Employee Diversity Assignment Essay

The most fundamental of the definition of employee diversity are focus on race, gender, nationality, age. According to (Nancy R, June 2005), fast technological change, globalization, the demand for skills and education, an aging workforce and greater ethnic diversification in the labor market have greatly influenced the arrangement of diversity today. Today’s definition of employee diversity includes race, age, ethnicity, gender or personality and work style, secondary influence such as religion, socioeconomics and education. Nowadays, employee diversity is very population the work place. It has advantages also accompanied by the disadvantages. 2. Advantages of employee diversity to the organizations 2. 1. Advantage of Language diversity: In the organization if the employees are speaking different languages, it may bring some benefits to the organization. For example, in the one company if the staffs speak not only one language, when the company need some staff to go overseas to join some meetings or do some inspections and research. So the company can only pick up some staffs that can speak those countries’ languages and send them for the meetings or inspections instead of find out some translators or even spend money to hire some consultants. It really can save the expenditure for the company. Nowadays, if a company want to be succeed, it really need to be able to better integrate into this world and also need to broaden their horizons. The employees are the main force of the company; their performances are really affecting the company’s future. The employees’ language diversity can help the company to explore more overseas markets and make them more competitive. 2. 2. Advantage of Gender diversity Gender diversity also has its own advantages for organization. In an era, people change their ways of thinking the gender diversity in the work place. They realized that not only men can do every work in the work place. Now, women are becoming more and more important in organization. Nowadays women have the skill set for the new competitive demands of technical work. Companies agree that they need more technical leaders with varied skills such as interpersonal skills and business skills. 93% of technical leaders in a survey indentified the building of collaborative networks in an organization as a crucial component of leadership (White, B, 2006). Women have the skills to meet the new demands of technological work both in terms of technical and interpersonal skills (Tray, L, 2007). Of course interpersonal skills are really needed in the organization; it is very useful and helpful for running the organization. All those show that women are indeed more suitable for certain parts of organization. These are also the advantages of gender diversity. 2. 3. Advantage of Age diversity Age diversity has its own advantages in the workplace. Nowadays in the work place, there are many different age levels of workers. One part of them is old workers. More and more old workers in the work place are the current trend. Because now, people are retiring much later in life than before and their careers are extended in the present day. According to the research by United States Department of Labor shows that between 1977 and 2007 employment of workers 65 and over increased 101 percent, compared to a much smaller increase of 59 percent for total employment (16 and over). For those older workers they all worked long time in the work place, definitely they got more experience and knowledge than the young age workers. Those of them can transfer knowledge and experience to the new workers. It can help the organization save the expenditure for sending the new workers for training. And the old workers’ experience can help the new workers avoid some common mistakes. In the other hand, nowadays in the work place there are also many young age workers. They also can bring the benefits to the organization. Compare with older workers, younger workers are more creative and innovation. They can help the organization to make better decision and improve problem solving (Harvey, Carol P; M. June Allard, 2012). Nowadays, if the organization wants to remain competitive, it should encourage the staff to distribute a variety of ideas which leads to higher levels of innovation. This part of workers is really a new vitality of organization and they can help organization to keep up with the pace of the times. 3. The problems of employee diversity Consider the employee diversity in the work place. Besides the benefits, there are many problems come out as well. And all these problems may lead to loss for the organization. Below two problems are very common in the work place. 3. 1. Communication problem Communication barriers will lead to problems in the organization. For example, if a manager gives instructions about completing a task to a staff. But this staff fails to fully understanding the instructions because of the language barrier. And then the staff may make mistakes if he tries to complete the task without receiving clarify or even don’t know what the task it is. This problem will cause the delay of the task complete or even fail. It will really cause the losses for the company. And if during a team work, the staffs have communication problem. It will affect the efficiency of work and sometimes it will affect the relationships of the teammates. And also because of the employees may come from different countries, so they may have their own work styles and behaviors and those situations also can cause communication problems among the employees. And finally affect the organization’s benefit. 3. 2. Gender discrimination problem Gender discrimination is another very common phenomenon in the work place. According to the traditional thinking, women have been considered intellectually inferior to men and men are more capable than women at work. Thus, in the workplace, under the same conditions men will get more opportunity to be promoted than women. Same as in the management level, women’s suggestion and ideas sometimes will be ignored or unaccepted. Above phenomenon have also can led to the lack of teamwork and inefficiency work. And this is also a reason of pay-gap between male and female workers. Sometimes the gender discrimination even happened in the recruitment. During the interview men really get high chance to get the job than women. According to a survey conducted by the center for Women’s law and legal services of Peking University in 2009 (Women’s Law and Legal services, 2009). This survey researched 3,000 female employees over one year’s time and got the results by analyzing data interviewed some women employees. According to employers set different criteria in recruitment and women have to have excellent performance than their male competitors in interview to get the same job. More than 1/3 of those women said that male employees are easy to get promoted and priority is always given to male employees. This is fully illustrated gender discrimination really happened in the work place and it becomes a big problem in the workplace. . Solutions to the problem of employee diversity Regarding the problems of employee diversity in the work place, we need to get some solutions to avoid or solve them. In case of these problems damage the interests of organization. Solution to communication problem: ? Training: Employees could be provided proper training to receive in certain language courses if they have language barriers. They also need to be trained how to use the organization internally information system such as telephone system, e-mail system. Set a SOP for staff to check the work has been access properly: Communication problem always caused by misunderstanding and ambiguity and finally lead to loss for the organization. The organization leaders can set some SOPs for staff to make sure the work and information has been implemented properly. In the SOPs may include the instructions of work process and double check procedures. 2. Solutions of gender discrimination: ? Set the relevant regulation of gender discriminations: Make sure the employee handbook includes anti-gender discrimination policies. Create clear examples of gender discrimination to clarify any questions employees may have. And organize the staffs review and test regularly. ? Put reflected box in the work place: In the organization it can be set the reflected box in the work place to encourage and promote the staff to reflect any problems especially the gender discrimination. Once the phenomenon happened, the organization should resolve it quickly and given the appropriate punishment. 4. Conclusion The employee diversity is a reflection of a present trend of this times. Diverse work teams can bring high value and benefit to organizations.