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Abstract
Trends in the changing demographic platforms in different countries have introduced diversity and multiculturalism in organizations. This analysis has explored the existing differences between workplace diversity and multiculturalism. Each of these elements has been extensively explored in this analysis using the context of a workplace. An organizational workplace diversity program can only succeed if diversity and cultural barriers are overcome. If this is not successfully accomplished, the organization will most likely register reduced performance attributed to poor communication between employees and interrelated functional units. This review has discussed how organizations stand to benefit or be limited by embracing a diverse and multicultural workforce. Multiculturalism is in essence how the organization makes provisions for each culture represented within the workforce fit within the organization’s work environment.
Introduction
Trends in diversity and multiculturalism have been the epitome of modern workplace performance. Contemporary organizations are now becoming keen in evaluating the cultural makeup of its workforce and establishing an interactive platform where contrasting cultures can prove beneficial to the organization. For example, cross-cultural management has become an integral approach to improving the performance of managers in multinational organizations. It is however important to conceptualize how diversity and multiculturalism can be instituted within a workplace and successfully influence performance. This analysis will provide existing differences between diversity and multiculturalism within the context of a workplace, and further explore a number of related areas pertaining to strategic human resource management in the workplace.
Differences between Diversity and Multiculturalism
In elucidating the differences between these two elements, it is important to define each element as it relates to a workplace. Diversity in the workplace can be defined as the existence of individuals with different demographic characteristics, differences in personality as well as potential. Diversity is a collective term that accounts for the glaring differences between employees as compounded within a workplace. An organization that strives to establish diversity will provide a work environment that appreciates individual differences between employees, appreciates their strengths, and establishes an empowerment platform that helps each employee to realize their full potential.
A diverse workforce will comprise employees of different age groups, gender, culture, race, religion, and many others. It is how the organization configures the workplace to allow interaction between people of diverse backgrounds that entails workplace diversity. On the other hand, multiculturalism can be defined as the presence of employees with difference cultural backgrounds and preferences within the workplace. Culture and traditions play a significant role in influencing talent, job preferences and interaction within the organization. As a result of increased globalization and interaction, most organizations have been able to integrate different cultures and traditions within their workforce.
From these definitions, it is clear that multiculturalism can be considered a subset of diversity. Diversity is a much wider and collective term referring to differences within the workplace including cultural preferences. As a matter of fact, diversity refers to all the parameters that can be used to classify or differentiate employees within a workplace including race, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, disability and sexual orientation among many others. Therefore, while diversity is a multi-dimensional element, multiculturalism is a single dimension only inclined to differences in culture and traditions. The objective of creating a diverse workplace is to create a work environment that is inclusive of all the potential differences existing within the workforce. On the other hand, the objective of creating a multicultural workforce is to design an environment that is inclusive and appreciates the cultural differences that are a characteristic of the organization’s workforce. Therefore, it is clear that the difference between these elements is derived from the actual parameters that they represent.
Pros and Cons of Diversity in the Workplace
From the exploration of differences above, it is clear that diversity in a workplace is a more integrative element. It is important for organizations to properly understand the potential benefits and limitations of diversity within the workplace. For the past two decades, research has strived to evaluate the potential impact diversity has on organizational performance. In this context, this analysis will explore the pros and cons of diversity in the workplace, while exploring research on the subject. In the contemporary business environment, an integral determinant of organizational success is its ability to manage diversity by aligning existing differences in its workforce towards its culture and objectives. The first advantage of diversity in the workforce is that it increases adaptability. According to Allen, Dawson, Wheatley and White (2007), an organization with a diverse workforce can easily adapt to changing business platforms within the market it services. In most cases, organizations are greatly impacted by fluctuating demand or other factors that impact their business model. However, an organization with a diverse workforce easily maneuvers such conditions due to the different talents and flexibility that are features of its workforce.
Secondly, a diverse workforce avails a much broader service range or stock of potentials that an organization can use to advance its objectives. The potential differences in religion, cultural preferences, language, talent, personality and experience introduces a pool of talents that such organizations utilize to their benefit. For example, creativity and innovation have become a significant aspect with which organizations generate competitive advantage. Innovation is derived from an organization’s potential to generate and implement creative ideas. This means that creativity is derived from the diverse viewpoints that its employees generate. Therefore, a diverse workforce helps an organization to generate multiple approaches to its business challenges. According to Harrisr and Foster (2010) a diverse workforce avails a greater pool of resources that the organization can harvest or align to its objectives.
Each cultural preference, religious inclination or experience models an employee to be better in one thing or the other, organizations with greater diversity are able to house multiple talents with which they benefit from. Finally, another benefit that an organization would accrue from a diverse workforce is improved effectiveness in the execution of organizational responsibilities. Competition between employees has an impact of improving their input. Therefore, it is logical that existing differences between employees can inspire each individual to work even harder. A diverse workplace ensures that each employee has somewhere to fit in within the organization. This in effect motivates employees to improve their potentials. Such an organization stands to achieve higher productivity as a result of improvement from each employee.
As already mentioned, diversity in the workplace can have a multi-dimensional impact on the organization’s performance. The first limitation generated by diversity in the workplace is communication problems. According to Okoro and Washington (2012) communication plays a vital role in organizational performance, however, the institution of diversity within the organization’s workforce can present significant problems in communication. Differences based on culture, religion and experience may mean that different employees have differing preferences when it comes to communication. In this context, establishing a common platform of communication that will be inclusive enough to represent these preferences can be a challenging task.
Secondly, changes and transitions within an organizations are normal aspects of organizational operations. However, a diverse workforce has the tendency to resist change. Employees are accustomed to the usual configuration of the workplace that enables them to create interactive relationships with people of different background and cultural tolerances. As a result, they tend to resist changes that the organization may want to institute that will most likely impact this configuration. This in effect positions employees against that objectives or interests of the organization. Another important aspect that is introduced in this setup are conflicts between employees. The differences explored when defining diversity may present areas of conflict between employees that can greatly impact communication and interaction. While exploring the different ways in which workplace diversity impacts an organization, Prasad and Mills (1997) highlight that the emergence of conflicts based on the parameters that define diversity within an organization can be very harming to the organization.
Another important limitation are the challenges organizations experience while meshing their workplace diversity strategies with standard workplace policies. Organizations are sometimes forced to change or compromise standard workplace policies to establish a work environment that is inclusive of the differences that their diverse workforce exhibit. While organizations do this, they are equally forced to sacrifice specific milestones of performance that come with standard policies within the workplace. Fassinger (2008) explores the potential challenges that organizations face while building an inclusive workplace for a diverse workforce, one of these challenges is the institution of inclusion strategies in standard workplace policies. Perhaps the most significant limitation of diversity in the workplace is the commitment required of the executive in managing diversity.
An organization’s managerial team and leadership is tasked with the responsibility of aligning the differing perspectives, talents and potentials towards the organizations goals. Organizations are subjected to challenges resulting from conflicting attitudes, work preferences and many other elements that may not conform to the organization’s culture. As a matter of fact, this process involves ensuring that employees adopt the culture of the organization which in one way or the other may have them sacrifice a number of their cultural or individual preferences. Allen, Dawson, Wheatley and White (2007) postulate that cooperation towards the organization’s purpose and objectives can sometimes conflict with individual beliefs and preferences, this can ultimately generate conflicts of interest or attitudes that entirely impact employee-employer relationships.
Workplace Diversity, Multiculturalism and Strategic Human Resource Management
Strategic human resource management can be visualized as a configuration of human resources within an organization that optimizes the organization’s potential to achieve its goals and improve the outcome of its operations. The main elements that can be considered as tools with which strategic human resource management is achieved are; recruiting, selection, pay and benefits, retention, affirmative action and many other areas. It is essential to explore how diversity and multiculturalism fit within an organization’s potential to utilize strategic human resource management through these processes. Recruitment is a fundamental responsibility of an organization’s human resource department.
The human resource functions to identify, arraign and recruit appropriate employees that will further the goals of the organization. Knowing the significance of multiculturalism and diversity within the workplace, an organization must ensure that recruited employees will help to maintain the desired level of diversity and multiculturalism. Organizations must realize that the benefits of diversity and multiculturalism, as well as the limitations, are only manageable if a specific level of diversity is maintained within a workplace. The work of the human resource management in this context is to ensure that this optimal level is maintained or reached through recruitment. Recruitment and selection of employees are interrelated process with which the human resource department can control the impact of diversity and multiculturalism in a workplace.
Organizations use a compensation strategy to coordinate the payment and provision of benefits to employees. Rewarding employees with the objective of motivating them is a tool used to induce performance. Workplace diversity and multiculturalism introduces different levels of employee performance, as there are employees whose skills will be matched to an organization’s activities or become critical to the organization. This creates disparity in the distribution of payments within the organization. This can in effect have a negative impact on the suitability of the organization’s compensation strategy. On the other hand, retention refers to a process by which an organization strives to hold to employees, especially those with critical talents or input. In most cases, training, compensation and rewarding of employees are strategically designed to help the organization retain employees.
An organization must appeal to the employee by offering provisions that interest the employee with the objective of retaining the employee for even longer. Diversity and multiculturalism helps an organization to understand each employee from a wide variety of dimensions, this presents the organization with multiple approaches with which to appeal to that specific employee. Finally, affirmative action is a legal stipulation that mandates organizations to address cases of discrimination by developing policies that protect minority groups and employees that are victims of discrimination. This is one factor that is largely aligned to concepts of workplace diversity and multiculturalism. Fundamentally, an organization can only conform to the stipulations of affirmative action if it establishes a work environment that protects the minority, and does not discriminate against any person on the basis of their age, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, race, personality, disability or ideological position. Therefore, organizations that embrace diversity and multiculturalism within their workplaces are able to align their policies with affirmative action.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this analysis has presented the main differences between workplace diversity and multiculturalism. Additionally, the advantages and disadvantages of workplace diversity have been explored while utilizing research on the same subject. It is clear from this analysis that organizations that embrace workplace diversity and multiculturalism stand to gain in a wide variety of ways. Most importantly, this evaluative analysis has explored potential tools that an organization can use to achieve strategic human resource function. Moreover, a discussion of how each tool relates to workplace diversity and multiculturalism has been explored. In general, a diverse workforce avails a wide variety of alternative solutions to organizational problems that offers the organization some level of flexibility when adapting to changes in its business environment.