Leveraging Workplace Diversity

Diversity is a term that is used to refer to ways in which people are different. These include the gender, age, language, educational level, life experience cultural background sexual orientation ethnicity religious belief work experience socio-economic background marital status family responsibilities personality and marital status. Whether married, single or pregnant women should be given the same opportunities in their workplace and should not be sexually harmonized by their bosses. Against sex discrimination Act 1984

Workplace diversity refers to the ways of recognizing and respecting the individual differences of the workers and being able to manage them as they work.

In the places work there is need for diversity in terms of gender, type of work to be done, age tribe/race and even the level for education of the individuals. For instant when we look at gender a good workplace should be gender sensitive in that both men and women should have the same opportunities of working depending on their level of education. Both male and female should have equal chances of taking the top positions in their place of work and should be given respect by the other work mates equally. Women should not be discriminated as it happens in most cases and denied the best opportunities that arise.

A good work place should have balance in terms of tribe or race. This is important as it clears good relations in the society as each tribe or race is represented. Therefore different mates form different background come and put their minds together as a team to bring out the best in the work place. A workplace that discriminates it’s workers on the grounds of race, color or Nationality or Ethnic origin will not succeed as this is unlawful and goes against the Racial Discrimination Act 1975(Huyles,1996,pg 56).

The Human rights should be taken into consideration in the workplace. All persons both the physically challenged and mentally disabled should be given the same working opportunities without discrimination. They are human beings who have the same rights as other human beings. Their complaints should be addressed greatly and they should accommodate by every individual as they do their work. Any discrimination against these people is unlawful as it violates the Human Rights and Equal opportunity commission Act 1984 (Cox, 1995, pg 43).

To maintain diversity in the workplace, all employers and employees have a right to a secure healthy working environment. This will help them to be alert and work comfortably so that they can bring out the fruitful work that will benefit them and the society at large. Therefore, an employer has a role of taking precautions to prevent discrimination and harassment to his employees. This is necessary since failure to that; one violates the Occupational Health and Safety Act 1991(Bruhn, 1996, pg 35).

The disabled should not be discriminated in their place of work since it’s not their choice to be in their state. They are human beings with all the human rights. Therefore, they should be treated like any other individual or employee. The sick should be given proper medical attention to improve their state so that they can also work together like others. If an employer goes against this, he violates the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and should face the law (Hofsted, 1997, pg 265).

Diversity also requires that all the employees be informed and access the awards and agreements that are part of their work. For instant, they should be aware of the terms and conditions that are important as it relates to the workplace relations act 1996. The employer should not discriminate the employee from this information.

A diverse workplace should ensure that there is corporation and maximum use of the diverse skills, employee’s values and their work experiences so that they may come with good fruits in their work. It should also ensure that the structures in the workplace, the systems that they use and the procedures that they apply are well utilized to help the employees in balancing their work, manage their families by caring for them in responsible manner.

When making decisions, a diverse workplace should also take in account their goals and the skills that are required so that they can meet these goals and objectives. They should ensure that transparency is available and the decisions should be procedurally fair at the same time be equitable (Schauber, 1999, pg 460).

To maintain diversity in the workplace, Disney company sets the overall company performance goals for the year. These goals are usually diverse and require a diverse staff so that they can meet them. The company sets individual performance measures for the year without any discrimination. Therefore, each employee has a target to meet his goals in a diverse manner.

The company also sets target bonus for each individual that motivates them to work hard so that they can achieve their goals and earn these bonuses at the end of the year. They also measure the actual performance against the predefined company performance goals to reach to the necessary adjustments that are to be done so that they would do better in future (Ting 1999, pg12).

For one to have an effective change model there should be a commitment to serve the others. Therefore, both the employee and the employer should be committed to serving the society as a whole. They should be ready to serve all the races without discrimination and give them equal opportunities in accessing the benefits that are available.

There should also be need for Awareness of the importance of new ways of approaching issues. The employees and the employer should be informed of the so that they would come up with different ways of thinking so that it will be easier to hire and retain diversity in the working staff and develop an educational seminar to the diverse society to encourage the issue of diversity (Huyle, 1996,pg 98).

There should be Awareness of the importance to build and maintain trust among the employees and the employer and the society as a whole. This is important as it develops the mutual understanding in the people and even the entire society. The issue of openness should be understood and all the members are interested and willing to be involved in this model of diversifying the workplace and the activities involved (Kotter, 1995, pg59-67).

Creativity should be encouraged as this will ensure or encourage people to think and come up with the best as they work. The employees should be informed of the importance of diversity as it adds richness to them and the society in general and be informed of the need for a diverse staff so that whenever there are changes, they are able to accommodate the new employees (Coop, 1997, pg 56).

REFERENCES

Bruhn, J.G. (1996). Creating an organization climate for multiculturalism. Health care supervisor, 14(14), 11-18.

Hofsted, G. (1997).Culture and organizations: software of the mind. New York: McGrass-Hill.

Schauber, A. (1999).Assessing organizational climate: first step in diversifying organizations. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Cincinnati: union Institute.

Ting-Toomey, S. (1999).Communicating across cultures. New York: Guilford.

Huyle, R. &Mendez Russell, A. (1996). The diversity directive: why some initiatives fail and what to do about it. Irwin professional publishing.

Cope, Bill & Kalantzis, Mary (1997). Productive diversity, anew Australian and a model for work management. Plato press.

Cox Jr., Taylor (2001). The challenge of managing diversity. San Francisco: john Wiley& sons, Inc.

Kotter, J.P. (1995). Leading change: why transformation efforts fail. Harvard Business Review, 59-67