DIVERSITY

WORKFORCE DIVERSITY

Work force diversity means that organizations are becoming a more heterogeneous mix of people in terms of gender, age, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Managing this diversity has become a global concern because of imbalanced representation of diverse groups in the workforce. Indian organizations have to accommodate a very diverse social group of employees, based on very socioeconomic, ethnic and linguistic composition. The term synergic pluralism has been suggested to describe Indian culture, citing examples and legends of how diverse religious and ethnic groups coming from outside, such as Parsees, Jews and Christians were made welcome and encouraged to maintain their identities, even while integrating with the social mainstream. The broad bases of diversity are: Demographic - Age, gender and education. Social - Religion, language, region, castes, tribes, physical and mental handicaps. Ideological - Different ways of perceiving issues, human rights (role of UN in promoting cultural diversity).

WHY DIVERSITY HAS BECOME AN ISSUE?

There is an increasing realization in India that we need to include in the workplace, in a planned way, people from those sections of the society that are under-represented. Legislation and various commissions monitoring implementation of the laws are pressurizing organizations to examine the composition of their workforce. The World Bank and WTO are also putting pressure on paying attention to diversity. Even consumers in western countries are bringing about such pressure. For example, they may boycott certain imported products whose manufacturers use discriminatory practices, or under employ some sections of the society. With globalization and the entry of Indian companies into the global market, attention to diversity has increased. Thus, there is increasing evidence that diversity is a competitive advantage for a firm, enhancing productivity and profitability. Organizations paying attention to diversity are also more likely to attract and retain talented people.

BASES OF DIVERSITY
A few of the diverse social group of employees are determined by the Constitution of India. They are as follows:

Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes: SCs and STs are determined by a notification of the government, are given preferences to the extent of 15% and 7.5%, respectively. Other Backward Castes: The supreme court ruled that reservation should not exceed fifty percent. Bonafide Members of the state: The government seeks to provide preferential employment for the local/bonafide members of the state. This is to control the problem of migration of people from one state to another and more specifically from rural to urban centers.

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Ex-Defence Personnel and Paramilitary Personnel: In order to rehabilitate the retiring defence personnel from all ranks, central government owned public enterprises were asked to give preference and allocate a percentage of posts to such persons. Disabled Personnel: Employees whose capacity to work is limited by their mental or physical abilities have been referred to as mentally challenged and physically challenged respectively. Displaced persons: Very often, large public sector enterprises located in the hinterland require large tracks of land, not merely for setting up of plant but also to provide their employees with basic social infrastructure, given the remote location and consequent lack of facilities, without which the workforce will not be able to sustain itself. The government, as part of its employment generation scheme, promises a factory job to one member of each family displaced by the development of these public sector enterprises.

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Gender Issues: With an increasing number of women entering the workforce in India, an additional measure of managing a different set of problems at the workplace arise. To attract and retain women, companies must provide alternative career paths, extended leave, job sharing, flexitime and the option of telecommuting. Age factor: The age profile of workers is also a contributory factor leading to diversity at the workplace. There should be no discrimination based on age. Younger people are entering the workforce. Temporary/ Casual Contracts: A temporary or casual worker is paid the minimum wage fixed by the government on a daily basis. No welfare benefits are offered to this category.

REASONS FOR THE EMERGENCE OF DIVERSITY

Changing workforce demographics(age, gender, ethnicity and education): older workers, women, minorities and those with more education are now entering the workforce in record numbers. Legislation and lawsuits: the political and legal systems have compelled organizations to hire more broadly and to provide equal opportunity for all employees. Competitive pressures: Diversity can provide an organization with competitive advantage. Firms that aggressively try to hire and promote women and minorities are going to end up with a more talented and capable workforce than those that do not take such a proactive approach. The recognition and desire for diverse viewpoints: in their decision making processes and teams. It leads to innovation and often breakthrough competitive advantages. Rapidly growing increase in international business: more and more organizations are entering the international arena. If domestic organizations have and promote diversity, then, as they expand globally, they will be accustomed to working with people who have different cultures, customs, social norms and more.

FEATURES OF DIVERSITY

Embracing diversity Changing Indian Demographics Workforce in terms of age Workforce diversification in sectors Workforce diversity in organized and unorganized sectors Changing U.S. Demographics

INDIVIDUAL APPROACHES TO MANAGING DIVERSITY

LEARNING: Managers should learn more about a diverse groups personal values and how the individuals like to be treated. Manager must openly communicate regardless of age, gender, religion or those challenged with a disability. EMPATHY: It is important in managing diversity because members of diverse group often feel that only they can truly understand the challenges or problems they are facing. For example, discrimination and harassment.

ORGANIZATIONAL APPROACHES TO MANAGING DIVERSITY

TESTING: Most tests traditionally used in selection and evaluation are not suited or valid for a diverse workforce. Focus should be more on job-specific tests rather than general aptitude tests. TRAINING: Most diversity training programs get the participants directly involved. Each group is asked to describe the difficulties it has in working with other ethnic groups and to identify the reason for these problems. MENTORING: The purpose of the mentor program is to help support members of a diverse group in their jobs, socialize them in the cultural values of the organization and help their chances for development and advancement. WORK/FAMILY PROGRAMS: The most common alternative work schedule arrangements are flexitime, the compressed workweek, job sharing and telecommuting that help balance work and family.

IMPLICATIONS OF WORKFORCE DIVERSITY

Managing workforce diversity, in case of gender, socio-economic, ethnicity, age, is here to stay. There is no going back to the demographic set up of organizations as they were twenty years ago. To be successful in this new environment, one has to learn to value and respect cultural styles and ways of behaving that are different from ones own. Recognize that there are tangible business reasons why managing workforce diversity effectively should be a high priority: (a) its an opportunity to serve the needs of the customers better and to penetrate new markets. (b) diverse teams make it possible to enhance creativity, flexibility and rapid response to changes. To maximize the potential of all members of the workforce, link concerns for diversity to every business strategy viz. recruitment, selection, placement, succession planning, performance appraisal and rewards.

MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVE

Workforce diversity has important implications for management practice. Managers have to shift their philosophy from treating everyone alike to recognizing differences and responding to those differences in ways that ensure employee retention and greater productivity while, at the same time , not discriminating. This shift includes, for instance, providing diversity training and revamping benefits programs to accommodate the different needs of different employees.

Diversity, if positively managed can increase creativity and innovation in organizations as well as improve decision making by providing different perspectives on problems. When diversity is not managed properly, there is a potential for higher turnover, more difficult communication and more interpersonal conflicts.

PROMOTING DIVERSITY

Diversity needs to be promoted in organizations in a planned manner. Empathy, openness, democratic values, and supportive behavior help to develop a mindset conducive to diversity. Special training programmes can also develop such a mindset. Organizations that encourage dissent and debate will develop a culture of leveraging diversity. Mentoring can also help in changing mindsets towards seeing diversity as a competitive advantage. Bright young people need mentoring for dealing with emotional issues they face during their initial period in the organization. The mentors themselves should have a positive attitude towards diversity and need to use dialogue to help young people examine issues of diversity. The organization can take steps to ensure recruitment of a diverse workforce. For example, RPG Enterprise uses its diversity and size to create knowledge links among its 35 group companies. The company should be very strongly committed to diversity, both visible (like gender, race and nationality) and invisible (religion, skills and experience).