Tag: Principle of Management free notes download

An evolving remote workforce 56% of the U.S. workforce can work from home and 25-30% of the workforce WILL work from home by the end of 2021. When working remotely, different employees have different living conditions. For instance:

• Working women are expected to balance home and work-life.
• There might be lack of a dedicated and quiet space for employees to focus on their work, and so on.

People in leadership will need to figure out ways to bridge the remote gaps, and minimize challenges if they allow remote work.

• Enabling diverse gender identity and gender expression raises issues on access to gender-neutral restrooms, adopting employee health benefits for transitioning individuals, and creating awareness around using inclusive language for gender non-binary and transgender employees. It’s a different mindset and we must be sensitive to it.
• Re-engineering employee experience: COVID-19 brought all four characteristics of VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) to life, as the world felt the devastating impact of the pandemic on the health of people and businesses. There are countless examples of leaders and organizations anchoring their business aspirations and focusing on humanity being there for their people. Along with providing COVID-19 care and coverage for employees and families, many organizations set-up special trainings to help leaders lead remote teams, upskilling programs for employees to help them stay relevant in a dynamic post-COVID world, and EAP sessions on mental and physical well-being to help employees stay positive during this trying time. The concept of ‘equity’ is about understanding individual needs and tailoring policies that fit different needs, experiences, and opportunities. Organizations will need to focus on building virtual communities and providing avenues for pride and camaraderie.
• Multigenerational workforce: The current workforce includes up to five different generations and they each have unique workplace expectations and bring in different life experiences, voices and skill sets. It is important for leaders to be aware of the differences and use different strategies to, celebrate employees of every generation.
• Eliminating unconscious bias in the workplace: Unconscious bias is how we process information and make decisions based on our unconscious or inherent biases and prejudices toward others at home and work. Leaders must be aware of this and ensure that these biases are checked and minimized consistently. There are some good classes on Linkedin Learning if you need a resource to get you started.
• Adoption of HR Technology: Biases are human, and AI and Talent Analytics tools can be leveraged to reduce preconceived notions and promote a more inclusive workplace. HR Tech tools allow organizations to source potential candidates and shortlist the best talent based on key skills required for the job. These tools help check prejudices that edge into the recruitment process and may overlook a potential high-performing candidate. HR Technology can hold people accountable to an organization’s diversity goals. For example: capturing feedback from employees regularly via employee surveys or after townhalls can help the organization better understand how an initiative is being perceived and what can be improved.
• Gearing up for systemic changes: 2020 highlighted systemic injustices and flaws across our nation with the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many innocent people of color. It exposed the grim reality of a racist and unjust society. It uncovered the dire for organizations to gear up and make some radical and much-needed changes that will impact the functioning of our cultures. Leaders should do their best to combat any discrimination against underrepresented groups in their company and policies should be put in place to ensure that the workplace is a safe place for ALL employees.
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Equity in the workplace refers to fair and impartial processes and outcomes for each person in the company. To it, leaders and employers need to be mindful of the challenges, barriers, and advantages at play for everyone at any given point in time. Equity is the reminder that not everyone starts at the same level playing field, and swift and vigilant action is important in building a fair workplace.
• Hiring diversity professionals: Companies are now hiring diversity professionals who are committed to the vision and mission of creating a diverse and inclusive workplace. The job is a mix of HR, recruitment, and leadership roles and responsibilities. Diversity professionals carry on a number of tasks such as holding and organizing educative sessions on diversity and inclusion, creating an inclusive culture in the workplace, introducing new ideas to improve D&I in the workplace, rooting and pushing for the use of an inclusive language, managing complaints on harassment and workplace discrimination, etc. As the role of diversity professionals have become increasingly popular, the trend of hiring them is only predicted to grow this year.
• Increased transparency in goals: We know that more diversity in a company does not necessarily equal more equity and inclusion. While efforts at diversity may increase, the same is not always the case for efforts at inclusivity. A growing diversity and inclusion trend in 2021 will be for companies to set transparent targets, goals, and D&I initiatives. Doing so will increase accountability of people in leadership positions, encourage honest conversations between employees and their bosses, and inspire them to share ideas and solutions.
• Supporting employees’ mental health: The pandemic created a blow to the mental health of many employees and professionals because of businesses shutting down, people losing jobs, adjusting to the new normal of working from home, and the constant health scare of getting the coronavirus. Even though the conversation around the mental health and wellbeing of employees was already gaining traction in the past couple of years, 2020 witnessed it take a whole new turn. A relevant diversity and inclusion trend in 2021 will be for organizations to put effective policies in place on how supervisors, managers, and coworkers talk, behave, and empathize with each other.
• Looking beyond tokenism: Diversity and inclusion is much more than hiring a person of color or including one woman in a panel full of men. Diversity just for the sake of diversity, or political correctness, will not make the cut anymore. It is a time to be more mindful, and intentional about diversity and inclusion goals and strategies.

Cultural diversity in the workplace is when companies are open to hiring employees from all sorts of different backgrounds; regardless of race, religion and culture. When companies recruit and retain a diverse pool of people, it brings about different benefits to the company as well as its employees.

Companies will also gain from each employee by learning from each other’s experiences and applying this new-found knowledge to their work. Employees from all sorts of different backgrounds get to learn from their colleagues’ experiences from a different perspective. Thus, they are able to bring fresh ideas to the project by thinking out of their comfort zone.

Remember that a diverse workplace combines employees from different backgrounds, ethnicity and experiences, and together breed a more productive environment.

Another benefit of cultural diversity in the workplace is the increase in creativity among teams, and the ability to have a more diverse set of solutions to specific problems.

There are four layers of diversity:

• Behavioral diversity: Work, thinking, and learning styles (including beliefs and values).
• Workforce diversity: Group and situational identities (race, gender, ethnicity).
• Structural diversity: Combining different cultures, communities, and hierarchies.
• Business diversity: Markets, processes, creativity, and project management styles.

At the deepest level, an organization’s culture is based on values derived from basic assumptions about the following:

• The organization’s relationship to its environment. How does the organization define its business and its constituencies?
• Human nature. Are people inherently good or bad, mutable or immutable, proactive or reactive? These basic assumptions lead to beliefs about how employees, customers and suppliers should interact and how they should be managed.
• Appropriate emotions. Which emotions should people be encouraged to express, and which ones should be suppressed?
• What metrics show whether the organization and its individual components are doing well? An organization will be effective only when the culture is supported by an appropriate business strategy and a structure that is appropriate for both the business and the desired culture.

Most company cultures are not that different from one another. Even organizations in disparate industries such as manufacturing and health care tend to share a common core of cultural values. For example, most private-sector companies want to grow and increase revenues. Most strive to be team-oriented and to demonstrate concern for others. Most are driven, rather than relaxed, because they are competing for dollars and market share. Some of the cultural characteristics that distinguish most organizations include the following.

Values

At the heart of organizations’ cultures are commonly shared values. None is right or wrong, but organizations need to decide which values they will emphasize. These common values include:

• Outcome orientation. Emphasizing achievements and results.
• People orientation. Insisting on fairness, tolerance and respect for the individual.
• Team orientation. Emphasizing and rewarding collaboration.
• Attention to detail. Valuing precision and approaching situations and problems analytically.
• Providing security and following a predictable course.
• Encouraging experimentation and risk-taking.
• Stimulating a fiercely competitive spirit.

Degree of hierarchy

The degree of hierarchy is the extent to which the organization values traditional channels of authority. The three distinct levels of hierarchy are “high” having a well-defined organizational structure and an expectation that people will work through official channels; “moderate” having a defined structure but an acceptance that people often work outside formal channels; and “low” having loosely defined job descriptions and accepting that people challenge authority.

An organization with a high level of hierarchy tends to be more formal and moves more slowly than an organization with a low level of hierarchy.

Degree of urgency

The degree of urgency defines how quickly the organization wants or needs to drive decision-making and innovation. Some organizations choose their degree of urgency, but others have it thrust on them by the marketplace.

A culture with high levels of urgency has a need to push projects through quickly and a high need to respond to a changing marketplace. A moderate level of urgency moves projects at a reasonable pace. A low level of urgency means people work slowly and consistently, valuing quality over efficiency. An organization with high urgency tends to be fast-paced and supports a decisive management style. An organization with low urgency tends to be more methodical and supports a more considered management style.

People orientation or task orientation

Organizations usually have a dominant way of valuing people and tasks. An organization with a strong people orientation tends to put people first when making decisions and believes that people drive the organization’s performance and productivity. An organization with a strong task orientation tends to put tasks and processes first when making decisions and believes that efficiency and quality drive organization performance and productivity.

Some organizations may get to choose their people and task orientations. But others may have to fit their orientation to the nature of their industry, historical issues or operational processes.

Functional orientation

Every organization puts an emphasis on certain functional areas. Examples of functional orientations may include marketing, operations, research and development, engineering or service. For example, an innovative organization known for its research and development may have at its core a functional orientation toward R&D. A hospitality company may focus on operations or service, depending on its historical choices and its definition in the marketplace.

Employees from different functions in the company may think that their functional areas are the ones that drive the organization. Organizational leaders must understand what most employees perceive to be the company’s functional orientation.

Organizational subcultures

Any organization can have a mix of subcultures in addition to the dominant culture. Subcultures exist among groups or individuals who may have their own rituals and traditions that, although not shared by the rest of the organization, can deepen and underscore the organization’s core values. Subcultures can also cause serious problems.

For example, regional cultures often differ from the overall culture that top leadership tries to instill. Perhaps aggressiveness that is common in one area may not mesh with a culture emphasizing team building. Or an organization with a culture built around equality may have trouble if the national culture emphasizes hierarchy and expects people to bow to authority. Employers must recognize those differences and address them directly.

Sustaining a Culture

The management of organizational culture starts with identifying a company’s organizational culture traits or “artifacts.” Artifacts are the core business activities, processes and philosophies that characterize how an organization does business day-to-day.

Identifying these traits and assessing their importance in light of current business objectives is a way to start managing culture. Three broad concepts help identify the traits specific to a culture:

• Material culture. This involves examining everything that people in a group make or achieve and the ways people work with and support one another in exchanging required goods and services.
• Social culture. This refers to group members’ roles and responsibilities. It is the study of class distinctions and the distribution of power that exists in any group.
• Ideological culture. This is tied to a group’s values, beliefs and ideals the things people view as fundamental. It includes the emotional and intellectual guidelines that govern people’s daily existence and interactions.

Diversity management refers to organizational actions that aim to promote greater inclusion of employees from different backgrounds into an organization’s structure through specific policies and programs. Organizations are adopting diversity management strategies as a response to the growing diversity of the workforce around the world.

The HR Department is at the foremost of diversity policy implementation. Right from the time of finding the right talent to nurturing various employees’ talent, the human resource department is vital to helping implement such policies so that the employee’s abilities are the sole criteria for remuneration and appointment. Also, promoting the concepts of diversity helps the company goals succeed and improves revenue generation through quicker and more diverse solutions to all issues in the workplace. Thus diversity management should be implemented in close communication and alignment with company goals and top-management professionals.

Types of Diversity Management

Cross-national diversity management

Cross-national, or international, diversity management refers to managing a workforce that comprises citizens from different countries. It may also involve immigrants from different countries who are seeking employment.

An example is a US-based company with branches in Canada, Korea, and China. The company will establish diversity programs and policies that apply in its US headquarters, as well as in its overseas offices.

The main challenge of cross-national diversity management is that the parent company must consider the legislative and cultural laws in the host countries it operates in, depending on where the employees live.

Intranational diversity management

Intranational diversity management refers to managing a workforce that comprises citizens or immigrants in a single national context. Diversity programs focus on providing employment opportunities to minority groups or recent immigrants.

For example, a French company may implement policies and programs with the aim of improving sensitivity and providing employment to minority ethnic groups in the country.

Characteristics of Diversity Management

Provides tangible benefits

Unlike in the past when diversity management was viewed as a legal constraint, companies use the diversity strategy to tap into the potential of all employees and give the company a competitive advantage in its industry. It allows each employee, regardless of his/her race, religion, ethnicity, or origin to bring their talents and skills to the organization. A diverse workforce enables the organization to better serve clients from all over the world since diverse employees can understand their needs better.

Voluntary

Unlike legislation that is implemented through sanctions, diversity management is a voluntary organizational action. It is self-initiated by organizations with a workforce from different ethnicities, religions, nationalities, and demographics. There is no legislation to coerce or government incentives to encourage organizations to implement diversity management programs and policies.

Broad definition

While legislation and affirmative action target a specific group, diversity management uses a broad definition since the metrics for diversity are unlimited. The broad definition makes diversity programs more inclusive and has less potential for rejection by the members of the majority group or privileged sections of the society.

Steps to effective diversity management

• Effective Communication
• Employee Equality
• Diverse Teams Encouragement
• Maintain Transparent Policies
• Sensitivity Training
• Leadership
• Hiring

Backward Consequences

Negative spillover. This is when diversity initiatives have an undesirable effect on something other than the intended outcome. For example, diversity initiatives may result in negative attitudes among non-target group members. The root cause of this reaction may be the signal that targets are likely to succeed in the organization.

Backfiring. This is when a diversity initiative has an undesirable effect on the intended outcome, like when the program decreases representation or increases discrimination. A likely cause of backfiring is the implicit signal that target groups need help to succeed. Because diversity initiatives are supposed to help target group members, some people infer that target group members might not be able to succeed on their own. And this is problematic because it can lead to stereotyping and discrimination.

False progress. This is when a diversity initiative has the desired effect on the intended outcome when the diversity numbers improve, so it looks like things are getting better but that improvement is not accompanied by true underlying change.

There have been some anecdotal accounts about ways this might happen. For example, people have speculated that in order to improve the diversity numbers, a manager might take a non-managerial job held by a lot of women or minorities, and just reclassify it as a managerial job. It looks like the representation in managerial positions has gone up, but nothing has actually changed.

Workplace diversity refers to the variety of differences between individuals in an organization. Diversity not only includes how individuals identify themselves but also how others perceive them. Diversity within a workplace encompasses race, gender, ethnic groups, age, religion, sexual orientation, citizenship status, military service and mental and physical conditions, as well as other distinct differences between people.

In many organizations, it is common for the managers to discriminate against particular racial and ethnic employees because they would be playing favorites with those employees of their own kind. These needs to be avoided at all costs and the senior leadership should send an unambiguous message that discrimination and harassment would not be tolerated at any cost. Further, in Asian countries, it is often the habit that employees lapse into their own language without considering the implications that it would have on the employees who do not speak their language. These needs to be avoided at all costs as well and strict enforcement of the language of communication (whether it is local or global) must be done. The point here is that in many industries, the managers need to communicate in the language that the workers are comfortable with. Therefore, there are no issues in this case since the language of communication can vary. However, in corporate settings and in services sector companies, there are employees from diverse backgrounds who feel lost when the manager and the employees communicate in languages other than the official language of communication.

Remember the Many Dimensions of Diversity

Check yourself and your leadership on how you define diversity. Diversity isn’t just about race, which is one of the most common things that come to people’s minds when they hear the word “diversity.”

Gender is another well-known dimension of diversity. Although society has made a lot of progress in this area, much remains to be done. One-third of female survey respondents in an inclusion survey from Culture Amp still feel that expressing a contrary opinion has negative consequences for them in the workplace.

Race and gender continue to be important domains of diversity. But it should encompass all the ways that human beings can be different from each other. Diversity must also recognize our differences in culture, religion, income, education levels, physical abilities, and other domains.

Another emerging area, for example, is generational diversity. This refers to the balance of workers having different ages or belonging to different generations.

Incentive slabs and bonus criteria should not change with designation and hierarchy.

Policies need to be same for every individual associated with the organization. If you scold your subordinate for coming late to work, make sure your top manager also comes on time. Don’t change your policies for people.

Enforce Workplace policies that Support Diverse Groups

Next, it’s time to look at all your workplace policies to see if they support diverse groups of employees. For example, providing benefits like flexible work schedules and on-site day-care facilities makes your organization more appealing to employees with different interests and needs. The absence of benefits like these marginalizes workers who have young children. Also consider access to benefits like health coverage. Does it place certain groups at a disadvantage?

Aside from benefits, also examine other areas of how you get things done at work. This may include auditing employee forms and how communication takes place. Walk through your physical workspace to look for ways that the environment may be prejudicial to groups of people.

All areas of your organization have the potential to exclude specific types of people. So, you must examine every inch of your workplace both literally and figuratively.

Appreciate employees whenever they do well.

Individuals need to be given their due credit. Generally, what happens is that whenever a team performs well, the team leader gets all the recognition and appreciation whereas the team members are left out. You need to be impartial towards your employees to promote organizational diversity.

Uncover and Overcome Unconscious Bias

As mentioned before, most people have unconscious bias. As the name implies, an unconscious or implicit bias is a prejudice against specific groups of people that you’re not aware of. Yet, unconscious bias still affects your behavior and decision making.

Unconscious biases stem from associations your mind forms about a certain gender, race, age group, or other classification. These associations and stereotypes may be based on a single, isolated incident, experiences that took place in childhood, or even something you heard somebody else say in passing. You may never know. But their effects linger.

Your job as the manager of diversity is to help people discover and acknowledge their unconscious biases so they can work towards removing them. This can be part of the diversity training in the workplace. This article discusses other ways to counteract unconscious bias.

Encourage effective communication at the workplace to promote organizational diversity.

Make sure everyone in the organization irrespective of his designation or level in the hierarchy is aware of his roles and responsibilities. Make sure organization policies are communicated well to each and everyone.

Create a Diverse Organizational or Corporate Culture

Aim to build an organizational culture that supports and promotes diversity. Business Dictionary defines organizational culture as “The values and behaviors that contribute to the unique social and psychological environment of an organization.”

It further says that organization culture, also known as corporate culture, is expressed in:

(1) the ways the organization conducts its business, treats its employees, customers, and the wider community.

(2) the extent to which freedom is allowed in decision making, developing new ideas, and personal expression.

(3) how power and information flow through its hierarchy.

(4) how committed employees are towards collective objectives.

Include Diversity in Your Performance Reports

Finally, approach diversity quantitatively to increase your chance of success. Make diversity one of performance indicators, not just for human resources, but for all managers, team leaders, and members of the C-suite. Make diversity efforts measurable, track progress, and report on them regularly.

This makes you and other office leaders accountable for managing diversity in your organization. Given the complexity and depth of diversity, it can’t be the responsibility of only one department, let alone one person in a company. In the final analysis, increasing diversity is the job of every single employee, from the lowest intern to the CEO.

Get Leadership on Board

As with any initiative, it’s easier when you get the leadership on board with increasing diversity. Make sure your company executives are fully behind your diversity efforts. That way, the other people in the organization are more likely to embrace diversity, too. Leadership sets the tone for the rest of the company.

They’re also critical to your success. With the backing of leadership, you’ll find it easier to get the budget, time, and other resources you need. Ensure also that you’ve got the mandate to pursue diversity in the organization. It needs to be officially set in the company’s policies, so that efforts to increase diversity continue even when key people leave.

Recruit for Maximum Diversity

There are many things to look at in your recruitment process. Here are a few:

• The job description itself
• How you present and publish the job posting
• Ways to involve employees to reach more diverse applicants
• How and where you hold interviews
• How you ensure non-biased assessment of candidates

Managing diversity in recruitment is developing rapidly in the human resources space. You’ll find an array of reference materials, courses, and experts to help you in this area.

Conduct Diversity Training

Even though an increasing number of people are becoming aware of the importance of diversity, it doesn’t always come naturally. Even the most outwardly inclusive individual can have unconscious biases. This is why it’s a good idea to provide training on how to achieve and maintain a diverse workplace.

You can provide several types of training. The most basic is awareness training, which covers the importance and benefits of diversity in the workplace. The other type of training is skills training, or how to reduce prejudice and be more inclusive of others at work.

Diversity training isn’t as simple as it sounds. Even though most people may say they support diversity, they may have unconscious biases or simply not know how to live it out. Some training approaches can even backfire, especially if workers feel they’re being forced to take the classes or brainwashed in them.

Remember Retention

We’ve talked about recruiting a diverse group of job candidates. That’s only part of the story. Once you’ve hired them, you want to keep them.

And so, one of the strategies for managing diversity in the workplace is to look at how employee attrition or turnover is affecting your workplace diversity. This is a good barometer of how inclusive your organization is. You may be hiring people with a variety of backgrounds but if they’re leaving, that may be a sign that they don’t feel included after all.

Conduct an exit interview with minority employees to find out why they’re leaving the company. Use what you learn to make your policies and practices more inclusive.

Keep the Work Environment Positive

Discussion and activities around diversity can become contentious, yet it doesn’t have to be. If you promote a positive environment at work, then employees are more likely to feel happier. That also means they’ll be more likely to get along well with each other.

As you’ll learn from this article, creating a positive work environment also covers the physical environment and facilities, training, and communication in the workplace, among others.

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.

(i) Creating Conditions for Common Organisational Culture:

Organisation must develop cross-cultural training programmes creating conditions for development of a common organisational culture and climate. Such common culture will create an environment in which a diversified work force can co-exist comfortably, peacefully and happily.

(ii) Creating Awareness of Diversity:

Management must create awareness in the organisation that differences among people as to age, sex, education, culture etc. exist in workforce; so that people may try to understand one another in a more rational and friendly manner.

(iii) Programmes of Special Care for Diversified Workforce:

Management must design programmes of special care, like the following:

1. Care for elderly people
2. Special work schedules to provide convenience to female workers etc.

(iv) Avoiding Discriminations:

A very significant technique for excellent workforce diversity management is to avoid any sort of discrimination among people on the basis of age, culture and specially sex. In the most developed country the U.SA, the Glass Ceiling Commission states that between 95 and 97 percent of senior managers in the country’s biggest corporations are men.

(The term ‘glass ceiling’ describes the process by which women are barred from promotion by means of an invisible barrier).

(v) Career Development Programmes:

There must be programmes for identifying each individual’s strengths, weaknesses and potential for career development; so that the organization can capitalize on the peculiar features of a diversified workforce. In fact, people should be valued for their difference and variety.

(vi) Prevention of Sexual Harassment:

With the entry of a large number of women in organisations, the phenomenon of sexual harassment is usually witnessed; which management must prevent by all means and at all costs. Sexual harassment includes a range of actions, like – unwelcome touching, joking, teasing, innuendoes (indirectly bad and rude remarks), slurs, and the display of sexually explicit materials.

According to Jenny Watson, Deputy Chairman of the UK’s Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC), sexual harassment is no laughing matter for hundreds of thousands of British workers, who experience it.

(vii) Committees of Diverse Members:

Committees of diverse members must be formed for evaluating and addressing complaints of people, regarding their sad experience of working in the organisation.

Benefits of having a diverse workforce:

• Increased adaptability. Having a heterogeneous employee base helps increase your organisation’s adaptability in the market as a diverse workforce will be in a better position to understand what the consumer wants. This will lead to better product decisions.
• One of the biggest advantages of having a diverse workforce is improved innovation in the workplace. Because the employees see things differently and also think differently, interactions with each other will result in the sharing of ideas, knowledge and experiences which makes brainstorming a lot more fruitful. Diversity in the workplace also makes your employees more receptive to trying out new things which is key to creativity and innovation at work.
• Easier recruitment and retention. High-quality employees are rare, which means you need to do everything possible to acquire the few that are there. A recent survey by Glassdoor found that diversity was an important factor for people when evaluating job offers and companies, which makes diversity key for quality recruitment. Diversity also helps your employees feel included and appreciated in addition to helping them become more loyal and feel like they belong. This helps with employee retention.
• Broader market. Having a workforce with a variety of skills and experiences (including cultural understanding and languages) allows your business to be able to provide products to customers from all over the globe. And with the ease with which businesses can make cross-border business transactions in this day and age, this is a big competitive advantage.
• Increased productivity. Diversity in the workforce ensures there’s diversity in the way of thinking. It also provides you with a broad mix of expertise and experience in certain processes which encourages your employees to interact and learn from each other. The kind of open communication that results from this kind of interactions leads to improved teamwork and collaboration. Additionally, diversity has been found to increase morale within the workforce which not only leads to increased productivity but greater employee satisfaction as well.

Diversity and inclusion seem to go hand in hand. There is a lot of buzz surrounding making workplaces more diverse. This often means making hiring processes as transparent and open as possible.

Diversity and inclusion are not one and the same, and neither happens through osmosis. To make employees feel more included, appreciated, and safe in the workplace, initiatives must be targeted to achieve specific results.”- Karima Mariama-Arthur, CEO and founder of Word Smith Rapport speaking in Forbes.

Leadership Strategies:

Challenge your unconscious bias

Eric Kandel won a Nobel prize for his work in the field of neuroscience. He believes that the majority of our free will actually takes place subconsciously. This leads to something called unconscious bias – a predisposition to see a situation in a certain way.

One unconscious bias is the classic gender role association:  MALE = WORK and FEMALE = HOME.

Check your social media activity

What are the demographics of your followers on Twitter?

Treat all individuals equally irrespective of their designation, back ground, community and religion. It hardly matters to the organization whether the individual concerned is a Christian, Muslim, Hindu or a Sikh. What matters is his willingness to learn and passion to perform. Rules and regulations ought to be same for everyone. If the organization has decided to give ten leaves to its employees over a period of one year, make sure the same is granted to the office staff, pantry boy and even to the entry level executive. There are organizations where only the top level people enjoy the company benefits. Such a practice is unacceptable and leads to dissatisfaction among employees.

Incentive slabs and bonus criteria should not change with designation and hierarchy. Policies need to be same for every individual associated with the organization. If you scold your subordinate for coming late to work, make sure your top manager also comes on time. Don’t change your policies for people.

Encourage employees to interact among themselves, discuss work, share experiences and also gain from each other’s experience. Believe me, this way individuals not only come closer to each other but also get to know a lot about each other’s strengths, culture, working style and also learn many new things from them. Every individual has some or the other talent. Let people share their knowledge with fellow workers and utilize their talent in the best possible way. Encourage them to sit with their fellow workers once every day to discuss team’s strategies and even decide on the plan of action as to how to achieve the organization’s goals within the shortest possible time frame. In today’s business scenario, it is essential individuals develop the habit of working in unison; else work can never be accomplished within the deadlines. When individuals work together, not only they help each other in their respective assignments but also motivate each other to come up with their best work every time. This way, your organization also becomes a better place to work.

Appreciate employees whenever they do well. Individuals need to be given their due credit. Generally what happens is that whenever a team performs well, the team leader gets all the recognition and appreciation whereas the team members are left out. You need to be impartial towards your employees to promote organizational diversity.

Encourage individuals to celebrate festivals together irrespective of the religion and community they belong. Divide them in groups and ask them to decorate the office, arrange for a small party at office, get gifts for colleagues and so on. The idea is not to check whether they are capable of doing so or not but to make them aware of different cultures and traditions. Such an initiative also goes a long way in developing a feeling of trust and respect for their counter parts. This way, they start accepting each other and also working together as a single unit.

Encourage effective communication at the workplace to promote organizational diversity. Make sure everyone in the organization irrespective of his designation or level in the hierarchy is aware of his roles and responsibilities. Make sure organization policies are communicated well to each and everyone.

Guide your male employees and ask them to behave sensibly with their female counterparts. Make them understand that they need to draw a line somewhere while interacting with their female colleagues. Do not blindly support them. If any female employee complains about anyone, please do not ignore the same. Try to find out the actual problem and act at the earliest.

Diverse teams outperform mono-cultural teams in the workplace when those individual differences are valued and leveraged. When differences are ignored, organizations miss the benefits of diversity.

There is a growing consensus that inclusive work environments yield better results. When employees feel included, they are more engaged and perform better. Organizations that are moving the needle on inclusion know that it is important to create a shared understanding of inclusive behaviors, of the benefits of having a diverse workforce, and of the link between inclusion and their organization’s mission and vision.

Training programs and leaders who model inclusive behaviors are essential to creating inclusive work environments, but they alone are not sufficient. When employees have meaningful workplace relationships with people who are different from them, organizations will become more inclusive. These relationships are where mentoring comes in.

A mentoring culture is a culture that nurtures deeper working relationships and values the development of all employees. When employees have a place where they can focus on their own development, take risks, explore possibilities, gain exposure to senior leaders who get to know them, and understand that differences are not just seen but also valued, they can feel understood and appreciated and know that they are an integral part of the organization.

Cultural competency is the ability to understand, appreciate and interact with people from cultures or belief systems different from one’s own. An organization cannot be inclusive without a culturally competent leadership team and workforce.

Cultural competency requires exposure to people who are different from us in a meaningful way. When we become culturally competent, we stop judging differences as good or bad or as better or worse. Instead, we learn about those differences and how they impact others’ perspectives, motivations and worldviews.

Mentoring helps build cultural competency by creating familiarity and understanding, which may help bridge differences. For example, a mentor might be surprised to learn that her mentee has a different view of authority, is motivated by something entirely different than she is or has a different threshold of tolerance for ambiguity. If the mentor had learned about these differences in the absence of a personal connection, she might be more likely to judge or dismiss them. Through her relationship with her mentee, she can begin to understand these differences and see how they might be significant for him and for others.

Cultural competency cannot be built in a classroom. It grows in trusting relationships where each person can show up authentically. It is developed by creating safe spaces like in a mentoring relationship, where both parties can share their insights and struggles. The skills and awareness that are built in these relationships transfer throughout the organization, helping mentors and mentees better deal with differences among their co-workers.

Focus on Building Trust

It takes time to build a trusting relationship. Encourage pairs to take the time to get to know one another and set up their relationship before diving into setting goals and creating action steps toward achieving them. Provide tools for trust-building exercises.

Reverse Mentoring

Reverse mentoring partners older, more-experienced employees with younger, less-experienced newcomers. The younger employee serves as the mentor, providing senior members of the organization with information on the latest business technologies, candid input on the state of inclusion within departments, and fresh insight on employee experiences within the company.

Protect Mentoring Time

Many mentoring initiatives go awry when mentees’ supervisors schedule team meetings over mentoring meetings. Ensure that all managers understand the organization’s commitments to mentoring, and create the expectation that mentoring time is protected.

Buddy Program

A buddy program, where a new hire is paired with a seasoned employee to informally share knowledge, is an effective way to increase new hire retention. It is important for underrepresented employees to feel a sense of belonging and connection to the organization early on, especially if those connections are virtual. This type of mentoring program can cultivate workplace relationships and increase engagement while speeding time to productivity and getting underrepresented employees acclimated to the company’s culture.

Train Your Mentors

Mentoring is a skill and a leadership competency. Good leaders do not necessarily know how to mentor. If you want to make sure that your mentors create a safe space to explore and understand differences, you have to make sure they learn and practice good mentoring skills.

Create Accountability

Even the most successful mentoring pairs need support from their organizations. Check in regularly with mentors and mentees to make sure they are on track, and ask mentoring pairs to share their goals and their achievements along the way. Encourage mentoring pairs to set a structure for their relationship, including how often they will meet, where they will meet and over what period of time. To ensure that they are developing cultural competency, encourage mentoring partners to discuss diversity and explore the differences between the two of them. Check in to see what they have learned.

Mentoring Circles

A mentoring circle is a peer-to-peer format that enables employees to find co-workers who have different backgrounds than themselves and share experiences as a group to gain better understanding of interactions within the organization. Many organizations enable this format through employee resource groups (ERGs) or other support groups that can gather people based on shared identities to build community and networking within those underrepresented groups.

Measure Results

Mentoring investment has a return, and you can measure it. To gauge results, measure improvements in promotion, retention and advancements statistics for women, people of color and members of other targeted underrepresented groups before and after a mentoring initiative. Don’t forget to gather qualitative data, too. Gather testimonials from your mentoring pairs, and celebrate achievements. Consider sending a self-assessment about cultural competency at the beginning of the relationship and again at the end to measure progress.

Diversity is any characteristic, perspective, or approach to work, that different individuals bring to the workplace. It includes visible and non-visible characteristics such as:

• Cultural: Ethnic or national origin, sexual orientation, lifestyle, marital/family status, religion, language.
• Physical: Age, gender, race, colour, abilities, appearance, cognitive style, personality.
• Socio-economic: Education, profession, job function, social class.

When people feel respected and their differences are accommodated rather than ostracized, they are better able to realize their full potential and make a meaningful contribution to their workplace. An environment that is positive and motivating for its people increases worker satisfaction, productivity and retention. In addition, the broader perspective of diverse teams facilitates innovation and provides clients and customers with increased value.

Diversity in the workplace simply makes good business sense, and can bring about many benefits, including the following:

• Improved employee morale, performance, and productivity through equitable workplace practices that select, develop, and treat people based on merit and fairness.
• Improved marketing and customer service through better understanding and accommodation of diverse customer groups and their needs.
• Improved ability to attract and recruit top talent.
• Reduced risk of discrimination lawsuits as a result of more just and nondiscriminatory environment.
• Improved retention and cost reductions due to lower absenteeism and turnover.
• Improved corporate image, which generates public goodwill.
• Improved employee creativity, problem-solving and decision-making through effective management of diverse perspectives and “creative conflict”.
• Eligibility for government contracts for which minority or gender-balanced businesses are given preference.

Diversity is generally defined as acknowledging, understanding, accepting, valuing & celebrating differences among people with respect to age, class, and ethnicity, and gender, physical &mental ability. Over the past decade the work force in industrialized countries has become increasingly heterogeneous. These countries are spending huge amount for diversifying the workforce. Thus, diversity is increasingly recognized & utilized as an important organizational resource in regards to whether the goal is to be an employer of choice to provide an excellent customer service or to maintain a competitive edge.

According to Dahm (2003), diversity within an organization can evoke an array of emotions. Many researchers view diversity as something to be dealt with rather than a tool to be used to improve the organizations. Even though many researchers agree that the results of diversity conscious organizations add value to their performance.

Workforce diversity influence many more other factors:

Internal factors:

Internal environmental factors are such types of factors which can be controlled and managed internally. Organizational policy, rules, culture, resources and employee themselves are some important internal factors.

External factors:

External environmental factors are those types of factors which cannot be controlled by organization. Customers, pressure group, government, suppliers, creditors, distributors, trade union are main environmental factors of diversity. Educational background, religion, habits, experience, unions and marital status are also external factors which direct effect in workforce diversity in organization.

Organizational factors:

Organizational factors are those types of factors which directly effect on workforce diversity. It comprises position, post, location, department, division, financial, technological, cultural strategies and understanding about diversity.

Advantages:

Resource Acquisition Argument

As sources of labor become increasingly diverse, firms that are able to hire, retain and effectively utilize workers from all social-cultural backgrounds may gain an advantage in human assets over firms that less effectively meet their diversity goals.

Cost Argument

Given the reality of diversity in workgroups, failure to manage the special challenges that it presents may lead to higher cost structures for firms by contributing to higher employee turnover, higher interpersonal conflict, and more miscommunication.

Marketing Argument

By tapping the insights and understanding of people of different cultures, genders, ethnic groups, etc., firms may gain advantages in designing and selling products and services to a culturally diverse marketplace.

Problem-Solving Argument

Diverse perspectives create a potential for better problem solving in workforces that are culturally diverse. These advantages should be observable in recognizing and defining problems as well as in generating useful solutions.

Creativity Argument

Human diversity in workgroups creates a richer flow of ideas and thus has the potential to increase creativity and innovation; this, in turn, can improve organizational financial performance.

Values Argument

Organizations seek to perform on a diverse set of measures, including integrity on stated core values such as fair and respectful treatment of all members and/or promotion of equal employment opportunities in the broader society. Firms must be proactive in managing diversity in order to honor these values.

Conceptual framework

Workforce diversity plays an important role in organizational change and performance. It enhances employee’s capacity and build new image by gathering with diverse people. When people from different caste, sex, religion, ability, geographical region, age, different perception and attitude and professional background come together in an organization, it enables multiple ideas and better solution of problem at work ultimately improving employee and organizational performance. Diversity builds a positive image and reputation of the organization in both internal and foreign market. So, based on this fact, researcher has some recommendation to policy makers and senior personality of Government, workforce diversity is an important aspect of recruitment and selection of talent mixture steering business growth and organizational change rather than legal mandatory.

A company’s workforce is its lifeblood. Whether your company creates the latest nano-tech or engages in doing some social service, the people you hire matter the most. The role of recruiters is especially important when it comes to establishing and maintaining a diverse and equal workplace as having a diverse workplace is not easy. Different people communicate differently and have different ways of synthesizing and interpreting data.  Recruiters must be able to navigate the gender divides, geographic divides, age gaps, and cultural divides amongst others to establish a diverse workforce.

Although diversity and inclusion-in-the-workplace initiatives start at the top, recruiters play a key role in who moves forward to the next round of interviews and, ultimately, who gets hired.

As someone who has worked in the recruitment marketing industry for over five years, It’s found that for inclusion and diversity initiatives to move forward, recruiters need more training and need to understand the experience of Black professionals and what makes them unique.

Recruiters and Unconscious Bias

Indeed, even at top consulting firms that have diversity and inclusion initiatives in place, some of their own recruiters don’t fully understand the meaning of diversity and inclusion. It’s even harder for them to see or understand the Black experience.

In fact, in an alarming experience, one White recruiter shared another company’s employer branding video, which focused on the experience of Black professionals and what their hair means to them, in a group chat. The recruiter couldn’t understand why their experience with their hair was being highlighted, and she thought it was inappropriate.

Situations like this further underscore the need for thorough and rigorous diversity and inclusion training for recruiters so diversity and inclusion in the workplace can advance.

Strategies:

Diverse workforce is good for compliance

There are strong anti-discriminatory laws in most of the developed and developing economies of the world. Therefore, attracting a diverse set of people to your workforce as a policy will help you avoid the legal complications that sometimes even the biggest companies face. Such diverse hiring policies come to rescue when you have to let go of an employee and your company is less likely to face litigation.

Diverse workforce is more productive

A combined study conducted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology and George Washington University revealed that people are happier working with same gender and yet teams with gender diversity are more productive. The impact of gender diverse team is nothing less than extraordinary on the company’s bottom line with researchers estimating that offices with an evenly distributed workforce of men and women stand to gain 41% in revenue. This can be attributed to the fact that employees work less and socialize more when matched with people who are similar to them.

Diversity in the workplace is profitable

Multiple researches have revealed that organizations which leverage diversity and provide an environment conducive to participation from people of diverse backgrounds experience better financial performance in the long run than organizations which are not so good at managing diversity. A study also found that the annual returns for the 100 companies which ranked at the bottom in equal employment opportunities issues, average 7.9 percent, when compared to 18.3 percent for the 100 companies that rated highest in their equal employment opportunities.

Recognize your own biases and reduce them to increase diversity in the workplace

In order to address diversity challenges, as a recruiter you must first recognize your conscious and unconscious bias that are coming in way of making the best hiring choices. Everyone has certain leanings and preferences, often referred to as biases, and many a times we are unaware of these preferences. For example, many recruiters tend to ignore candidates with regional accents or disabilities. Then, we also have these assumptions about young people being more creative, innovative and energetic than older candidates. Once we have all our biases out in the open it will be easy to identify how these are impacting our choices of recruitment. Once this has been done, it will allow you to judge candidate on their individual merits, qualifications and competencies needed for a particular role.

Evaluate the diversity of your current team

It is necessary to constantly evaluate the diversity composition of your current employees and the initiatives taken at the company to maintain this composition. For instance, you could analyze the gender composition, the median age of employees, the cultural background that the employees belong to and other characteristics that currently represent your staff. Find the diversity strengths of the company and how you can build on those strengths. Also, take note of the diversity challenges and the areas that need to be addressed in the future.

Attracting diverse candidates to your company

Having a diverse workforce requires you to help professionals from different backgrounds find your company and the job you have posted. However, many recruiters narrow down their recruitment advertising to channels that are likely to offer candidates with similar backgrounds, which needs to change. Also, recruiters must be careful how job advertisements are worded, making sure that the language used does not imply bias towards candidates of a certain “type”. There are online tools and editorial help that can tune out such words or phrases that may subconsciously repel professionals from certain backgrounds while applying.

Explore new recruitment technologies as a part of diversity recruitment strategy

As the world of recruitment evolves, companies must be ready to involve technology to increase the reach of their sourcing campaigns. Adopting full scale recruitment software that allows sourcing from multiple channels at the click of a button can give employers an advantage when looking to tap into more diverse talent pools. Also, crawling technology which finds potential fits for a role by scouring their online profiles allows companies to access candidates from beyond their usual talent pools.