males might be having. The work environment needs to be safe and secure. This is achieved by creating safe relationship and safe spaces. Things to do with trust, respect, candor, tone focus, and conflict resolution should be prioritized by manager.
Best practices
Ensuring diversity and inclusion in organization obviously begins with management. The structure needs to have a sense of inclusion.
