It is astonishing to find out that even in the 21st century, the workplace is still haunted by the issue of diversity. Working women, immigrants, people with disabilities, and parents of children under 15 years are still finding it challenging to navigate and establish themselves career-wise. Having a diverse pool of employees with different backgrounds is regarded as an indispensable factor driving the growth of companies of all sizes. Diversity provides a more excellent range of talent. Since the workers will possess distinct characteristics and backgrounds, they are also more probable to have a set of varying skills and experiences. Having a pool holds significant benefits; for instance, it is associated with increased creativity. Excellent products and solutions stem out of an intersection of experiences, ideas, and challenges. Working women, immigrants, people with disabilities, and parents of children under 15 years positively impact any organization’s bottom line, which is to better business results and reap more profit. Therefore, by excluding women, immigrants, people with disabilities, and parents of children under 15 years, corporations are highly likely to forgo the specialized skills and knowledge brought about by a diverse workforce.
Since women, immigrants, people with disabilities, and parents of children under 15 years have been conventionally excluded from the workforce due to their unique characteristics. However, in instances that they are hired the organizational policies and programs do not often factor in their work-life balance; hence, this group is characterized by a relatively high turnover rate (Trainerstoolchest, 2010). Overall, first and foremost, managers and organizations should adopt and maintain comprehensive anti-harassment policies and ensure that actions against the perpetrators follow reporting. In addition, there should be parity in terms of the hourly wage. Moreover, women should be granted quality child care benefits; and working parents with children under 15 years be given improved access to paid family leave and child care. On the other hand, when it comes to immigrants, the organizational culture should be accommodative to include people of different languages and cultural backgrounds. Finally, for the disabled, infrastructure adjustments, such as, installing ramps or having separate restrooms for the disabled that have been revamped to suit their needs.
Encouraging diversity, especially, in the global talent market is a way forward for organizations as it enables companies to gain a competitive advantage in terms of innovation, differentiation, and employer branding. There is a thin line between diversity and inclusion. Diversity describes the variation in physical, personal, and social characteristics, while inclusivity comprises the procedures that organizations take to integrate every person in the workplace, by allowing their differences to coexist in a mutually beneficial way. Based on the class readings and external research, organizations are recommended to humanize the hiring process and inclusion practices for working women, immigrants, people with disabilities, and parents of children under 15 years, rather than viewing it from a financial perspective (FirstRoundCapital, 2013). In addition, there is a need to build awareness of unconscious bias. The management should encourage their employees to evaluate, question, and examine their potential assumptions and biases. Lastly, the organization might provide a diversity and inclusion training program to help the staff comprehend how cultural, gender, and physical differences can influence how people work, and interact at work. This could cover the concepts of interpersonal and intrapersonal communication styles to self-identity and managing conflict.
References
FirstRoundCapital. (2013). Humanize diversity and inclusion [Video file]. Web.
Trainerstoolchest. (2010). A tale of O video on diversity [Video file]. Web.