Critical Analysis Essay
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5
Ensuring Diversity in the Workforce
Emad N. Alkhadabah
Central Michigan University
Master of Science in Administration
MSA 698: Directed Administrative Portfolio
Dr. Larry F. Ross
April 7, 2021
Introduction
Diversity consciousness makes one open and welcoming to those characteristics which various individuals tend to assume are correct but are not. Many people view diversity as a positive trait. Aspects of diversity typically includes; age difference, sexual orientation, ethnicity, race, culture, etc. This is very helpful in getting a whole extensive scope of the point of view. When working with groups, there are prompts and many thoughts, which helps in extensive exchanges on the chances and difficulties that may arise as one is working with a large group of people from wide and far. Having diversity consciousness is essential in ensuring that the business and its operation are increasing, and it is ready to address any issues that may arise from diverse markets.
Diversity is only perceived when there exists a close monitoring of the working environment. One must be supposed to ensure that the healthcare sector is supposed to blossom with diversity consciousness since the workers will be very mindful about social wellness, which can positively impact the people. Getting prepared and planning on working well with groups is essential in ensuring that groups are working. This helps the organization have a culture of regard, being corresponding and being more resistant in case there are some challenges in the organization. This paper will discuss the possible challenges of diversity, systematic approach and attention, competence, language use and training. This is because diversity is very important in promoting development of the organization, (Butin, 2016).
System's Approach and Attention to Cultural Competence
Cultural competence can be described as the set of congruent behaviors, policies, and attitudes that come together in a health care system, enabling the whole system to work together more effectively. However, it not only concentrates on the health sector but also on a broader approach, and this aims to provide diverse clients with some services that are all for their excellent. Systematic attention is required in the field of diversity since it is possible to promote the output of an organization by assessing all its departments. The assessment can be conducted to ensure that all the departments observe the diversity and inclusion policies as stipulated by the organization.
For any society to have cultural competence, it is essential that one requires many other attributes. This includes an open attitude, which means that one can learn so much from others since they have the spirit of curiosity. Self-awareness means that one regards his/her worldview; this may include knowing your assumptions, biasness, and judgment. Having awareness for others is essential, which means that some actions are to a demonstration of cultural knowledge. Through this, one is in a position to acquire information from others. This can either be regarding values, norms and beliefs. This will help one know how well they are supposed to adapt to certain places with different people.
Specific system approaches are applicable in various sectors of the health care system. This is because health care is an interrelated and interdependent body. Health care system has some professional staff, deals with finances, and it has physical and administrative subsystems. System approach is important in cultural competency since it integrates many practices of the organization's management. The policies and the structures are critical in ensuring that health care workers are working in the most effective and culturally diverse situations. A culturally diverse working environment is important as there is a lot of learning and adapting to the systems which further demonstrates the need for having a diverse workforce in the health care sector.
Diversity Challenges
In any organizations which have diverse groups of people, there are several challenges that the organization might experience. The first challenge is harassment; this means that there is any unwelcome conduct in the organization. This is based on specific characteristics such as age, race, pregnancy status, and sex. The other challenge is the issue of age discrimination. This means that some people consist of some special treatment more than others because of their age. An act was formulated to ensure that people are not getting discriminates against based on their ages. Harassment can also be classified into reverse discrimination; in this case, discrimination can happen against women and other racial and ethnics who are the minority in the organization. Some organizations have tried to address this challenge by providing equal opportunity to everyone to exercise their talents but there still exists reverse discrimination in other sectors.
Race and ethnic disparities
There are socially constructed categories, and this includes race and ethnicity. However, the two has effects on how one is being perceived and how one perceives others. Therefore, acknowledging that there are concepts of race and ethnicity that are supposed to be considered is very important. This will ensure that the implications of the two have been mitigated. This can be done through accepting the individual differences that exists in the society and becoming an agent of change.
There are some health disparities amongst the Native Americans. This is by creating Indian health services; this can be described as the trend in self-determination. This has contributed to improving the Native American health sector to ensure that disparity is being solved. A national interview was carried out, and the report was stated on either the fairness or the impoverished circumstances of the health sector. This was only 9.8 % of the total population, (MacDorman, 2011)
Disparities or Differences across Other Diversity Dimensions:
Gender, Sexual Orientation, the Elderly
Health disparities and gender disparities go hand in hand; they're acknowledging that some biological inequality is significant. This is, for instance, when it comes to the issue of having prostate and ovarian cancer. However, some other disparities may stem from social, economic conditions, which is essential in shaping gender differences in healthcare sectors.
Workforce diversity challenges
There may be Workplace Discrimination, and thus can be said to occur if an employee is being mistreated, maybe during the hiring of jobs. This makes the organization have a negative image in the eyes of the public, and most people do not like to work together under such circumstances. When an organization conduct a fair hiring process where the candidates a selected on the basis of merits the healthcare sector will develop positive image to the public and will attract more workers, (Saxena, 2014).
Language differences
Many people work in the health sector, which, to some point, they lack English proficiency. There is language Access PortalExtrnal, and this contains some of the information which is in multiple languages. This ensures that all the languages that the patients in the healthcare sector speaks is understood. This is mostly common where we have immigrants. It is essential that the healthcare sector should have a translator to facilitate effective communication.
Strategies to Reduce the Disparity
Stakeholder Attention Disparities
Here are different people who are responsible for the disparities which are happening in the organization. Management should be blamed. This is because the moment people from diverse places have come together to work, all the disparities ar4 supposed to be dealt with and ensure no other difference is observed. The other stakeholders are the staff themselves; they are supposed to work together and ensure that there are no disparities that are evidenced in the organization, (Zimmerman-Oster, et al, 2010).
Systematic Strategies for Reducing Disparities
One way to do this is to ensure a culture of equity in the organization, which can be done by recognizing some existing equity champions. The other mechanism is to ensure that there is the incorporation of the intervention measures into the current systems, which would mean that there will be no one who will have some disparities. Involving all the members and the target population during planning is very important in reducing inequalities, (Millery & Kukafka, 2010).
People have different ideas about health care; they have different languages they use and have different literacy levels. Culture and diversity are essential, and it allows people to get into communications. This is because people from different diversities require a lot of communicating and sharing to know what other people think and understand regarding some issues. As I had stated earlier, where we have immigrants there is a high possibility of having different languages and hence the need for effective communication.
There are some communication rules which are supposed to be learned. This includes knowing the best language to use, which is going to be understood by all people. In the United States, English language is the mode of communication regardless of whether you are a citizen or an immigrant.
The Creative and Exponential Leadership Training Program
Getting compassion for the members is very important, being a member who is involved in different kinds of projects which are having different groups of people has got a lot of advantages. This means that people can learn so much from what other people are doing differently to make sure that the projects are progressing using the resources more effectively. As a member of different groups, one becomes very familiar with how to deal with issues, such as watching and trying to figure out some of the instructions given to the structure and how projects are supposed to be carried out to ensure that they are working effectively. It was profound that when a person has some experiences, thinking about the activities that are supposed to be undertaken should be because there is a lot of learning. This means that very few strategies would require the extra gathering of the information. The person who is working with diverse groups of people and conscious about what is happening to learn becomes very easy, and this is called experiential learning, (Robinson, 2017)
This can be described as one way towards the learning process, and this makes a thing to be very easy since there is a lot of understanding about what is being learnt. All these are characterized through learning and reflecting from what one has seen. For instance, as a creative leader, one can undertake a training program as well, and an example of this can be how to build a raft together and reflect on the styles of leadership. This is important as it helps people venture out in a group through the help of the building activity and the review on some specific initiatives. This can be through gathering information from different groups. This can construct a platform whereby people can be learning from it.
Through this, people will be able to comprehend some of the administration styles used by others to make sure that they are achieving the objectives they have targeted. There must be a discussion that should be carried out during the meeting. From this discussion, the four leadership styles are supposed to be discussed broadly to ensure that people are aware of best initiatives to be used, in accordance with the situation is where a person is. Knowing which leadership style is the best for each person is very important. A good leader is supposed to acknowledge the values of diversity, foster the sense of diversity in the workplace and acknowledge that globalization has influenced the workforce to become more diverse.
The Value of Diversity Consciousness in Leadership Effectiveness
Many investigations have been made in regard to value of diversity consciousness and this has been helpful in gathering more information about different kinds of groups and how they can be handled. All these can be managed by understanding the viewpoint's scope; the specialists can invest this to know the issue's complexity. The reason for doing this is that some of the gatherings are better to keep away from them. This is because there is no learning which can take place from such groups. However, some other groups are very compliant, which helps ensure that the individuals' self-esteem has been boosted the time they are staying in. This is through having an examination and basic assessment as well. When groups reach such places, diversity issues such as sex, age, and ethnic diversities are significant parts that people can learn from. Everything is supposed to adjust so that they can continue being at the same pace with all others. Each person in the group should therefore be bound to keep up and aim that they are going to pursue objectives and the reason as to why they went and involved themselves with the groups, (Jones et al. 2014).
The Future of Diversity and Cultural Competence
There are several ways in which the organization can ensure diversity and cultural competence is guaranteed in the future. First, there will be imperative demographics that are supposed to be well established. Therefore, the case diversity will continue to improve. There will be global interest and cultural competence in health care, which will continue trending and the system approach. There will be many force fields analyses. This will ensure that pressures have been analyzed and pressure against change. This is because some people are struggling with how they can make very tough decisions. All organizations must be supposed to be sustainable to ensure that there are no changes that are being made at any time, (Northouse, 2014)
Diversity Skills
Many skills help improve some various skills so that they can finish tasks and the activities they are supposed to be taken into consideration. There are some skills associated with taking up some exercises and programs, which are connected to direct results. These is linked with associating with one's culture, which helps understand different characters; this will be important in empowering social equity, which is essential in making the world a better place to live. There is some educational background that is important in ensuring that one gets to acquire some of the skulls, which are essential in making sure that one can interact. This is important in ensuring cooperation and collaboration amongst the members who are either specialists or others. The skills will be critical for solving some issues, culture, and politics, amongst other things (Steffes, 2012).
Experiential training in diversity-conscious leadership
Anything good to happen need some experience and time, which is essential in creating some authority abilities which can be achieved by drawing of some determined companions through training. This is important in making sure that diversity has been considered to make sure that the advantages of diversity have been acknowledged. There are many types of benefits; for instance, there is much learning concerning what other people might view as a good thing and what others may view some things as not appealing. Training will help people know how they can term one either a good or bad thing. There are other authorities given to the people, which allows the majority of the people to propel when they are working with groups. Therefore, having continuous advancement of groups is essential in making decisions, especially concerning the right person and at the right time.
Conclusion
There are different advantages that the organization can get if it becomes conscious in terms of diversity. Since diversity has brought many benefits, it is essential if it is improved and in every organization. This would mean that achieving many things will be very easy because people with different experiences and skills will be coming together, and the work which will be done will be very effective. People will be doing things using significantly less time.
References
Butin, D. W. (2006). The limits of service-learning in higher education. The review of higher education, 29(4), 473-498.
Jones, S. R., & Abes, E. S. (2004). Enduring influences of service-learning on college students' identity development. Journal of College Student Development, 45(2), 149-166.
MacDorman, M. F. (2011, August). Race and ethnic disparities in fetal mortality, preterm birth, and infant mortality in the United States: an overview. In Seminars in perinatology (Vol. 35, No. 4, pp. 200-208).
Millery, M., & Kukafka, R. (2010). Health information technology and quality of health care: Strategies for reducing disparities in underresourced settings. Medical Care Research and Review, 67(5_suppl), 268S-298S.
Northouse, P. G. (2014). Leadership: Theory and practice. SAGE Publications.
Saxena, A. (2014). Workforce diversity: A key to improve productivity. Procedia Economics and Finance, 11, 76-85.
Steffes, J. S. (2012). Creative powerful learning environments beyond the classroom. Academic Search Premier, 36 (3).
Zimmerman-Oster, K., & Burkhardt, J. C. (2000). Leadership in the Making: Impact and Insights from Leadership Development Programs in US Colleges and Universities. Executive Summary.