Diversity Climate

Often times, the views and perceptions on diversity is a numbers game that organizations and businesses play in order to be in compliance with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) requirements. Although this is a perception of the reasons for looking at and implementing diversity in the work place, there is a very important deeper reason for diversity in any environment that provides numerous benefits to an entire organization and all the people that make up the organization across the board whether they are minority group, executive officers, middle management, etc. However these benefits do not come just by keeping up with the numbers game of the EEOC. These benefits come when the entire organization and all that manage the organization understand the true importance and significance of having a diverse work place, as well as it's potential benefits and works to actively promote, value, and bring understanding to having a diverse climate.

Along the same note, just having a "high-profile minority" figure does not adequately bring about an adequate environment of diversity and all its benefits. To understand the benefits of a well diversified environment, it is important to understand the culture of an organization and how it works and how diversity improves the overall organization and its effectiveness and well being. Generally, based off what we know about basic human nature is that we we tend to gravitate towards others that are similar to us. An example of this can be seen in a hiring process where hiring managers look at a group of applicants and tend to gravitate towards the applicant that is most similar to themselves. This makes sense since most people enjoy being around people that they are similar to and can easily be around because of those similarities. In this situation, how does this affect the overall organization? Well, if there is a problem in the organization and all the people in the organization who are responsible for solving the problem are all the same; same background, thought process, age, experience, socio-economic status, etc. No matter if there are 50 of these people, it's almost as if there is only one because they each are basically looking at the problem from the same perspective. In an environment with a high diversity climate, there are many different eyes looking at the problem from all different perspectives. From this there are potentially several other solutions for the given problem, and most likely better than one that was from one group of people.

One initial step an organization can take to create this culture and to actively promote this kind of culture and environment is to implement this kind of environment into the upper management and use it in ways similar to the example above.

Actively working to create a workplace that values and respects diversity and under represented minority groups will not only allow those

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