Diversity in the Workplace

In today's society, cultural diversity is at the highest point it has ever been. As companies are becoming more diverse, it is becoming more important for them to understand and manage that diversity. People of different backgrounds, races, ages, sex, and/or religions create a diverse workforce. There is an importance of having a diverse workforce in order to provide better performance overall. With a diverse workforce, there arises a need for new management strategies, which require organization leaders and managers to know the differences among their employees and to know how to handle situations involving these differences. As Dr. Sondra Thiederman, a leading expert in workplace diversity, stated, ``whether …show more content…

The management will have to promote minorities to responsible positions in the workplace instead of only promoting those individuals of the more traditional white-male population. Management will have to become effective in communication with all employees and be able to listen to their problems, even if they are of a different background or culture. Over time, management will have to become as diverse as the employee population.
As this relates to the employees, management will have to encourage diverse thinking among those who are not of the minority. There are many aspects to establishing the right attitude in the rest of the department. In the workplace, expectations bias will need to be eliminated. This leads people to expect less productive work or more "goofing off" from certain employees. Management and the employees should expect the best from the workers and given the correct training and resources, those workers can deliver. In the workplace, the use of labels should be strongly discouraged. Labels are words used as powerful weapons against another person or culture. How to refer to people from diverse populations requires some conscious sensitivity. This involves more than not using crude references; it means using words preferred by the people themselves. Such words change over time, the way the term "Negro" gave way to "black" and "African American." "Oriental" has been replaced by