Managing diversity is not a new area. As early as in 1960’s, diversity was recognized as an area that affects the work/ business environment. Since then, organizations have been trying their best to harness benefits that accrue from their management. The policy that this paper discusses is one of the ways in which an organization can enjoy the benefits that accrue from effective management of diversities. The policy contains both practical and theoretical approaches that the organization can rely on in receiving benefits from diversity. It would be worthwhile to note that this paper does not address all possible diversities.
This is the policy that can be recommended for any organization, department, or existing agency. This policy is a combination of business principles and equality principles. Business principles are the principles that guide and run an organization. They include: respecting the chain of command, fostering of purely business relationships in the workplace, dressing appropriately, adhering to the company’s code of conduct. With regard to equal treatment, developers receive evidence that a company manages all diversities appropriately, and the effect leads to the equal treatment of employees.
This policy would see to it that common diversities, such as gender, race, color, sexual orientation, income, and management status were appropriately dealt with, and that effective techniques were set up and put in place to handle them in the future if they should arise.
The setting up of this policy will be of immense importance in an organization. This is because diversity has become a thorny and persistent issue in America. The legislature involves laws that answer some questions regarding diversity, but from the organizational point of view, it is prudent to come up with a policy to help in diversity management. The same policy should ensure that an organization complies with the law as it aims to manage diversities.
Management of diversity is a crucial part in leadership in that today’s leader should acknowledge the existence of diversity and strive to use it to company’s advantage. While other organizations struggle to figure out what may hamper their success in terms of high employee costs and high employee turnover, the effective leader will take the necessary steps to manage diversities. Another advantage is that this policy will save time for the business leader. This is because all systems will be in place. These will help to cope with diversities that arise, unlike the case where another leader finds a problem he/ she is not able to handle.
Overview of the Policy
This diversity policy is effective because it aims to create a business environment that will create conditions where any emerging diversity will be easy to handle. Under this policy issues of gender, race, religion, management status, and other diversities would be given appropriate attention.
The policy promotes values such as; team work, acceptance of diversities, and promotion trainings aimed at educating employees of the existence of various diversities among them: disability, income, management status, sexual orientation.
The policy, though new, considers the needs of the company. This makes the policy cut to the needs of the organization. This can be an advantage as it addresses the issues that affect the company as an individual. Borrowed policies may not necessarily address the issues of an individual organization.
Background/ Justifications
Diversity simply refers to differences. On a broader perspective, researchers look at diversity as on a remarkably broad scale of subjects, incorporating diversity into various topics, such as Business, Sociology, Science, Technology, and even Communications.
Business diversity arose as it had emerged that there exist differences in race, ethnicity, and gender that call for the ideas of hiring personnel.
Some of the reasons as to why diversity is a paramount subject is because good management of diversity lead to a collaborative workforce as a result of employees appreciating differences among them and maximizing the effect in their daily activities. Another advantage of diversity is that it increases the company’s customer base. It is a result of having a broad talented employee base. With that base, a company charges a diverse workforce that may propel it to globalization. Diversity will also give the company a solid business reputation. Once the company manages diversity to its advantage, it will receive applications from various areas leading to a wider talent selection base.
Mission
It is necessary to promote the acceptance of diversities in the workplace and put in place measures, which ensure that the company can achieve this on a daily basis. This will call for the provision of access to employment opportunities by various diverse groups. It will also call for the commitment to the business environment and equal treatment policies that aim at promoting better relationships and gender equality.
The policy aims at creating and maintaining a varied workforce that does not discriminate race, color, gender, or disability. To support this, a company should use available resources in hiring, training, and promoting qualified staff. The mission aims at ensuring the smooth flow of the company’s activities and that no misunderstanding arises because of differences in people.
Vision
An organization that treats people with respect and focuses on creating an environment conducive to most forms of diversities will certainly succeed. It is vital to ensure a company achieves top business performance. This can be done by recognition of the talented and diverse workforce it has and seeing it as a key component of their success. It creates competitive advantage against other orgatizations. It also creates an environment that encourages innovation and creativity. These are products of having various diversities in the organization. This will have to be harnessed by reliance on the business environment and equal treatment policy.
Goals and Objectives
Employees receive equitable treatment. Favoritism may arise as a result of differences in color, age, gender, or race. The policy will aim at ensuring that a company treats employees fairly and equally for that matter. No employee should receive exceptional treatment because of his or her diversity. The policy should strive to find commonality in different employees. The company should also avoid conventional methods as they may lead to more harm than good, or lead to the creation of new diversities. Departmental identification should be discouraged due to the creation of departmental diversity. As much as possible, employees should be treated as one body of the company.
The business should also engage in conducting in-house promotions. This helps to promote employee career development. The policy will stress on conducting of internal recruitment before providing an external hire. This will mean that the company will advertise internally before advertising externally. In-house promotions boost morale of the company and encourage employee development. Another benefit that the company will reap, as a result of hiring from within, is that it will incur less training costs that will result in a direct saving to the company. Teething problems that accompany change of employees will also be minimized.
The policy of encouraging transparent hiring should clearly indicate various steps that a potential employee should go through in order to qualify for appointment in the organization. However, based on the sensitivity of the issue, it may call for other methods to be incorporated in the existing methods. An example can be interviewing by several managers. A valuable addition would be other employees with whom the potential employee will interact so as to widen the judge base and reduce bias. To ensure best results and success of this method, all panel members should be well trained on issues of diversity.
The company should also ensure fair compensation of employees. This is a highly sensitive issue that saw the creation of the Equal Pay Act (1963) and other bills; all looking to address the same issue of compensation. Though disparities exist, the key word in this case is fairly. One of the policy’s goals should be to see to it that the company can compensate employees fairly, regardless of race, color, or gender. It would be beneficial to note that not all differences can be explained by diversity, but the policy should aim at ironing out those who are clear on diversities causing the differences. Catherine C. Giapponi and Sharlene A. Mcevoy in their book “The legal, ethical, and strategic implications of gender discrimination in compensation” (2006) tackled the issue of compensation as part of diversity.
The company should also recruit individuals with varied diversities. This forms one of the primary goals of the policy. This is because the mission of the policy aims at creating and maintaining a varied workforce of qualified workers. In achieving this, policy should prohibit all forms of discrimination. This should make a step further and even include statements that show the company's commitment to address this issue. The policy should call for words like “equal opportunities for employees” be included in the company’s branding, or on advertisements that the company places.
The company should also seek to engage in community programs. The policy appreciates the fact that it is for a company tto be a part of a larger community. This will also be an example for employees to emulate. This is important because the company should clearly communicate its intentions to the employees.
The company should also yearn to create awareness and training of diversities. The worst enemy of the policy is a lack of awareness. People seem afraid of what they do not know. This calls for the establishment of a vigorous campaign, which aims at educating employees of the various diversities that are around them and also informs them of the steps that the company has taken to manage diversities. It would be prudent to put up signage around the office that maintains these steps. A sign that shows the mission statement and vision of the policy goes a long way in reminding employees of the roles that they have to play.
Moreover, the company should cater for different employee needs. This is a goal that should cover a wide area of employee diversities. Actions needed for achieving this include: setting up mentorship programs, encouraging open communication, providing child care for nursing mothers, and creating support groups for various needs that may arise on a daily basis.
The company should also have diversity committee. Establishing of a diversity committee should be a primary goal of the diversity policy. This committee should be responsible for the success of the policy. To ensure the committee’s formation is proper and excellent, it should draw to membership individuals with various diversities.
The company should allow sexual orientation differences. With the American society encouraging people to proclaim their sexual orientation, the policy needs to focus on allowing differences in sexual orientation in the company.
Action Steps and Evaluation
The company should address all diversities. The policy should aim at addressing various diversities and not just take into consideration several of them. In doing this, it may incorporate a sub-policy. An example is the disabled person’s policy. The company should hire all qualified persons regardless of their physical abilities.
Identifying key diversities affecting the agency and setting up flowcharts to deal with them is essential. The flowchart would act as a magnificent way of tackling recurrent diversity issues.
Grievances should be examined in the process of policy implementation. This is because a policy is not complete until it has heard with policy offenders. All grievances should be investigated, and stern action be taken.
The company should also encourage an open door policy. Thereby, employees will feel that the company cares about them. Another benefit of having the open door policy is that the leader may benefit from an increased employee’s initiative. This may not be possible if the open door policy is not in place.
Another step would be to create a diversity training plan. This would involve assessment of the required level of training. This can easily be identified by conducting a survey using questionnaires. It will help to find out the employees level of awareness with regard to diversity, how does it affect them, and the benefits that accrue from diversity.
After conducting an assessment, it is vital to check the diversities identified by the employees. The company should conduct an analysis of what to change and what to retain in the planned training. It is critical to identify the areas requiring extensive training and those that require minimal training. After that, management of the company should discuss the results and establish a budget to develop the diversity training.
The next step would be to pinpoint objectives of the training. The training should be tasking and should push the employees for thinking “outside the box”. It should also stimulate employees to come up with solutions that will be effective in times of conflict.
Findings from the training need to be documented for further analysis. Once the company conducts training, documents findings, and analyzes the results, it should generate some solutions, which will show areas that the company should focus on in addressing diversity issues.
In evaluating a diversity policy, a company should place a lot of reliance on end results and compare the same to the results prior to the establishment of the policy. With evaluation, it may require conducting interviews with different individuals, who may experience diversity problems. It also involves locating employees of a minority race. It includes engaging the employee in a question and answer session. This helps to identify whether training the company has conducted was positive.
Conclusion
Coming up with a policy of managing diversity should be a wholesome task requiring lots of elaborate planning and execution. It will also call for pulling together various stakeholders in the organization in order to see to it that the policy succeeds. The policy should help to meet set goals, objectives and help in reaching company’s mission and vision. Resources are also essential; which means that the organization will need to consider the implementation of a strategy to manage diversity as an investment with its own budget. With the full backing of the organization, the above policy should turn a success.