Diversity policies are aimed

THE CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITY OF WORKPLACE DIVERSITY

Diversity policies are aimed at acknowledging the fact that employees are unique individuals and may differ in terms of gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, disability and age. The need for this may be attributed to the rise of anti-discrimination legislation in many countries and pressure from civil rights activist groups and employee unions for employers to adhere to legislations on equality. Recent legislations have covered issues of age of employees, females in leadership positions, maternity leave, flexible work arrangement for parents, special working hours for religious purposes, racism in the selection hiring process and positive discrimination to mention a few. In countries with large racial diversity, such as South Africa and the United States, quota schemes have been setup to manage diversity.

Diversity management, ensures that organizations are not discriminating against current or potential employees on issues that are not related to the work they are doing or the job for which they have applied. This means that certain important values, such as trust and inclusion must exist within the organization and that individual differences must be valued and celebrated at all levels (Chryssides and Kaler, 1996 p. 89). In their policy statement, URENCO (2018) identify improved employee engagement, motivation and increased effectiveness at all levels as benefits of implementing a sound diversity policy.

While diversity management seems like the way forward for organizations to keep developing their competitive advantage, which rests heavily within its human resource base which would come from harnessing the individual talents of a diverse workforce, it is not without challenges (Kirton and Greene, 2010). Bamberger, Biron and Meshoulam (2014) have discussed some of these challenges as follows:

While looking at the contribution of minority groups, there could be an imbalance where the development or implementation of the policies might be detrimental to the welfare of majority groups which can result in friction.

Secondly, most people believe that having a diverse work force leads to enhanced organizational performance, however, unlike many other HR policies, it is difficult to measure and record the correlation between having a diverse workforce and business performance, although there are surveys that have shown a significant number of managers believe there is a positive correlation between the two variables.

Last but not least, like many other HR policies, daily implementation would involve line managers which can create inconsistencies due to cultural and individual differences and differences in management style, this can undermine the entire exercise.

An HR policy on diversity management will communicate the value the organization places on operating in a healthy environment. It will lead to a reduction in conflict situations at the workplace and an increase in the level of perceived fairness. It would also reduce discrimination based on age and the general perception among employees that older workforce does not contribute as much to their organizations (Kunze, Boehm & Bruch 2013). It can also save the organization from heavy lawsuits that many organizations have suffered due to perceived discrimination and the bad press it comes with, which affects the business adversely. Most notably, it will ensure that the organization is a good position to compete with a diverse and strong inimitable human resource base.

References

Bamberger, P.A., Biron, M. & Meshoulam, I. (2014) Human resource strategy: formulation, implementation and impact, 2nd ed. London: Routledge. Chapter 9, ‘Diversity and intergenerational strategies’.

Chryssides, G. & Kaler, J. (1996) Essentials of business ethics. London: CIPD.

Kirton, G. & Greene, A.M. (2010) The dynamics of managing diversity: a critical approach, 3rd ed. Oxford: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann. Chapter 8, ‘Equality and diversity policy and practice in organisations’

Kunze, F., Boehm, S. & Bruch, H. (2013) ‘Organizational performance consequences of age diversity: inspecting the role of diversity‐friendly HR policies and top managers’ negative age stereotypes’, Journal of Management Studies, 50 (3), pp. 413-442.

URENCO(2018) Diversity & Inclusion Policy Statement. Available online at : https://urenco.com/people-and-careers/diversity-inclusion-policy-statement/. Accessed on 25 August 2018.

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