Diversity in the Workplace

The term ‘diversity’ has a very broad connotation and includes many facets of differences, apart from disparities in race and gender. In the context of a workplace, diversity gets manifested in many forms such as - age, gender, ethnicity, physical attributes, sexual orientation, educational background, income, marital status, geographical location, spiritual practice, parental status, work experience, job classification and the like. With the advent of globalization, diversity in workplace is getting increasingly pronounced. All the same, an organization’s success and growth rate are also determined by its ability to welcome, understand and manage diversity in an effective manner. It is only when people of different background and beliefs work together as a team that the company can hope to progress and grow. The main key to achieve this is by working towards valuing diversity. Read on to know about the advantages of diversity in workplace and also learn about managing issues related to it.

Advantages Of Diversity In Workplace

When employees come from diverse backgrounds, they bring individual talents and experiences with them. This invariably contributes to an organization’s overall growth.
Diversities in a working environment add a unique richness to the workplace. There is a special kind of challenge - every individual within the organization feels like putting in extra effort to overcome these individual differences. Such united opinions, in fact, work for the betterment of the company or the institution.
Embracing employees with different skills and cultural viewpoints helps in understanding the needs and requirements of the customers, on a global scale.
Diversity in workplace leads to a wide variety of viewpoints and business ideas. This helps an organization formulate the best business strategy, with its large pool of different ideas and solutions.

Managing The Challenges Of Diversity in Organizations

An organization should keep a check on the perceptual, cultural and language barriers related to diversity and see that they don’t give way to confusion and low team spirit.
While working towards managing diversities in organizations, attempts should be made to identify the similarities, instead of looking for the differences. This will help the organization set up the basis for a healthy working environment.
Proper steps should be taken to involve every employee while devising and executing diversity initiatives in the workplace.
Take polite and sincere interest about the well being and emotional health of the workers. For the smooth running of any institution, it is very essential to keep the ‘human aspect’ in mind. It should be kept in mind that every person has his or her personal life and it is important to value that and give the person some space.
Respect and value each person’s contribution, overlooking their differences in opinions and beliefs.
An organization should provide an atmosphere of openness and candor. Employees should never be dissuaded from voicing their opinions and ideas, regarding any matter.
Try to create an environment within the institution wherein every person will enjoy working.
An organization should always see that it promotes diversity in managerial and leading positions.
Organizations can also arrange training, in order to improve policies and procedures related to diversity.

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