The Importance Of Diversity Essay Examples

The chapter, in its introduction, defined diversity as the differences in several aspects such as sex, race, ethnicity, gender, age, economic status, amongst several others. In today’s times, due to the constant changes in demographics, we encounter a more diverse workforce. For a non-profit organization to maintain its importance in society, must embrace diversity and make it work for its success. With this, we can say that this topic does not directly talk about any of the four management functions, but instead focuses on diversity and its major areas – race, workforce generations, and disabilities.
Once an organization has decided to embrace diversity, it must focus on having it incorporated in the company’s culture, process and systems, and actualized in all levels of the organization. The organization must first analyze its employees if it is composed of a diverse-enough group of people, providing the needed perspective to serve its client-base. The company’s employees must be composed of talent coming from its direct community in order for them to effectively blend in and communicate the goals and objectives of the organization to its constituents. In order to achieve this, the organization must make sure to maximize all outlets of exposure to be able to attract the talent that it needs. To further strengthen the nonprofit’s ability to carry out its goals, a good number of volunteers must be included. These group should now be able to fill in the gap present in the current pool of employees. The considerations in recruiting volunteers should reflect those used for recruiting employees. This alignment is necessary to be able to come up an efficient workforce to better serve the community. The third level of the organization that you must assess in terms of its diversity is the constituents it serves. A question worth asking is if its direct constituents are representative of the community where the organization belongs to, based on race, age, education and income. Lastly, it is also important to check who constitutes the board. It has to be diverse enough for several perspectives to be considered in any decision the group has to make. The more perspectives to be explored, the better to create a pool of opinions as to what the community needs. Diversity in the board of an organization makes it possible for the nonprofit to gain relevance in the community to create impact.
In the next part of the chapter, the author discusses certain insights about diversity. One that struck me the most is the presence of diversity in a single population. A population might appear to be composed of the same groups of people living in the same community. However, if you look closely, they might be more different than what they appear to be. These differences must be considered in order for the nonprofit to serve them efficiently. The approach to serving them must be tailored-made to satisfy each group’s needs. With this, the organization is assured that the efforts they exert and the resources they use up, will be maximized towards serving their targeted community.
Lastly, even though we can note the advancement in terms of accepting and embracing diversity in the workplace has gone a long way, there are still areas for improvement that must be tapped. There is still a need, for some organizations, to set the mindset of everyone to accept that diversity is a source of strength, if and only if, all members of the organization is well oriented and briefed about the advantages of having diversity in the workplace. This requires for management to have an actual plan on how to implement the organization’s objective to integrate diversity in their cultures and processes. The commitment of the management team to this goal is essential in its success. Without them shepherding the way, members of the organization may not have a full understanding and will, therefore, miss the whole point of the diversity plan. Management needs to reach out as well to its employees and care about what they actually think. This would enable them to fully implement their communication platform. The next step would be to implement the diversity strategy in all aspects of the organization to ensure maximum exposure of the concept. Assessment of the progress of the plan is also key to its success. Measures should be in place to track the progress of each department involved. Another key factor is to give due attention to external forces like trends in the industry. From keeping track of these trends, one can generate learnings from other groups that might be beneficial to the organization. Lastly, everyone must realize that success of the diversity plan does not come overnight. It is an ongoing process that evolves. With this, the organization must be able to adapt to changes and learn how to react appropriately to make these changes work for the organization.
In conclusion, the chapter was able to discuss extensively why an organization needs to embrace diversity, set into motion a diversity plan and make sure to assess and follow up the progress of the plan to ensure that each and every one of its members has full understanding and appreciation of what it can bring to the organization. The ability of an organization to embrace diversity can spell its success and relevance to its community. Diversity can actually ensure an organization’s strength, reach and longevity.