Organizational Diversity-Related Problems and Their Solutions (Research Paper Sample)

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Organizational Diversity-Related Problems and Their Solutions
Presently, human resource departments are thought to be among the most important organs in any organization. Human resource contributes significantly towards the accomplishment of the operations of an organization. Primarily, it concerned with the selection, hiring, maintaining, and managing people with the aim of bringing the best out of them to influence the organization’s productivity positively. Although diversity is associated with benefits to the organization, managing people becomes a challenge particularly when dealing with people from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Managers should be comprehensively informed about the potential diversity-related challenges and consequently formulate ways to deal with them effectively so as to reap the best from workplace diversity (Stockdale and Crosby 204). This present research aims to investigate workforce diversity challenges facing organizations and how managers can deal with them without affecting the operations and employees’ identities.
In both small and big organizations, workforce diversity-related problems are present. With the advent of the globalization era, human resource managers are prompted to recruit people from all walks of life thus incorporating the aspect of diversity into the organization. There are various types of diversity-related challenges. Firstly is communication. People from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds communicate differently. A problem arises when managers and fellow employees fail to understand the tone and body language of other people accurately (Konrad, Prasad, and Pringle 120). Too often, outcomes are conflicts, poor communication, and eventual decline of the organization’s productivity.
The second challenge is resistance to change. People descending from various cultures have different ways of accomplishing things (Greenburg). As such, it may proof difficult to make employees change their ways of life to adopt to new ways suggested by the organization. The resistance to change may cost the organization from interrupted interruptions, time and costs of training, as well as dealing with conflicts. The operations of the organization may not as smooth as expected, and this leads to declined productivity.
The third challenge concerns challenges of implementation. At the face of it, workplace diversity is thought to be a good idea as the organization can build a pool of ideas and skills from different parts of the world. However, it emerges as a challenge when many organizations attempt to implement changes. The implementation may lead to frustrations when different people are involved (Greenburg). Some people might not give into some practices in the organization when it is against their beliefs. In some instance, some people may adapt to changes while other change slowly. Interestingly, some fail to adapt to changes completely. The outcomes may be delays in the implementation of the organization’s strategic plans.
There are various ways through which organizations can effectively deal with the challenges arising from workplace diversity. Firstly, organizations should regularly hold social events such as road trips, mountain hiking, and sports outside the usual work environment. Through this, the employees would better understand and appreciate the cultural and ethnical differences of fellow employees. Consequently, this would promote better communication, improved productivity, and reduced workplace tension (Stockdale and Crosby 208).
Secondly is hiring diversity motivators. Organizations can appoint personnel to deal with diversity issues. The result would be better work environments and reduced conflicts amo...