Month: October 2021

Organizations that embrace diversity are more innovative and do a better job of meeting community needs. A lack of diversity can inhibit your organization’s creativity and even make you the focus of public criticism.

There are two main categories of diversity:

• Acquired diversity: Factors such as education, experience, values, skills and knowledge.
• Inherent diversity: Demographic characteristics like race, sex, and age.

Workplace diversity is defined as understanding, accepting, and valuing differences between people of different races, ethnicities, genders, ages, religions, disabilities, and sexual orientations, as well as differences in personalities, skill sets, experiences, and knowledge bases.

Strategies:

Use a personality assessment to recruit more diverse candidates The usual criteria for recruiting candidates what company they worked at, what school they went to, who they’re connected with can often work to decrease the diversity of the candidate pipeline. Fortunately, a valid and reliable personality assessment is a great tool to measure candidates’ personality traits, motivations, and skills.

Personality assessments increase workplace diversity because they don’t show adverse impact, that is, personality scores do not differ for minority group members.

Offer testimonials from current employees

Testimonials let your employees speak about the ways your organization values diversity and lives it through its culture and actions. These personal statements can help diverse job seekers feel that someone with their identity will be welcomed, supported, and successful in the workplace.

Cast a wider net

To improve your workforce diversity, you need to diversify your recruitment sources. Don’t abandon the sources that have worked. Instead, expand your efforts. Add even more career fairs, job boards, media outlets, networking events, and affinity groups, targeting those that attract diverse candidates by design.

Share your jobs in surprising ways

To recruit a more diverse workforce, go beyond the predictable job boards. Create a video or animation to show off your job opportunities and diverse workplace culture. Grab the attention of more people by sharing jobs through newer social media, like Instagram and Snapchat, or by braving live streaming video. Attend in-person community events where you can connect with people who otherwise wouldn’t have heard about your job opportunities.

Recruit through refugee, immigrant, and community groups

Workforce diversity often means embracing non-traditional talent. Recruiting refugees, immigrants, and people from distinct groups can be a boon for employers committed to diversity. Look for community groups, government agencies, staffing firms, and adult education centers in your area that match job seekers with employers.

Show diversity in your recruitment materials

Update your recruitment materials to showcase a visibly diverse group of employees. While you can be a bit aspirational, don’t stray too far from reality. Potential employees can be turned off if your materials misrepresent the true diversity in your workforce. And never manipulate real staff photos and information to alter the diversity they show.

Improve your recruitment website

If your organization is committed to diversity, your recruitment website needs to follow through on that commitment. This requires more than splashing a diversity statement somewhere. Eliminate coded language, gender bias, and insider jargon. Use your recruitment system to make sure your site is easy to use and is accessible to people with diverse abilities, linguistic competence, and access to technology.

Tap into your team’s network

Word of mouth is still one of the most effective recruiting tactics. According to a 2015 study, when employees recruit within their network, workforce diversity can improve. What matters is that the employer keeps track of word-of-mouth referrals so that one group doesn’t dominate over time. Employers can also encourage employees to spread the word to candidates with diverse backgrounds.

Bring your campus recruiting to other schools

Look beyond elite colleges to schools that have an economically and socially diverse student body. Recruit at schools that are committed to keeping education accessible and affordable and that have diversity integrated into their identity. This can include historically black colleges and universities, hispanic-serving institutions, women’s colleges, public and community colleges, and schools with cooperative education programs.

Mesh diversity with cultural fit

Diversity is more than how people look. Cultural fit is more than hiring people who think and act the same. Truly diverse and culturally vibrant workplaces will include people of different demographics, identities, backgrounds, experiences, abilities, and personalities. The key is to recruit people who are united by the values of the organization, and who can contribute to the organization’s success.

Using Technology

Blind interviews

Extending the blind resume concept is the blind interview. Companies are implementing blind interviews by removing personal identifying information from applications and getting candidates to anonymously answer job-related questions. However, the recruitment process for candidates at most organizations includes a phone screen. It’s almost impossible to anonymize a voice over a phone call unless you’re using technology that’s specifically going to do this for you.

Blind resumes

The most common blind hiring method being tested currently is to remove the candidate’s name from their resume.

The theory behind removing the candidate’s name from his or her application is that it helps recruiters make decisions with reduced unconscious biases of the candidate’s race and gender. Other identifying personal information that is being removed from resumes is graduation year, college names, and even addresses. This helps you identify high quality candidates because it enables you to more objectively evaluate a candidate’s skills, knowledge, and potential to succeed.

Resume screening using AI

Technology that uses AI is enabling recruiters and talent acquisition professionals to automate the most tedious and time-consuming part of their day: Screening resumes and Shortlisting candidates.

Automated resume screening increases diversity by replacing manual shortlisting.

This allows you to have a system that objectively and consistently applies shortlisting criteria across all candidates, which reduces problems related to compliance and discrimination.

Automated resume screening software lives inside your existing ATS that automates candidate shortlisting without disruptions to your workflow or the candidate application process.

Retain Diverse Talent

Be amazing at onboarding diverse employees

An often-overlooked part of the recruitment life cycle, onboarding is crucial to employee retention. An employee onboarding survey of over 1000 employed US workers revealed that 31 percent of people left a job within the first six months, with 68 percent of those departing within three months.

Onboarding should be more than just the paperwork done on your new hire’s first day. Effective onboarding includes properly introducing the new employee to the rest of the team, helping them navigate their surroundings, and training them on the specific tools and processes they’ll need to do their job.

Train managers to lead diverse teams

Managers need to understand that their behaviors impact their team members’ sense of belonging. Train them to become aware of unconscious biases and how to identify talent that may seem different.

Encourage them to continuously assess their processes to ensure that everyone on the team gets the same opportunities are assignments given to everyone, including those who don’t raise their hands? Motivate managers to become more inclusive by rewarding them for retaining diverse talent.

Create mentorship and sponsorship opportunities

Every employee can benefit from having someone who will help them be better at their jobs and advocate for them. Minority candidates benefit from this even more. Many organizations have mentorship programs, some specifically targeting diverse employees for this reason.

Stand in solidarity with diverse employees

Skye Parr, an attorney at Husch Blackwell, spoke on one of the law firm’s webinars of how recent events involving racism and police brutality have impacted black employees.

Develop a formal retention plan

Companies are starting to realize the value of developing a personalized retention plan. A retention plan often involves “stay interviews” check-in meetings with diverse employees to check that their needs are being met. Experts recommend having “stay interviews” at least twice a year.

Make the path to growth transparent

Make sure everyone knows what opportunities are available, and what competencies are needed to get to the next level. One example of how to do this is to make your promotion criteria public. Additionally, assess whether there are unwritten rules of career advancement at your company.

Support the creation of communities within your organization

We’ve mentioned that having friends at work makes work life happier. In the case of underrepresented employees, it can make a world of difference to have people who can help them on their journey.

Support your diverse hires in forging connections. One way to do this is by supporting employees who want to form communities based on shared identities. Ask them how you can help, what resources they need, and how they want to promote the initiative company-wide.

Address unconscious bias

We all believe we are ethical, unbiased decision makers, but studies into unconscious biases deeply ingrained stereotypes that influence our behavior prove otherwise.

Our unconscious biases influence how we hire, onboard, manage, and promote employees. Here are a few examples of how unconscious bias can play out in the workplace:

• Ignoring a colleague or forgetting to cc them in emails.
• Telling a female employee that they’re pushy, bossy, aggressive, or intimidating.
• Making assumptions about a person’s role in the company.
• Consistently leaving a teammate out of bonding activities.

Workforce diversity represents both a challenge and an opportunity for business. A growing number of progressive organisations are realizing the need for valuing diversity in the workforce, so as to ensure strategic utilisation of human resources for the accomplishment of strategic goals.

Advantages

(i) An organisation or a company with well-managed diversity will solve the conflicts resulting from opposing viewpoints, into a more complete and inventive solutions.

(ii) An organisation that promotes equal employment opportunity for diverse groups will generally do better at attracting and retaining talent from all backgrounds, thereby increasing a pool of skilled employees. The differences among people lie a wide variety of talents and perspectives. The broader the range of talents and sweep of perspectives among the employees, the better would be the opportunity for the business to succeed.

(iii) Business with workforce from varied backgrounds can more effectively serve the customers, who are themselves diverse. Such employees can interact with local customers in an effective manner and pay careful attention to their customers’ sensitivities and expectations,

(iv) Companies with diverse workforce are able to present their product and services in a better way.

(v) Companies with effective diversity programs can avoid damage to their corporate reputation or costly lawsuits from charges of discrimination or cultural insensitivity.

(vi) The global market place of today demands a workforce with language skills, cultural sensitivity and awareness of national and other differences across the market in order to be successful. For example, the multinationals operate in different countries, where the cultural practices vary radically. Workforce which can fit in the cultural understanding of the country where the multinational is operating is a must.

Limitations

(i) Cultural Conflicts: Cultural differences may make an employee feel like an outsider. The other cultural groups may not accept him as a member of their groups. Such things affect the performance of the organisation adversely.

(ii) Problematic Gender Relations: Women often encounter many problems at the workplace. The difference in gender is used as a tool to exploit them and, at times, it leads to sexual harassment.

(iii) Discriminatory Treatment: Discriminatory treatment of diverse workforce by the top officials is very common.

For example, in many companies in the U.S.A., whites are generally given a preference over black in the matters of powers, facilities and promotions; in Japanese companies, Indian are not treated at par with the Japanese even if they hold a similar job profile; many companies don’t give similar wages to women employees as they give to men for the same work. Such discriminatory practices lower down the morale of the employees.

(iv) Religion/Racial differences are also a big reason of quarrels over petty issues, which, if not resolved in time, assume a bitter feud.

(v) Resistance to Change: Because of diversity, some groups of workers might resist change proposed by the management.

(vi) Where employees are parochial, there is a danger that they may form close and strong groups having same Carte, community or religion.

(vii) There is always Resistance to Change by employees. When there is diverse workforce, then the resistance becomes fierce, at times.

Workforce Diversity in India

The human resource managers in Indian organisations have to respond to a wide range of diversity issues due to a diverse workforce of varying socio-economic, ethnic and linguistic composition.

Various categories of employees in the Indian organisations include the following:

1. Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs):

The candidates belonging to scheduled castes and tribes determined by a notification of the Central Government are given preferences to the extent of 15 percent and 7.5 percent respectively in case of jobs in the government departments and public sector enterprises. Recently, some political parties have called for reservation of jobs in the private sector also for the scheduled castes and tribes.

2. Other Backward Castes (OBCs):

The Central Government has made provisions for reserving jobs upto 27.5% in the government departments and public sector undertakings for those who belong to other backward classes. Though there is no such compulsion in case of private enterprises, they already have employees belonging to the OBCs.

3. Disabled or Physically Handicapped Persons:

Employees whose work assignments are limited by their physical abilities have in the past been referred to an “handicapped” or ‘disabled”. Today, the more politically correct term is ‘physically challenged’ for those individuals who have hearing, speech, visual, orthopaedic, or other health impairments.

The Central Government has provided for reservation of jobs in Group C and Group D posts for the blind, deaf and orthopedically handicapped persons. Socially responsible organisations in the private sector also offer employment to the physically challenged persons.

4. Ex-Defence Personnel:

Ex-defence personnel or ex-servicemen who are trained and disciplined may also be offered jobs in the organisations. This would increase workforce diversity is the organisation.

5. Displaced Persons:

The people who are displaced because of acquisition of land for public purpose or because of other causes like flood, militancy, etc. may be preferred for jobs in public enterprises on humanitarian grounds.

6. Female Employees:

The ratio of women workers at the place of work is on the rise. This has been associated with the problems of discrimination and sexual harassment. The organisations need to take steps to deal with such problems

Managing workforce diversity implies creating an organisational climate in which a heterogeneous workforce performs to its best potential; without the organisation favouring/dis-favouring any particular segment of workforce with a view to facilitating the best attainment of organisational goals.

Dimensions

(i) Gender:

Male workers are usually aggressive, bold and materialistic; while female workers possess sympathy for others and are more concerned with quality of life. What is important to observe is that people of both sex have material differences in outlook, nature, habits etc. as differences between males and females are the design of God who created mankind.

(ii) Age:

People belonging to different age groups cause diversity in workforce. Young people may be enriched with health, merit, capacity for hard-work etc.; while elderly people may possess more maturity than their junior counterparts and are full of experiences of life.

(iii) Culture:

Culture is a complex of race, religion, language, social traditions and values etc. People from different cultural backgrounds may have ethnic orientations i.e. a sense of favoritism towards their nation, race or tribe, which they belong to.

(iv) Education:

In an organisation people may range from less educated to highly educated. Educated people have a broad outlook and are open-minded. They are endowed with logic and rationality and usually dislike discrimination among individuals on petty grounds of caste, colour, religion etc.

(v) Psychology:

(Psychology is the kind of mind that one has that makes one think or behaves in a particular way). In a organisation, there are people with different psychology. Some may be optimistic or pessimistic; some may be bold or timid or so on. Psychology may be a gift of Nature or a manifestation of family background or social affiliations.

Factors Increasing Workforce Diversity

(1) Expansion of the services sector: The services sector jobs, such as banking, tourism, and retailing entail lots of inter­action with customers of diverse backgrounds and cultural moorings. In order to sell to a diverse customer base, and because customers tend to prefer to buy from people of the same background, organizations these days have realized the need of a diverse workforce.

(2) Globalization of markets: To satisfy needs and preferences of global customers, organizations have to get closer to their customers. Some organizations have established a strong local presence (for example, American companies advertising their products like soft drinks) while others have forged international alliances (for example, Maruti Udyog Limited (MUL) having alliance with Suzuki of Japan for automobiles manufactures). Either way, diversity gets introduced and must be managed.

(3) Requirement of teamwork for successful implementation of business strategies: For success in business, organizations rely heavily on teamwork. Diversity is an inevitable by-product of teamwork, especially when teams are drawn from a diverse base of employees.

(4) Mergers and alliances: As mergers and alliances become commonplace, it has become impor­tant that the corporate culture of the merging entities work together. Workforce diversity, then, becomes inevitable and desirable for the success of such mergers and alliances.

(5) Changing labour market: The rapidly changing labour market is also responsible for injecting diversity in workforce. Increasing demand for knowledgeable workers and also more and more women taking up jobs add an important dimension in workforce diversity.

The workforce or labour force is the labour pool either in employment or unemployed. It is generally used to describe those working for a single company or industry, but can also apply to a geographic region like a city, state, or country. Within a company, its value can be labelled as its “Workforce in Place”. The workforce of a country includes both the employed and the unemployed (labour force). The labour force participation rate, LFPR (or economic activity rate, EAR), is the ratio between the labour force and the overall size of their cohort (national population of the same age range). The term generally excludes the employers or management, and can imply those involved in manual labour. It may also mean all those who are available for work.

Formal and Informal

Formal labour is any sort of employment that is structured and paid in a formal way. Unlike the informal sector of the economy, formal labour within a country contributes to that country’s gross national product. Informal labour is labour that falls short of being a formal arrangement in law or in practice. It can be paid or unpaid and it is always unstructured and unregulated. Formal employment is more reliable than informal employment. Generally, the former yields higher income and greater benefits and securities for both men and women.

Informal Labour

The contribution of informal labourers is immense. Informal labour is expanding globally, most significantly in developing countries. According to a study done by Jacques Charmes, in the year 2000 informal labour made up 57% of non-agricultural employment, 40% of urban employment, and 83% of the new jobs in Latin America. That same year, informal labour made up 78% of non-agricultural employment, 61% of urban employment, and 93% of the new jobs in Africa.[8] Particularly after an economic crisis, labourers tend to shift from the formal sector to the informal sector. This trend was seen after the Asian economic crisis which began in 1997.

Informal Labour and Gender

Gender is frequently associated with informal labour. Women are employed more often informally than they are formally, and informal labour is an overall larger source of employment for females than it is for males. Women frequent the informal sector of the economy through occupations like home-based workers and street vendors. The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World shows that in the 1990s, 81% of women in Benin were street vendors, 55% in Guatemala, 44% in Mexico, 33% in Kenya, and 14% in India. Overall, 60% of women workers in the developing world are employed in the informal sector.

The specific percentages are 84% and 58% for women in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America respectively. The percentages for men in both of these areas of the world are lower, amounting to 63% and 48% respectively. In Asia, 65% of women workers and 65% of men workers are employed in the informal sector. Globally, a large percentage of women that are formally employed also work in the informal sector behind the scenes. These women make up the hidden work force.

Workforce management (WFM) is an institutional process that maximizes performance levels and competency for an organization. The process includes all the activities needed to maintain a productive workforce, such as field service management, human resource management, performance and training management, data collection, recruiting, budgeting, forecasting, scheduling and analytics.

Workforce management provides a common set performance-based tools and software to support corporate management, front-line supervisors, store managers and workers across manufacturing, distribution, transportation, and retail operations. It is sometimes referred to as HRM systems, or Workforce asset management, or part of ERP systems.

As workforce management has developed from a traditional approach of staff scheduling to improve time management, it has become more integrated and demand-oriented to optimize the scheduling of staff. Besides the two core aspects of demand-orientation and optimization, workforce management may also incorporate:

• Forecasting of workload and required staff
• Involvement of employees into the scheduling process
• Management of working times and accounts
• Analysis and monitoring of the entire process.

The starting point is a clear definition of the work required through engineered standards and optimal methods for performing each task as efficiently and safely as possible. Based on this foundation and demand-based forecasts, workers are scheduled, tasks are assigned, performance is measured, feedback is provided and incentives are computed and paid. In addition, online training is provided along with supervisor-based coaching to bring all workers up to required levels of proficiency. Workforce management is a complete approach designed to make workforce as productive as possible, reduce labour costs, and improve customer service.

Field Service Management

Workforce management also uses the process of field service management in order to have oversight of company’s resources not used on company property. Examples include:

• Demand Management: To help forecast work orders to plan the number and expertise of staff that will be needed.
• Workforce Scheduler: Using predefined rules to automatically optimise the schedule and use of resources (people, parts, vehicles).
• Workforce Dispatcher: Automatically assigning work orders within predefined zones to particular technicians
• Mobile Solutions: Allowing dispatchers and technicians to communicate in real time.