Simone Lawson
Diversity management is a process of creating a working environment that is both diverse and inclusive. It involves implementing policies and strategies in hiring, management, training, and more, to promote diversity and prevent discrimination. An integrated approach to managing diversity in the workplace means acknowledging people's differences and recognizing these differences as valuable. This includes demographic diversity, such as race, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation, and physical or mental conditions, as well as other differences like knowledge, education, experience, and cognitive preferences. An integrated approach aims to bring together various cultures to form a new, multicultural society within the organization. It involves building representational diversity, fostering interactional diversity, and committing to structural diversity. This approach enhances good management practices, increases organizational effectiveness, and improves customer satisfaction by improving employee interactions with a diverse clientele.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Building representational diversity | What can be seen and counted |
| Fostering interactional diversity | Capacity to engage diversity effectively |
| Committing to structural diversity | How an organization enacts its commitment |
| Acknowledging people's differences | Recognizing these differences as valuable |
| Preventing discrimination | Promoting inclusiveness |
| Creating a heterogeneous environment | Promoting a culture of tolerance |
| Open communication | Using pictures, symbols, and translations to overcome language and cultural barriers |
| Conflict management strategies | Training employees on how to address issues that may arise |
| Stable attributes | Emotional intelligence |
| Dispositional factors | Task and people-oriented |
| Culturally flexible |
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What You'll Learn
Building representational diversity
To build representational diversity, organisations should focus on creating a diverse and inclusive workplace. This can be achieved by implementing policies and strategies in hiring, management, training, and other areas. For example, organisations can incorporate diverse interview panels to ensure candidates are chosen based on suitability for the position rather than personal characteristics. They can also get creative in their recruitment strategies by reaching out to professional groups catering to specific demographics they want to include.
Additionally, building representational diversity requires organisations to promote a culture of tolerance and open communication. This includes providing sensitivity training to employees to help them become more self-aware and understand their own cultural biases and prejudices. It also involves teaching employees how to communicate calmly when offended by a co-worker and how to resolve conflicts properly.
Furthermore, to build representational diversity, organisations should ensure that their policies, procedures, safety rules, and other important information are accessible to all employees. This can be done by translating materials and using pictures and symbols to overcome language and cultural barriers. By taking these steps, organisations can effectively build representational diversity and create a more inclusive and equitable workplace.
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Fostering interactional diversity
To foster interactional diversity, organisations should focus on several key areas. Firstly, they should promote a culture of tolerance and open communication. This includes providing sensitivity training to employees, helping them become more self-aware of their own cultural biases and prejudices, and teaching them how to communicate and resolve conflicts respectfully when offended.
Secondly, organisations should ensure effective communication with employees, especially when it comes to policies, procedures, and safety rules. This means overcoming language and cultural barriers by translating materials and using pictures or symbols to enhance understanding.
Thirdly, fostering interactional diversity requires a diverse interview panel during the recruitment process. This helps ensure that candidates are chosen based on their suitability for the position rather than personal factors such as church attendance, romantic life, or political beliefs. A diverse panel brings different perspectives and helps eliminate bias from the selection process.
Additionally, organisations should encourage employees to be cognizant of cultural sensitivity and provide them with the tools to coexist harmoniously with a diverse range of people. This includes educating employees about their own cultural biases and how these can influence their interactions with colleagues and customers.
Finally, fostering interactional diversity means understanding the backgrounds, behaviours, and beliefs of a diverse workforce and how these factors influence decision-making. This understanding helps leaders effectively manage their teams and create an inclusive environment that values the unique contributions of each employee.
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Committing to structural diversity
To achieve this, organisations should focus on several key areas. Firstly, they should foster a culture of tolerance and open communication, ensuring that policies, procedures, and safety rules are accessible to all employees, regardless of language or cultural barriers. This may involve translating materials and using pictures and symbols to ensure understanding.
Secondly, organisations should incorporate diverse interview panels and selection committees to eliminate bias from the hiring process. This helps to ensure that candidates are chosen based solely on their suitability for the position and not on personal characteristics or protected attributes. Organisations should also provide sensitivity and cultural competency training to all employees, including managers, to address cultural biases and prejudices and promote harmonious interactions within the diverse workplace.
Additionally, organisations should strive to protect employees' rights and ensure compliance with government regulations related to diversity and inclusion. This includes staying abreast of changing employer-related laws and trends, especially those related to diversity, to ensure that company policies and practices support a diverse workforce.
By committing to structural diversity, organisations can create an inclusive environment that values and leverages the unique contributions of all employees, leading to enhanced organisational effectiveness, improved morale, and increased productivity.
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Creating a heterogeneous environment
Firstly, organisations should focus on building representational diversity. This involves actively hiring people from diverse backgrounds, including different races, genders, ethnic groups, ages, religions, sexual orientations, and physical and mental abilities. To achieve this, companies can employ creative recruitment strategies, such as reaching out to professional groups catering to specific demographics to advertise open positions. Additionally, incorporating diverse interview panels can help ensure candidates are chosen based on suitability rather than biased preferences.
Secondly, fostering interactional diversity is essential. This means creating a culture of open and tolerant communication, where employees feel comfortable interacting with their diverse colleagues. Sensitivity training can play a vital role in helping employees recognise their biases and prejudices and learn how to respectfully communicate and resolve conflicts with their coworkers.
Thirdly, organisations should commit to structural diversity by implementing policies and practices that promote inclusiveness and protect employees' rights. These policies should aim to overcome language and cultural barriers through translation, visual aids, and other accessible formats. They should also ensure compliance with government regulations regarding diversity and inclusion.
Furthermore, companies should strive to create a heterogeneous environment by promoting employees' unique talents and perspectives. This involves understanding and representing various forms of diversity, including multidisciplinary and cross-functional expertise, knowledge, experiences, and extra-curricular interests. By valuing these differences, organisations can enhance their creativity and better understand their target demographics.
Lastly, managers play a pivotal role in creating a heterogeneous environment. They should be trained to recognise and address their own biases and lead their teams with cultural sensitivity and inclusiveness. Managers should also be equipped with the skills to effectively communicate with a diverse workforce and resolve conflicts that may arise due to differences in backgrounds and beliefs.
In conclusion, creating a heterogeneous environment requires a proactive and inclusive approach to managing diversity. By fostering representational, interactional, and structural diversity, organisations can build a workforce that values and benefits from its differences, ultimately enhancing their effectiveness and success.
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Promoting inclusiveness
Diversity management is an organisational process used to promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace. It involves implementing policies and strategies in hiring, management, training, and more. It also focuses on preventing and/or correcting discriminatory practices.
To promote inclusiveness, organisations should foster a culture of tolerance and open communication. They should also create conflict management strategies to address issues that may arise. Organisations should ensure that they effectively communicate with employees, translating materials and using pictures and symbols to overcome language and cultural barriers.
Inclusiveness can also be promoted through sensitivity training, which helps employees become more self-aware and understand their own cultural biases and prejudices. This training can also teach employees how to calmly communicate that they have been offended and how to resolve conflicts properly.
To promote inclusiveness in the hiring process, organisations can incorporate a diverse interview panel to ensure candidates are chosen solely based on suitability for the position. It is important for managers to be trained on what can and cannot be asked in an interview, avoiding questions about an applicant's personal life. Organisations can also get creative when recruiting, reaching out to professional groups that cater to specific diverse groups.
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Frequently asked questions
An integrated approach to managing diversity is a proactive strategy that aims to create a diverse and inclusive workplace by valuing individual differences and preventing discrimination. It involves implementing policies and strategies in hiring, management, training, and more, while also promoting a culture of tolerance, open communication, and conflict resolution.
A diverse workforce is argued to increase organisational effectiveness, lift morale, grant greater access to new market segments, and enhance productivity. It also helps organisations better understand their target demographics, improves customer satisfaction by allowing employees to interact better with diverse clientele, and aligns the organisation's culture with the demographic makeup of the wider society.
Organisations should develop a concept of variety, balancing social, communication, marketing, and organisational aims, and enhancing the development of individual talent. They should also foster a culture of tolerance, open communication, and implement conflict management strategies. Additionally, sensitivity training can help employees become more self-aware of their own cultural biases and teach them how to communicate and resolve conflicts effectively.
Given the many dimensions of diversity, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Advice and strategies for managing diversity must be tailored to the specific context and situation. Organisations also need to ensure compliance with changing employer-related laws and trends, especially those related to diversity, to avoid discrimination and protect employees' rights.
