Thursday 19 April 2012

Challenges in Managing Employee Diversity

Diversity offers opportunities as well as challenges.  The challenges include appropriately valuing diversity,
balancing individual needs and group fairness, dealing with resistance to change, ensuring group cohesiveness
and open communication, avoiding employee resentment, keeping the focus on performance, retaining valued
performers, and maximizing opportunity for all employees.

a.  Resistance to Change:  Although employee diversity is a fact of life, the dominant groups in
organizations are still composed of white men.

b.  Segmented Communication Networks:  One study found that most communication within
organizations occurs between members of the same sex and race. Therefore diversified workforce
organization may face the challenge of segmented communication networks.

c.  Resentment: Equal employment opportunity that can be defined as fairness of employment that is free
from all sort of discrimination in majority of organizations was a forced change rather than a voluntary
one.

d.  Backlash: While women and minorities may view a firm's “cultural diversity policy” as a commitment
to improving their chances for advancement, white men may see it as a threat.

ƒ  How to avoid Backlash: Many organizations that have instituted diversity programs have
experienced adverse reactions from employee groups, particularly white men. Here are some guidelines
for HR professionals and company managers who are attempting to manage diversity without adversity.
i.  Adopt an inclusive definition of diversity that addresses all kinds of differences among
employees, including (but not limited to) race and gender.
ii.  Make sure that top management is not only committed to establishing a diversity program but
also communicates that commitment directly to all employees
iii.  Involve everyone, including white men, in designing the diversity program.
iv.  Avoid stereotyping groups of employees, such as white men, when explaining cultural or ethnic
differences
v.  Recognize and reward white men who are part of the solution rather than blaming men who are
part of the problem.
vi.  Avoid one-time training efforts that stir up emotions without channeling them in productive
directions. Use ongoing training that encompasses diversity as only one facet of needed change
in the corporate culture.


e.  Retention: The job satisfaction levels of women and minorities are often lower than those of white
men.

f.  Competition for Opportunities: As minority populations grow in the U.S., competition for jobs and
opportunities is likely to become much stronger.

g.  Lower Cohesiveness: Diversity can create a lack of cohesiveness. Cohesiveness’ refers to how tightly
knit the group is and the degree to which group members perceive, interpret and act on their
environment in similar or mutually agreed upon ways. Because of their lack of similarities language,
culture, and/ or experience, diverse workforce typically are less cohesive than homogeneous groups.
Often mistrust, miscommunication, stress and attitudinal differences cohesiveness, which inurn can
diminish productivity.

h.  Communication problem: Perhaps the most common negative effect of diversity is communication
problems. These difficulties include misunderstanding, inaccuracies, and slowness. speed is lost when not
all group members are fluent in the same language or when additional time is required to explain things.

i.  Diversity also increases errors and misunderstandings. Group members may assume they interpret
things similarly when in fact they do not ,or they may disagree because of their different frames of
references .

j.  Mistrust and tension: People prefer to associate with others who are like themselves. This tendency
often leads to mistrust and misunderstanding of those who are different because of lack of contact and
low familiarity. it also causes stress and tension ,and reaching agreement on problems can be difficult.
 
k.  Stereotyping: We learn to see the world in a certain way based on our backgrounds and experience
Our interests, values and cultures act as filters and distort, block and select what we see and hear. We se
and hear what we expect to see and hear. Group members often inappropriately stereotype the
“different” colleagues rather than accurately perceiving and evaluating those individual’s contribution
capabilities aspirations and motivations. Such stereotypes inurn affect how people employee stereotype
as unmotivated or emotional will be given less -stress – provoking jobs than their coworkers. Those jo
assignments will create frustrated employees, perhaps resulting in low commitment, higher turnover, an
underused skills.

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