Workforce diversity can be identified as the similarities and differences between employees in terms of physical capabilities and disabilities, race, religion, age, social backgrounds, gender, and sexual orientation (Saxenaa, 2014). And also, no two humans are alike and people are different not only in above psychological characteristics but also in their perspectives and prejudices and in current scenario, employing diversified workforce is necessary for every organization but to manage such diversified workforce has become a big challenge.
Workforce diversity is a major concern for most of the businesses today since organizations need to understand and go through the workforce diversity effectively because of globalization requires more attention and interaction among people from diverse cultures, beliefs, and backgrounds.
As per the Esen (2005 ), under the umbrella of diversity practices, currently organizations are employing approaches of understanding and relationship-building which encourage the voice of all employees to be heard and involved with achieving a competitive advantage by learning the perspectives of diverse employee groups are adding value and creativity to organizations’ strategic direction.
According to Devoe (1999), many challenges can be identified in managing diverse work population since it is more than simply acknowledging differences in people. It involves in recognizing the value of differences, combating discrimination and upholding the inclusiveness resulting managers to be challenged with losses in personnel and work throughout due to prejudice and discrimination, also complaints and legal actions against the company.
Negative attitudes and behaviors also can be hurdles to organizational diversity because they can damage working relationships and hurt morale and work productivity (Esty et al. 1995).
Organizations always need to have a look for the ways to becoming comprehensive while holding diversity because it has the potential to yield the greater competitive advantages as well as the work productivity (SHRM 1995). Stephen Butler, chairperson of the Business-Higher Education Forum, strongly trust that diversity is an invaluable competitive asset (Robinson, 2002) and Black Enterprise(2001) highlighted that managing diversity in the current global context is a key factor of effective people management in a workplace.
Hatton national Bank PLC is one of the largest bank networks in the country currently having employees more than 4500. According to their integrated report 2019, there are 1923 female employees and 2623 male employees. Employees are a blend of all religions; Sinhala, Hindu, Muslims and Christians / Catholics. Recruiting age starts from 18 years and retirement ends at 55. The blend of age ensure that the company has experienced and young energetic staff combination to challenge the competitive market. Educational qualifications as well as other qualifications such as sports are required . Most of the employees are from different social backgrounds who could work as a team to reach bank's common goal. Almost all employees can speak more than two languages fluently and it enables to build a strong relationship with customers as well as among employees. These factors shows that Hatton National Bank PLC has a strong workforce diversity in the organization.
References
Black Enterprise. 2001. “Managing a multicultural workforce.” Black Enterprise Magazine (July).
Devoe, D. 1999.Managing a changing workforce: Achieving outstanding service with today’s employees. Davie, FL: Workplace Trends Publishing
Esen, E., 2005. 2005 Workplace Diversity Practices , s.l.: Society for Human Resource Management.
Hatton National Bank, Integrated report ,2019 available at, https://www.hnb.net/2019
Onday, O., 2016. Global Workforce Diversity Management and the Challenge of managing diversity. Global Journal of Human Resource Management , Volume Volume 4.
Saxenaa, A., 2014. Workforce Diversity: A Key to Improve Productivity Ankita. Institute of Management Studies Annual Research Conference .
Useful article, the other hand Diversity in the workplace boosts a company’s employer brand and presents a company as a more desirable place to work. Workplace diversity.
ReplyDeleteA diverse workforce is an essential component of an organization. The diverse workforce is currently the most talked about component globally, and multinational companies are taking advantage of this system. This system builds a collection of employees from different cultures and ethnicity in an organization so that they can get a productive service by implementing their different ideas.
ReplyDeleteThough it will be a tough task for the management to bring people together in a diverse workforce, if they manage to do so they will gain some wonderful benefits including cost less marketing
ReplyDeleteWorkforce Diversity will produce benifits such as Increased productivity, Improved creativity.,Increased profits.Improved employee engagement.moreover this will build a good unity among the employees
ReplyDeleteAs workforce context shift and global markets emerge, workplace diversity refers closer to becoming a business necessity instead of a banner that companies wave to show their commitment to embracing differences and change. Employees reap tangible and intangible benefits from workplace benefits, not the least of which include respect from co-workers and business gains.
ReplyDeleteDiversified workforce always support in achieving better results with different views of teams. It is important for organizations to have a team based structure which support in driving organizational performance.
ReplyDeleteWorkforce diversity gives many advantages and it supports to achieve good results. So workforce diversity is very important to every organizations.. well done! Good blog
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