Management may encounter significant challenges in incorporating diverse perspectives in group settings, but managing this diversity in the workplace is essential to success. A team or organization's diversity can include diversity across religion, sex, age, and race, but can also include diversity across work skills or personality types. All of these differences can affect team interactions and performance. Global business demands management that can work in a diverse environment, minimizing friction while capturing the value of different perspectives and skills.
Operating globally
Global business demands management that can work in a diverse environment.
Diversity-Alignment Management Strategies
Due to the wide variety of benefits inherent in employing a global workforce (new perspectives, innovation, localization, unique skill sets, etc.), managers must carefully attune their management strategies in a way that is inclusive and effective. There are a number of management-strategy models to consider in this pursuit.
Define Diversity
First and foremost, diversity must be defined organizationally from the top down and confirmed from the bottom up. This includes, but is not limited to, incorporating diversity initiatives into the mission and vision statements, the employee handbook, values statements, human resource policies, human resource training, and press releases. Having a separate diversity statement (similar to a mission statement) is also a good way to underline how an organization is committed to diversity. Following this process, upper management must also align resource allocation with diversity—committing time, efforts, capital, and staff to promoting it.
Establish Leadership Accountability
Following the above expressions of strategy, leaders and managers must now be held accountable. This means that management will carefully control diversity, minimizing the negative elements (stereotyping, discrimination, inequity, groupthink, etc.) while empowering the positive elements (innovative thinking, health conflict, inclusive culture, etc.). Managers must also actively work to achieve diversity in work groups, arranging assignments strategically to capture the inherent value of diversity. When failures in diversity management occur, managers must be accountable in taking corrective action.
Utilize a Diversity Scorecard
Scorecards are used in various aspects of management strategy, and are particularly useful in working both financial and nonfinancial objectives into specific business processes. From the diversity-management perspective, a diversity scorecard, which identifies both how diversity interacts with other long-term objectives and how observation/feedback could be implemented to assess it, is of high value to managers looking to improve their diversity management skills. It can help to identify the outcomes expected from integrating more diverse skills and perspectives as well as to assess the effectiveness of diversity management.
The Role of Human Resource Management
Upper management and departmental managers are not the only individuals involved in diversity management, however. The human resource department specifically has a great deal of responsibility in managing the overall diversity of the organization. Human resources can consider diversity within the following areas:
- Hiring
- Compensation equality
- Training
- Employee policies
- Legal regulations
- Ensuring accessibility of important documents (e.g., translating human resource materials into other languages so all staff can read them)
- Contracts
The role of human resources is to ensure that all employee concerns are being met and that employee problems are solved when they arise. Human resource professionals must also pursue corporate strategy and adhere to legal concerns when hiring, firing, paying, and regulating employees. This requires careful and meticulous understanding of both the legal and organizational contexts as they pertain to diversity management.