Introduction
Diversity in an organization is a required condition for efficient development within the industry, referring to global trends. Nowadays, diversity in the workplace is defined as respect for people’s differences, focusing on their age, gender, race, culture, or religion, among other characteristics. In this context, the inclusion can be viewed as an actual practice followed in the organization to integrate the idea of respecting the employees’ diversity in the working process successfully (Canas & Sondak, 2014). From this point, if appreciated and followed in an organization, the ideas of diversity and inclusion can have a significant positive impact on business and contribute to its competitive advantage.
Benefits of Integrating the Diversity and Inclusion Concepts in Kroger
Being one of the largest retailing chains in the United States, Kroger needs to deal with both diverse customers and employees. In the case of the Kroger Company, diversity and inclusion practices can lead to such positive outcomes as an improved understanding of the market and customer needs, the increased quality of proposed services, improved performance and productivity, and the enhanced cooperation of heterogeneous groups. Ferdman and Sagiv (2012) state that integrating diversity into an organization can be expected when managers focus on developing the inclusion process, aiming to increase awareness and reduce the bias.
Improved Understanding of the Market and Quality of Services
Having different visions, diverse employees can use their styles to meet customer needs better. Diverse employees can follow various approaches to serving customers, and they usually have emphasized tolerance toward various cultures (Davidson, 2011, p. 11; Herring, 2009, p. 210). In the case of Kroger’s grocery stores, diversity among the customer support employees and customer assistants contributes to addressing the consumers with different ethnic, cultural, and educational backgrounds effectively, demonstrating the sensitiveness and the targeted care. Thus, diversity in the workplace contributes to understanding market needs and trends.
Improved Performance and Productivity
Organizations need to address the question of diversity while working to improve their employees’ performance and productivity. The reason is that females and males have different productivity rates, and representatives from various educational backgrounds can have different performance rates (Herring, 2009, p. 210). In Kroger, it is possible to increase employees’ productivity while focusing on the different working styles that are also discussed as a diversity characteristic. If the needs of diverse employees regarding their working conditions are met, the performance improves significantly.
Improved Cooperation of Heterogeneous Groups
When companies focus on promoting diversity, this approach guarantees the adoption of different perspectives that can be used to improve the decision-making process and strengthen the work of collaborating groups. If the inclusion is successful, heterogeneous working groups can demonstrate the higher than the outcomes of homogenous groups’ work (Canas & Sondak, 2014). Kroger can apply the strategy when working groups and teams are intentionally formed from diverse employees to improve the inclusion process, avoid the bias, and increase the group creativity.
Diversity Metrics
The regular monitoring of the diverse tendencies within the market and the use of diversity metrics in the company are valuable techniques for increasing market potential and balancing the corporate culture. Sodexo is one of the companies demonstrating the high results concerning managing diversity and developing inclusion strategies in the organization because of constantly monitoring the current situation with the help of diversity scores and metrics (Babcock, 2009, para. 14). The Kroger management team can also follow this experience. However, it is important to step further and adopt not only standard metrics as the number of females and people of color recruited but also measurements of the diverse population’s performance and collaboration (Clayton, 2010, p. 3).
Conclusion
Diversity needs to be addressed in organizations like Kroger to contribute to their progress. The reason is that adequate inclusion and the focus on diverse employees’ interests lead to increased profitability, collaboration, and improved customer services.
References
Babcock, P. (2009). Diversity accountability requires more than numbers. Web.
Canas, K., & Sondak, H. (2014). Opportunities and challenges of workplace diversity (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Clayton, C.B. (2010). A new way to build the business case for diversity based on the numbers: The diversity profit equation (d/PE(TM)). Diversity Factor, 18(3), 1-10.
Davidson, M. (2011). The end of diversity as we know it: Why diversity efforts fail and how leveraging diversity can succeed. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Ferdman, B. M., & Sagiv, L. (2012). Diversity in organizations and cross‐cultural work psychology: What if they were more connected? Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 5(3), 323-345.
Herring, C. (2009). Does diversity pay? Race, gender and the business case for diversity. American Sociological Review, 74(1), 208-224.