The increase in the diverse populations amongst workplaces should result into the increase of comfort amongst employees, customers and suppliers from various cultures and ethnic groups. This atmosphere of comfort can be created only if the organization can successfully manage the many issues of diversity. Certain aspects and factors should be considered by organization to achieve a successful diverse workplace environment.
If employees that have a similar nature work together, there will be at more ease and therefore prove to be more productive. Employees who differ from others according to some prominent characteristic-race, sexual category, way of life, age, or religion, etc may be victims of the dominant group. This characteristically damages the former kind of employee’s self-confidence, efficiency, customer relations, income resource, etc.
Diversity application is necessary in organizations for attracting and retaining diverse customers. Diversity applications major role is in enhancing decision-making powers and increasing stakeholder goodwill. Therefore, its importance should not be neglected. In order to understand the nature of diversity one must initially understand skills required for managing diversity.
Diversity is majorly categorized into four layers:
1. Internal Personality Dimension.
2. Unchanging External Dimension.
3. Evolving External Dimension.
4. Organizational Dimension.
1. Internal Personality Dimensions:
One category of employees is taken according to their psychological profile. This is simply regarded as the internal personality. The most admired personality assessment tool is the Myers Briggs type indicator (MBTI).
MBTI tool is based on four dimensions, each with a pair of ranges:
· Introvert versus Extrovert
· Sensing versus Intuition,
· Thinking versus Feeling
· Perceiving versus Judging
Each MBTI profile has different pros and cons in terms of management style, mutual cooperation, and clash resolution.
2. Unchanging External Dimensions:
Employee categorization can be done according to outer characteristics. Such characteristics are those that remain unchanged throughout life such as; Caucasian, African-American, female, sexuality of the employee, etc.
3.Evolving External Dimensions:
Employees can be categorized according to evolving external characteristics as well as unchanging ones. External characteristics that evolve over time include age, height, weight, religion, education, physical ability, marital status, income level, and geographic location.
Evolving Outer and unchanging characteristics can be a cause of employee categorization. These evolving characteristics over time include time, tallness, heaviness, creed, schooling, physical ability, marriage, earnings level, and geographic location.
A young person is categorized in an organization and treated accordingly whereas the same person in old age is categorized into a different category and treated accordingly.
4. Organizational Dimensions:
Another cause of categorization is due to difference in organizational status. These particular characteristics can either be unchanging or evolving. It may include the hierarchical status, work substance, organizational sector, and precedence on the basis of experience. Some employees are categorized as the non-management and others as management.
One practical observation was seen at the ”in group”. Enron consisted of Gas Bank Division recruits having degrees in economics or finances. Affiliates of other diverse populations were anticipated to be subservient to them.
