Managing Diversity

Diversity can be define as acknowledging, understanding, accepting, and valuing the difference among people with respect to age, class, race, ethnicity gender, disabilities, and etc. (Esty et al. 1995). A key to growth in a very competitive business world is diversity management. American businesses can no longer have a lack of cultural intelligence. Companies now cannot think of diversity as making numbers, but how they treat each individuals. Diversity Management in the new workplace is a time sensitive business imperative because managing diversity staff can feel frighten. Trying to get it right will be a lot of work. “Managing diversity is a significant organizational challenge, so managerial skills must adapt to accommodate a multicultural work environment” (Green, Lopez, Wysocki, Kepner, Farnsworth, Clark). To have growth in your employees the business have to have training and development programs. Companies now have to embrace and look for different ways to become an all-in organization to have diversity.

Demographic changes in the workplace is changing because families are changing and mothers/women are being involve more and more into the workplace. Lately there has been many dialogue about the significance of establishing a diverse workplace if you want to hire more women, different race, and people with disable. “Effective managers are aware that certain skills are necessary for creating a successful, diverse workforce” (Green, Lopez, Wysocki, Kepner, Farnsworth, Clark). Women in the leadership has changed overtime. Leadership roles of women has increase with many major companies. Companies needs to investigate ways to retain and better keep a gender-diverse workplace that will need policies and culture to help develop and support women employees.

To retain and keep women in the workplace flexibility in the workplace is highly valued because most women are the main caretaker of the family. A great policy that Amazon have is the Maternity Leave and Parental Leave. With the maternity leave the mother will have four weeks of medical leave before the baby and then ten weeks after the baby is born all with pay. If you are employ with Amazon for a year you will qualify for a parental leave with is six weeks. The mother can come to work and work for a few hours then go home to the baby or just stay home for those extra six weeks. The parental leave is not for the mother, but also for the father. Flexibly at the workplace is a great benefit to have if the company want to retain women employees.

Allow women to have a voice in the culture of the workplace. Sometimes women are less likely to speak or get interrupted by men. To ensure everyone have the comfort to voice their opinions create rules and promote team meeting so that everyone can express their opinions. Everyone want to be heard in a workplace so they can create new ideas for the company.  Expressing what right or wrong with the company will keep women at the workplace.

A good structural harassment policy would be a benefit to keep women. Though this may seem the norm, but it’s important to keep in mind that sexism is not only sexual harassment or abuse. Making sexist jokes, rude comments, and cursing should be ban from the work environment. “Diversity in the workplace can reduce lawsuits and increase marketing opportunities, recruitment, creativity, and business image” (Green, Lopez, Wysocki, Kepner, Farnsworth, Clark). There should be a clear policy for reporting and no repercussion for reporting bad behavior. Women in a very structural environment where policies are taking serious women will stay.

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