Challenge of Managing Diversity in a Global Context
Managers have to be up to date on how they can manage a global workforce by being more culturally intelligent. If they do so, the challenge brought about by the lack of proper understanding of diversity management will be eliminated at their workplaces since it is a very ineffective stumbling block. For instance, managers need to adopt practices that allow each employee to work according to their race, values, preferences, lifestyles, and even beliefs (Mor-Barak, 2011). Such diversity issues may lead to interpersonal conflict which lessens group cohesiveness and can be problematic despite bringing together creativity and problem-solving skills. Communication between different workers is also a problem of diversity. Minorities and women often show lesser levels of job satisfaction which makes it hard for the management to retain them. More so, the competition for opportunities that arises amongst groups that feel disadvantaged has been high which makes it hard for the management to choose the most deserving ones.
Increased diversity in the workplace is important considering that people with varying ethnic backgrounds pull their abilities together for the common good of every organization. In the process, cultural intelligence which is the capability of organizations to adapt effectively with different organizational, national and professional cultures has developed rapidly. As this happens, managers can work more efficiently with the various employees who have different ways of thinking, communicating, and doing things. As a result, companies have been seen to perform better even through outsourcing, and the trend will continue to grow over the years as trends such as migration, immigration, income inequalities, and the search for better economic opportunities. It is important to manage diversity since today, a large number of women have joined the workforce; the mobility of workforces keeps increasing; more young workers are employed today; the proportion of ethnic minorities is rising; and the rate at which international careers have grown is high. All these can be difficult for the management if it keeps following traditional strategies.
How Workforces are More Diverse as a Result of Demographic Trends and Economic Evolution
Globalization has been a significant cause of the diversity in workplaces since it brings together people of different backgrounds. The need for firms to remain competitive today has also contributed to diversity in the workplace. Demographic trends such as immigration, a rising youth labor force; more women who are working; medical improvement that has made older people more able to work, have led to shifts in the composition of employees. Therefore, workplaces today have employees that vary in terms of age, physical abilities, disabilities, races, religions, gender and sexual orientation (Saxena, 2014). All staff has different levels of professional qualification and their perceptions and attitudes are different.
Every workplace should be very diverse today. Privatization, liberalization, and globalization have made it possible for workplaces to employ people that are different because gone is the time when people of similar professional qualification, experience, religions, or age came together to work in a firm. Today, women and men employees are almost equal in some workplaces and people speak various languages according to their origins. It is both essential for the management as well as problematic since their leadership has to accommodate any arising cases such as gender discrimination and racial contradiction.
How Communication Affects Diversity
Communication is a significant challenge towards diversity in most workplaces. Since workers in many offices are racially, culturally and perceptually diverse, they may not speak a similar language. At times, it becomes difficult for them to work together. It leads to the ineffective communication of objectives which simultaneously results in lack of teamwork, confusion, and reduced morale. In case of poor communication, the diversity in the workplace won’t work because of missed deadlines, personal conflicts and high employee turnover (Saxena, 2014).
Companies should first address language barriers if they need to have a racially diverse workforce. Communication at the workplace may be problematic because high-context cultures that rely much less on verbal communication might find it difficult to communicate with people from low-context cultures that prefer verbal over nonverbal communication and actions. For instance, employees from Japan and the Middle East may show poor communication patterns with those from the US, Germany, and the UK. Therefore, the management should manage cross-cultural communication through avoiding stereotyping to make sure that everyone at the workplace can communicate with one another appropriately. It ensures that diversity is not a reason for the poor performance of a firm.
References
Mor-Barak, M. (2013). Managing diversity. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.
Saxena, A. (2014). Workforce Diversity: A Key to Improve Productivity. Procedia Economics and Finance, 11, 76-85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s2212-5671 (14)00178-6
