Workforce Diversity Research Paper
WORFORCE DIVERSITY
Eric Hernandez
National University
Introduction
“It’s hard to define what diversity is because everyone has an opinion.”
- Goldman Sachs diversity ad, 2000.
People are different, that’s a fact. We live in a diverse world, filled with people of different cultures, nationalities, backgrounds and sex. The purpose of this paper is just to give a brief explanation on the importance diversity in the workplace, its advantages and why companies need to embrace it rather than ignoring it. Diversity is a very broad concept, and is not meant to be confused with equality; therefore we need to define it first. Diversity includes acceptance, respect and understanding that every individual is unique and different. …show more content…
These differences can be in the dimension of race, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical attributes and abilities, religious believes and/or other believes. Requires understanding each person and involving tolerance in embracing those differences within each individual. (Queensborough Community College, n.d) Ron Glover (Chief Diversity Officer IBM) said, “Innovation is about looking at complex problems and bringing new views to the table. Diversity has allowed IBM to be innovative and successful for 100 years and to work across lines of differences in 172 countries, amongst 427,000 employees.” There are three big projected changes in diversity: the average age of the workforce will increase, workforce will be more diverse in racial and gender composition and immigration will affect the size and diversity of the workforce. (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart & Wright,2013)
Diversity in the workforce is expected to increase from 2008-2018. Hispanic groups and Asian groups growth rates are expected to be higher tan other groups. Figure 1 shows expected labor projections to 2018.
Figure 1: Expected Labor 2018
How companies manage diversity is crucial to grow in todays heavy competitive global markets. Now is not about companies to meet their diversity percentages to comply with laws and policies, but how they threat people in general need to be part of their business model. Organizations that look for global relevancy must embrace diversity. (Llopis, 2011)
History
Is hard to define when the diversity in the workforce started, although the first modern equal employment legislation was introduced in Congress in 1943 and in 1948, President Truman signed the following order regarding diversity in the armed forces: Executive Order 9981, states in pertinent part: “It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin”.
Since then is been a continuous debate, there’s the advocates that want diversity incorporated as a base in their core values and there are the opponents that fear that too much legislation on this matter could be interpreted to require employers with diversity imbalance to give priority to minorities. In the 1960´s there was a lot of changes tied to the civil rights movement. This legislation included parts that prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, nationality and age. In 1987, then Secretary of labor, William Brock directed study economic demographic trends. The findings where impressive, the study highlighted some trends that are going to be discussed in more detail later in this paper. Some of this trends suggested that diversity in the workforce is important if companies were to remain competitive and able to attract workers. After this, companies started to implement efforts to create a case on diversity. (McCormick, …show more content…
2007)
Factors affecting diversity
The study that Secretary Brock commissioned, as we discussed earlier, became the landmark for the book Workforce 2000 – Work and Workers in the Twenty First Century (“Workforce 2000”). This book highlighted five factors that impact directly the labor force and motivates initiatives on diversity in the workplace. (McCormick, 2007)
1. The population and the workforce will grow more slowly than at any time since the 1930s.
2. The average age of the population and the workforce will rise, and the pool of young workers entering the labor market will shrink.
3. More women will enter the workforce.
4.Minorities will be a larger share of the new entrants into the labor force.
5. Legal and illegal immigrants will represent the largest share of the increase in the population and the workforce since World War 1. (Judy & D’Amico,1987)
These factors suggested, as we mentioned earlier, that diversifying the workforce was an economic imperative if companies were to remain competitive. As a result of this, companies started focusing their efforts on evaluating how feasible are to implement approaches to incorporate diversity in their workplace. Companies started measuring diversity in terms of employee turnover, retention rates, productivity, efficiency, public image, revenue and market share. Initiatives were expanded dramatically to add more flexibility to standard approaches like flexible schedules, emergency daycare, flexibility in dress requirements, non-standard career paths, retirement and domestic partner benefits. Also companies started to apply principles to areas outside the work context, particularly their customers. They started to accept in their business models how diversity, no only in their workforce, but in general started to affect the way they conduct business. Minorities started to have more buying power, and getting more rights that expanded their benefits. Companies simply started to take advantage to the new markets, product on the effect of these factors, and began capitalizing on them. (McCormick, 2007)
One of the big factors is the growing migration of people from different countries. In recent years globalization have creates an increasing number of people to move from their native countries to other places just for work. These movements have resulted in greater ethnic, social and cultural diversity. With all this migration comes integration, and this is key to manage in order to have a controlled workforce and one that focus on the tasks instead of the backlash that comes with having a multiculturalist workplace. Companies need to create policies, rules and procedures in order to work with the integration process, which it could be very difficult for some employees. Discrimination and stigmatism been two of the biggest problems employees with different backgrounds have to deal with and problems that the company need to deal with in order to have an environment that promotes respect and equality.
Benefits
After analyzing the trends, companies have to react to the reality of diversity. But besides dealing with this reality, Why is important and beneficial to a company to embrace diversity? Obviously there are always challenges; changing corporate culture is a hard task. It will definitely involve some learning curve and adjustments along the way. Employees understanding on new policies can bring a lot of initial backlash and discrimination claims. Because employees are human, and they have their own notions about diversity and their opinions are often very strong. But there are also a lot of benefits in the short and long term for a company to embrace diversity. Diversity initiatives create closer ties between it employees, customers and communities it serves. These ties can generate market growth, and consumer loyalty. These initiatives can expand the candidate potential, reduce attrition and improve HR planning. (123helpme.com, n.d) A diverse workforce can capture greater share of the market. Bringing together employees from different backgrounds, experiences and different ideas, can address more directly a diverse consumer. The ability to recruit more qualified workforce, to pick from the best and brightest not matter the location of the individual. Is a fact that businesses that lack diversity see higher employee turnover rates than the ones that value diversity. Environments that don’t foster hostility between employees are more likely to keep their employees. Two of the biggest benefits of diversity are the creativity and innovation that promotes. When you have employees with different qualifications, different backgrounds and experiences, it will provide more and different solutions for specific problems. Different methods, approaches can definitely help a company differentiate from the competition. Of 321 large global enterprises—companies with at least $500 million in annual revenue—surveyed in a Forbes magazine study in 2011, 85 percent agreed or strongly agreed that diversity is crucial to fostering innovation in the workplace. (Kerby & Burns, 2012) And there’s a lot more benefits that we can keep adding to the list that simply help a company compete in a very high demanding market, and help achieve a company´s true potential.
Summary Some people may confuse affirmative action with diversity. There’s a difference between affirmative action and diversity in the workplace. Affirmative action is often imposed in an organization; diversity in the other side is voluntary and is meant to provide specific benefits to the organization. Diversity is not limited to gender and sex, is a more broad and inclusive definition. There are a number of laws and regulations created through the years in order to help protect diversity not only in the workplace but also in the community as a whole. Although is gone a long way since the 1930´s it remains an ambiguous and misunderstood concept to a lot most that can benefit from it. The trends and tendencies are there, diversity is not going anywhere, is only going to grow. Companies that don’t embraces and don’t take action, not only are going to miss from its benefits, but also might not be able to compete in the business market place.
References:
123helpme.com.
(n.d). Retrieved August 4,2014, from http://www.123helpme.com/diversity- view.asp?id=220814
Judy, R., & D’Amico, C. (1987). Workforce 2000 – Work and Workers for the 21st Century. Hudson Institute.
Kerby, S., & Burns, C. (2012). The Top 10 Economic Facts of Diversity in the Workplace. Center for American Progress. Retrieved from http://www.americanprogress.org
/issues/labor/news/2012/07/12/11900/the-top-10- economic-facts-of- diversity
-in-the-workplace/
Llopis, G. (2011). Diversity Management Is the Key to Growth: Make It Authentic. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/glennllopis/2011/06/13/diversity- management-is-the-key-to-growth-make-it-authentic/
McCormick, K. (2007). The evolution of workplace diversity. State Bar of Texas. Retrieved from http://www.texasbarcle.com/materials/events/6369/4079_01.pdf
Noe, R. A., Hollenbeck, J. R., Gerhart, B., & Wright, P. M. (2013). Human resource management: Gaining a competitive advantage (8th ed.). New York, McGrawHill.
Queensborough Community College (n.d). Definition for Diversity. Retrieved from
http://www.qcc.cuny.edu/diversity/definition.html
Eric Hernandez
National University
Introduction
“It’s hard to define what diversity is because everyone has an opinion.”
- Goldman Sachs diversity ad, 2000.
People are different, that’s a fact. We live in a diverse world, filled with people of different cultures, nationalities, backgrounds and sex. The purpose of this paper is just to give a brief explanation on the importance diversity in the workplace, its advantages and why companies need to embrace it rather than ignoring it. Diversity is a very broad concept, and is not meant to be confused with equality; therefore we need to define it first. Diversity includes acceptance, respect and understanding that every individual is unique and different. …show more content…
These differences can be in the dimension of race, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical attributes and abilities, religious believes and/or other believes. Requires understanding each person and involving tolerance in embracing those differences within each individual. (Queensborough Community College, n.d) Ron Glover (Chief Diversity Officer IBM) said, “Innovation is about looking at complex problems and bringing new views to the table. Diversity has allowed IBM to be innovative and successful for 100 years and to work across lines of differences in 172 countries, amongst 427,000 employees.” There are three big projected changes in diversity: the average age of the workforce will increase, workforce will be more diverse in racial and gender composition and immigration will affect the size and diversity of the workforce. (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart & Wright,2013)
Diversity in the workforce is expected to increase from 2008-2018. Hispanic groups and Asian groups growth rates are expected to be higher tan other groups. Figure 1 shows expected labor projections to 2018.
Figure 1: Expected Labor 2018
How companies manage diversity is crucial to grow in todays heavy competitive global markets. Now is not about companies to meet their diversity percentages to comply with laws and policies, but how they threat people in general need to be part of their business model. Organizations that look for global relevancy must embrace diversity. (Llopis, 2011)
History
Is hard to define when the diversity in the workforce started, although the first modern equal employment legislation was introduced in Congress in 1943 and in 1948, President Truman signed the following order regarding diversity in the armed forces: Executive Order 9981, states in pertinent part: “It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin”.
Since then is been a continuous debate, there’s the advocates that want diversity incorporated as a base in their core values and there are the opponents that fear that too much legislation on this matter could be interpreted to require employers with diversity imbalance to give priority to minorities. In the 1960´s there was a lot of changes tied to the civil rights movement. This legislation included parts that prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, nationality and age. In 1987, then Secretary of labor, William Brock directed study economic demographic trends. The findings where impressive, the study highlighted some trends that are going to be discussed in more detail later in this paper. Some of this trends suggested that diversity in the workforce is important if companies were to remain competitive and able to attract workers. After this, companies started to implement efforts to create a case on diversity. (McCormick, …show more content…
2007)
Factors affecting diversity
The study that Secretary Brock commissioned, as we discussed earlier, became the landmark for the book Workforce 2000 – Work and Workers in the Twenty First Century (“Workforce 2000”). This book highlighted five factors that impact directly the labor force and motivates initiatives on diversity in the workplace. (McCormick, 2007)
1. The population and the workforce will grow more slowly than at any time since the 1930s.
2. The average age of the population and the workforce will rise, and the pool of young workers entering the labor market will shrink.
3. More women will enter the workforce.
4.Minorities will be a larger share of the new entrants into the labor force.
5. Legal and illegal immigrants will represent the largest share of the increase in the population and the workforce since World War 1. (Judy & D’Amico,1987)
These factors suggested, as we mentioned earlier, that diversifying the workforce was an economic imperative if companies were to remain competitive. As a result of this, companies started focusing their efforts on evaluating how feasible are to implement approaches to incorporate diversity in their workplace. Companies started measuring diversity in terms of employee turnover, retention rates, productivity, efficiency, public image, revenue and market share. Initiatives were expanded dramatically to add more flexibility to standard approaches like flexible schedules, emergency daycare, flexibility in dress requirements, non-standard career paths, retirement and domestic partner benefits. Also companies started to apply principles to areas outside the work context, particularly their customers. They started to accept in their business models how diversity, no only in their workforce, but in general started to affect the way they conduct business. Minorities started to have more buying power, and getting more rights that expanded their benefits. Companies simply started to take advantage to the new markets, product on the effect of these factors, and began capitalizing on them. (McCormick, 2007)
One of the big factors is the growing migration of people from different countries. In recent years globalization have creates an increasing number of people to move from their native countries to other places just for work. These movements have resulted in greater ethnic, social and cultural diversity. With all this migration comes integration, and this is key to manage in order to have a controlled workforce and one that focus on the tasks instead of the backlash that comes with having a multiculturalist workplace. Companies need to create policies, rules and procedures in order to work with the integration process, which it could be very difficult for some employees. Discrimination and stigmatism been two of the biggest problems employees with different backgrounds have to deal with and problems that the company need to deal with in order to have an environment that promotes respect and equality.
Benefits
After analyzing the trends, companies have to react to the reality of diversity. But besides dealing with this reality, Why is important and beneficial to a company to embrace diversity? Obviously there are always challenges; changing corporate culture is a hard task. It will definitely involve some learning curve and adjustments along the way. Employees understanding on new policies can bring a lot of initial backlash and discrimination claims. Because employees are human, and they have their own notions about diversity and their opinions are often very strong. But there are also a lot of benefits in the short and long term for a company to embrace diversity. Diversity initiatives create closer ties between it employees, customers and communities it serves. These ties can generate market growth, and consumer loyalty. These initiatives can expand the candidate potential, reduce attrition and improve HR planning. (123helpme.com, n.d) A diverse workforce can capture greater share of the market. Bringing together employees from different backgrounds, experiences and different ideas, can address more directly a diverse consumer. The ability to recruit more qualified workforce, to pick from the best and brightest not matter the location of the individual. Is a fact that businesses that lack diversity see higher employee turnover rates than the ones that value diversity. Environments that don’t foster hostility between employees are more likely to keep their employees. Two of the biggest benefits of diversity are the creativity and innovation that promotes. When you have employees with different qualifications, different backgrounds and experiences, it will provide more and different solutions for specific problems. Different methods, approaches can definitely help a company differentiate from the competition. Of 321 large global enterprises—companies with at least $500 million in annual revenue—surveyed in a Forbes magazine study in 2011, 85 percent agreed or strongly agreed that diversity is crucial to fostering innovation in the workplace. (Kerby & Burns, 2012) And there’s a lot more benefits that we can keep adding to the list that simply help a company compete in a very high demanding market, and help achieve a company´s true potential.
Summary Some people may confuse affirmative action with diversity. There’s a difference between affirmative action and diversity in the workplace. Affirmative action is often imposed in an organization; diversity in the other side is voluntary and is meant to provide specific benefits to the organization. Diversity is not limited to gender and sex, is a more broad and inclusive definition. There are a number of laws and regulations created through the years in order to help protect diversity not only in the workplace but also in the community as a whole. Although is gone a long way since the 1930´s it remains an ambiguous and misunderstood concept to a lot most that can benefit from it. The trends and tendencies are there, diversity is not going anywhere, is only going to grow. Companies that don’t embraces and don’t take action, not only are going to miss from its benefits, but also might not be able to compete in the business market place.
References:
123helpme.com.
(n.d). Retrieved August 4,2014, from http://www.123helpme.com/diversity- view.asp?id=220814
Judy, R., & D’Amico, C. (1987). Workforce 2000 – Work and Workers for the 21st Century. Hudson Institute.
Kerby, S., & Burns, C. (2012). The Top 10 Economic Facts of Diversity in the Workplace. Center for American Progress. Retrieved from http://www.americanprogress.org
/issues/labor/news/2012/07/12/11900/the-top-10- economic-facts-of- diversity
-in-the-workplace/
Llopis, G. (2011). Diversity Management Is the Key to Growth: Make It Authentic. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/glennllopis/2011/06/13/diversity- management-is-the-key-to-growth-make-it-authentic/
McCormick, K. (2007). The evolution of workplace diversity. State Bar of Texas. Retrieved from http://www.texasbarcle.com/materials/events/6369/4079_01.pdf
Noe, R. A., Hollenbeck, J. R., Gerhart, B., & Wright, P. M. (2013). Human resource management: Gaining a competitive advantage (8th ed.). New York, McGrawHill.
Queensborough Community College (n.d). Definition for Diversity. Retrieved from
http://www.qcc.cuny.edu/diversity/definition.html