Diversity and Multiculturalism

Posted: December 22nd, 2022

Diversity and Multiculturalism

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Abstract

Many organizations nowadays switch their attention to embracing diversity and the concepts of multiculturalism to create the impression that the business does not discriminate against its consumers, workers, and other stakeholders. Businesses should start by knowing the differences between diversity and multiculturalism before understanding the merits and demerits associated with such mixed interactions. Even though a diversified workplace presents communication hurdles and could increase the chances of witnessing conflicts, workers get the opportunity to improve their creativity, and become aware of other cultural practices and beliefs. The many advantages associated with diversity should encourage business leaders to embrace diversity management to achieve effective interaction with each other.

Diversity and Multiculturalism

Many businesses today focus on building diversity at the place of work because of the increased effects of globalization. Diversity in the workplace appears to be a trend in many offices nowadays, with employers hiring workers from different cultures, ages, educational backgrounds, political views, religions, and genders. The U.S., for the initial time, developed the need to advance workplace diversity in the 1960s and 1970s (Mathis & Jackson, 2006). President John Kennedy ratified a President’s Committee on Equal Employment Prospect in 1961 intending to finish discrimination in the workplace by the state. The enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 introduced more regulations on how to curb discrimination in any context (Mathis & Jackson, 2006). The advancement of diversity at the workplace continued even further, with the state and businesses creating policies to promote equal employment opportunities. The change in perception regarding recruiting workers served as the turning point because many firms succeeded in battling the differences occurring due to differences in skin color, nationality, and the human race (Mathis & Jackson, 2006). The changes resulted in the adoption of the principle that fairness is, and treating everyone is paramount. The study explores how diversity differs from multiculturalism and elaborates on the merits, and demerits diversified workplaces are likely to encounter. Even though businesses might experience some adverse effects by embracing diversity, the positive results are essential in fostering excellent performance and excellence at the organization.

Differences between Diversity and Multiculturalism

Scholars use different words to describe diversity, but they all imply the same meaning. Diversity means the real or perceived variations between people. The exceptions include but are not limited to religion, gender, socioeconomic status, race, and sexual orientation, among others (Amaliyah, 2015). Diversity could also entail bringing people with different attitudes, values, personal traits, skills, and abilities together. The concept encompasses respect and acceptance and implies that each person is unique. Businesses embracing diversity need to understand that diversity entails an exploration of the distinctions in a nurturing, positive, and safe manner (Amaliyah, 2015). Moreover, such institutions should know diversity is about caring for each other and surpassing simple tolerance to celebrating and embracing the vast dimensions of diversity embedded within each person. Scholars exploring diversity often categorize the concept into two dimensions (Thomas & Ely, 2016). The primary facet such as gender, age, sexual orientation, among others, exhibits the critical variations between various people. The primary difference has the most influence on first encounters, and it is easy to notice because it acts as the filter through which individuals view the world. The secondary dimension, on the other hand, entails features such as geographical location, religion, income, and education, among others, and is usually not easy to recognize during the first meeting and can even transform throughout the encounters (Thomas & Ely, 2016). The secondary dimension of diversity only becomes evident following increased interactions between individuals.

The primary difference between diversity and multiculturalism is the latter is more intricate than merely identifying the differences or diversity that exists in a society. Multiculturalism pays more attention to respecting, understanding, inclusiveness, and admitting that unequal power exists in society. Multiculturalism explains the way a community handles its cultural diversity based on the assumption that members of dissimilar cultures can interact peacefully (Patrick & Kumar, 2012). The concept expresses the perception that society has features that promote preservation, respect, and encouragement for cultural diversity. Multiculturalism focuses on the manner an organization handles cultural diversity at the community and national level through the creation of policies that advocate for fair treatment of different ethnicities (Patrick & Kumar, 2012). Multiculturalism could either occur naturally through migration or artificially when different cultures come together following a legislative order or decree. Supporters of multiculturalism think that people should maintain some components of their cultural practices, whereas critics believe the concept affects the social order by weakening the influence and uniqueness of the predominant culture (Patrick & Kumar, 2012). A multicultural society brings people from different nationalities, ethnicities, and races, and people try to retain, celebrate, and pass down their distinct cultural practices, traditions, behaviors, arts, languages, and ways of life.

The Pros of Diversity in the Workplace

Promoting diversity at the place of work presents numerous benefits that push organizational leaders to embrace the concept of diversity management to foster interaction among people from diverse backgrounds. Diversity management includes adopting mechanisms that enhance ensure workers relate to each other without looking at their differences (Amaliyah, 2015). Such arrangements may involve forming affirmative action programs, offering support to minority groups, and resolving employee conflicts depending on their traits and characteristics. Many businesses usually embrace diversity management when the firm starts to expand to hire workers who are diverse in their ethnicities, sexual orientations, and national origin (Amaliyah, 2015). Nonetheless, even SMEs nowadays focus on promoting diversity, knowing that fusing employees has significant effects on the company’s bottom line.

One of the significant advantages of diversity promotes synergy that develops between individuals from diverse cultures and backgrounds. The synergy promotes collaboration among different groups, which brings about creativity. Workers from the same background and share similar experiences will give ideas that are the same, which makes it challenging to come up with innovative insights when every employee approaches issues with the same perception (Amaliyah, 2015). Diversity serves as an influential component in the contemporary business environment because it enables managers to attain a variety of viewpoints that can produce new and suitable solutions for more complex issues (Amaliyah, 2015). Many organizations nowadays yearn to be more creative in their functions, yet they lower their reach to it when they pay little attention to creating a diversified workforce.

The other advantage of diversity is it creates an excellent reputation for the company because more people want to see work environments that promote mixture. A majority of employees in the U.S. nowadays want to be part of an organization that hires a diversified workforce to increase their chances of learning other cultures and beliefs (Amaliyah, 2015). Workers are likely to feel dull and boring when they share the same space and interact with the same people every day. The workers may not see the need to go to work when they may not have anything new to experience, and the consistency of reporting to work may go down.

More fundamentally, diversity helps the organization lower the costs it could use to hire consultants on matters regarding diversity management. Further, embracing diversity increases the organization’s competitive advantage, which puts the firm at an appropriate position of competing locally and internationally (Foma, 2014). The employees from different backgrounds may provide valuable insight on what it takes to handle such a workforce, and the company gets the chance to save the money it could hire professionals to manage diversity.

Organizations may benefit from diversity because the concept helps to overcome the biasness towards hiring male employees. A joint study between Harvard and Princeton University discovered that the number of male workers surpasses that of women by a considerable margin, which causes gender disparity at the place of work. The increased urge to hire more female employees, however, does not imply that the bias in hiring female workers would go away overnight because a survey by Thomas and Ely (2016) discovered that more businesses still have higher numbers of male employees. Google’s workforce, for example, comprised of 71% male as recently as 2016. Thomas and Ely (2016) further report that only 2% of Google’s workforce is African American, while just 3% of its tech staff belongs to the Hispanic community. It is not only Google that still has to refine its workforce to achieve diversity, but many other large organizations as well. Failing to form a diversified workforce in major companies could affect the attempts by small to medium enterprises to embrace multiculturalism. Such leading companies as Google should set a good example by recruiting workers from diverse backgrounds to overcome the biasness towards hiring individual workers because of their gender, race, religion, or any other distinguishing factors.

Apart from the organization that benefits through diversity, society stands a chance of gaining when the business hires more female employees. Foma (2014) writes that the national economy expands when diversity is a point of emphasis in businesses; the national economy enjoys some benefits. Hiring more women, for example, helps to address job shortages at the international, national, regional, and local levels. Foma (2014) even finds that developing a global campaign on hiring more women would eradicate poverty. The society would also benefit by hiring people with disabilities and training them to become competent in their work. The society is likely to benefit through such diversified ways of hiring workers because more people are likely to secure jobs regardless of their nature.

The Cons of Diversity in the Workplace

Even as organizations strive to build diversity at the place of work, it is vital to consider the possible limitations that could arise when workers from backgrounds come together. One of the challenges many businesses experience is communication hurdles because workers from different ethnicities and backgrounds may not speak the same language (Amaliyah, 2015). A good example is in the use of the word “pants” because whereas the term refers to trousers or jeans in the U.S., the same word means underwear in the UK (Amaliyah, 2015). Such communication barriers derail work progress, and organizations may have to part with a lot of money training workers on how to improve their interaction with one another. Unfortunately, the communication hurdles do not only affect interaction within the organization but also harm worker relationship with buyers, a situation that could affect organizational performance and revenue generation.

Many organizations are yet to embrace diversity even as the call to recruit workers from different walks continues to stiffen. Many American firms, for example, still hire male workers to hold top-most positions, which derail the efforts to achieve diversity. Many organizations even hire workers from particular races or tribes as a way of preventing problems that could occur due to ethnical, religious, or ideological differences (Amaliyah, 2015). The only way for employers to achieve diversity is to overcome society’s preconceived perceptions regarding gender variations to make a genuinely diverse workplace (Amaliyah, 2015). The government, for example, may help to overcome the notion that only male employees deserve better work positions by assisting women to initiate businesses through financial grants and loans.

Business leaders need to watch out on the effects of diversity at the workplace to ensure the coming together of workers from diverse backgrounds does not instigate resignations. Thomas and Ely (2016) inform that workers sometimes can become uncomfortable serving in a diverse workplace that they choose to quit the job rather than supporting the initiative. The increased resignations by workers who find it hard to work in highly diversified environments force business leaders to put up with the high costs of hiring and training new employees (Thomas & Ely, 2016). Even though getting new workers may reduce prejudice at the workplace, the organization could experience severe financial constraints if it is not stable enough or could lose valuable workers who have advanced skills and competence.

The organization stands a chance of dealing with more conflicts when workers come from diverse backgrounds. The workers may develop differing views because of the ideological differences, or because of racial variations at the workplace. The conflict may arise when one cultural group feels dominant over the other, or when highly qualified workers belittle employees with relatively lower qualifications (Thomas & Ely, 2016). Diversity could also cause increased conflicts in the workplace when some employees the leadership approaches do not consider their desires and interests. Thomas and Ely (2016) give the example of the U.S., where many workers quit their jobs because they feel the methods their leaders embrace are inappropriate and less likely to promote their interests. Diversity could lead to conflicts and dissatisfaction when workers respond differently to the motivational approaches the leaders use to increase the employees’ desire to serve (Thomas & Ely, 2016). Whereas some workers could prefer particular motivational strategies to others, some may have a contrary opinion, which may create some misunderstanding. Managers have no option but to deal with such issues, and when the leaders fail to adopt the right intervention mechanisms, it becomes hard to attain smooth operations. The administrators may use more time settling the disputes leaving little time to manage contracts and projects.

Conclusion

The analysis expounds on the concepts of diversity and multiculturalism and shows that even as many companies strive to build a diversified work environment, they need to watch out for some of the demerits that come with hiring workers from diverse backgrounds. The analysis shows that whereas diversity entails recruiting workers belonging to different races, religious groups, political factions, or social class, multiculturalism encompasses adopting mechanisms that would promote interaction among workers from different walks of life. Businesses work towards embracing diversity management because of the numerous benefits that come with diversifying the workforce. Synergy develops in diversified settings, which creates the chance to enhance creativity among employees. More organizations focus on hiring workers from diverse backgrounds to build an excellent reputation for the company because more people in the highly globalized world want to associate with groups that embrace everyone regardless of their affiliations. The other benefits of diversity include increased urge to hire a diverse workforce rather than recruiting more male workers, and improvement in the society when the less privileged groups such as women and the disabled get more chances to work in various positions. The company, however, may witness communication barriers, increased resignations, and more conflicts. It is also worrying that many big and small organizations are yet to diversify the workforce despite the increased urge to recruit employees from different backgrounds. It is upon business leaders to embrace mechanisms that would promote diversity at the place of work to achieve the set goals and objectives without much constraint.

References

Amaliyah, B. (2015). The importance of workplace diversity management. International Journal of Sciences: Basic and Applied Research, 17(2), 175-182.

Foma, E. (2014). Impact of workplace diversity. Review of Integrative Business & Economics, 3(1), 382-390.

Mathis, R. L., & Jackson, J. H. (2006). Human resource management. Jakarta: Salemba Empat.

Patrick, H., & Kumar, V. (2012). Managing workplace diversity: Issues and challenges. SAGE Open, 2, 1-15.

Thomas, D. A., & Ely, J. (2016). Making differences matter: A new paradigm for diversity management. Harvard business Review, 2, 79-90.