Discussion

Part 1

What benefits can a diverse

workforce provide to an organization?

What are the possible negative consequences for an organization that does not embrace diversity?

What strategies can managers implement to enhance cultural awareness and overcome preconceived biases or stereotypes?

If you have examples from your own experience, or from recent examples in the news, please make sure to include those in your response.

Part 2: Respond to a Peer

Read a post by one of your peers and respond, making sure to extend the conversation by asking questions, offering rich ideas, or sharing personal connections.

Hello class,

What benefits can a diverse workforce provide to an organization?

There are many advantages an organization can benefit from a diverse workforce, primarily spoken language. Companies are now expanding into the global market, so it makes sense that they will benefit from language diversity. For example, companies like Coca-Cola in the beverage industry and Apple in the cellphone company started in the US and now have expanded to different locations in the world. Therefore, they have people of different ethnic backgrounds working for their companies. Consequently, an increased presence will lead to an increase in sales as well. Another benefit is an increase in creativity in an organization because specializing in workforce diversity because of everyone from a different background will bring a unique way of technique and solutions that can achieve a common goal. Therefore the more variety of people that get involved, the better chances of getting a workable solution they can produce; this will improve the overall performance of the company.

What are the possible negative consequences for an organization that does not embrace diversity?

An organization should embrace diversity because if it doesn’t, there is a possibility that there will be negative consequences and the company could likely struggle and have issues within the organization and it can have an impact on their staff, for instance, a company that says they have diverse talents, but without a diverse team, some employees could insist on working in a workplace that has the same backgrounds as themselves, so that they can have the confidence that they can function as a team. But if this is not met, they will feel isolated and might hinder productivity and decreases workflow within the organization.

What strategies can managers implement to enhance cultural awareness and overcome preconceived biases or stereotypes?

Some strategies that managers can implement to enhance cultural awareness and overcome biases and stereotypes are by providing diversity to the workforce, instructing employees, managers, and supervisors on various diversity training, which can expand their ideas, knowledge and workstyles. Once they are aware of diversity, they can also try training on the prevention of stereotyping within their departments within the organization. They could also assign employees into workgroups including co-workers that have limited contact. Managers should be creative in this procedure and need to use strategies that are beneficial to both sides and this can produce the same result despite having different backgrounds or ethnicity within the group.