Topic: Workplace diversity

Patrick & Kumar (2010) explore the issue of workplace diversity and assert that people within the organization have a variety of differences in terms of personality, race, age, education, sexual orientation, socio-economic status among other ideologies.  These differences or diversity play a significant role in eradicating discrimination, promoting togetherness, enhancing performances, fostering mutual respect and increasing adaptability (Patrick  & Kumar, 2012).

  However, diversity requires good management since the culture and personality differences may bring conflicting ideas and clash of approaches.  Thus, the organization should manage diversity by valuing the differences and similarities to help employees gain self-development, increase performance and nurture creativity.  In managing diversity in the workplace, managers should understand the barriers to diversity such as prejudice, harassment, discrimination, stereotypes and more (Patrick & Kumar, 2012).  By understanding the barriers, managers will plan and implement the best strategies that will help employees build relationships, and work as a team to achieve organization goals.

             To manage diversity, the organization should create a diversity program that identifies the employees' needs and creates training and mentoring programs for the purpose of strengthening employees' behaviours (Patrick & Kumar, 2012).  In addition to creating a diversity program, the organization should create a culture that supports and increases workplace diversity.  Managers should know that there is a linkage between diversity and culture since the former does not only focus on valuing the differences but it also increases collaboration where employees share experiences regardless of sexual orientation, ethnicity, age, gender and more.  To promote diversity, the organization should create a culture of inclusion to allow employees to develop a sense of belonging and work in an environment where their differences are valued (Patrick & Kumar, 2012).  The authors affirm that in the future, diversity will increase and for this reason, organizations should take immediate actions and be ready to spend resources in order to manage diversity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References 

Patrick, H. A., & Kumar, V. R. (2012). Managing workplace diversity: Issues and

 

Challenges. Sage Open, 2(2), 2158244012444615.

 

Retrieved from: http://diversityfirsttoolkit.org/wpcontent/uploads/2015/07/Managing_Workplace_Diversity_Issues_and_Challenges.pdf