Module 03 Course Project – Evaluate Company’s Culture for Diversity

Report to CEO

Diversity is a common feature that exists in most organizations. It is a characteristic that increases its prevalence as a company grows regarding hiring more members of its human resource workforce. Diversity also increases when a firm grows out of its current geographical scope. It is an unavoidable occurrence in every growing organization and therefore, it is crucial for managers and CEO's to understand the importance of learning how to control the effects of diversity in their companies. When diversity is not managed adequately, it can cause adverse effects which may lead to the failure of an institution. This report offers insight on cultural diversity which one of the most prevalent types of diversity in firms. It also illustrates a plan on how to control the adverse effects of cultural diversity.

Cultural diversity in the workplace

Culture refers to a person's way of life. It encompasses an individual's heritage based on social patterns, acceptable behavior, beliefs, values, customs, norms, and attitude. All people have different cultures, and therefore cultural diversity is a standard feature. Even though people may come from the same home town, their culture may be different depending on how they were raised (Lambert, 2016). This phenomenon explains the existence of differences in personal cultures. This situation causes challenging situations in the workplace since the human resource managers of growing companies hire individuals from different regions. Cultural background is rarely considered while hiring employees into a company. The recruitment team in a firm considers the skills that a person has and the services that the worker can offer to the organization (Lambert, 2016). Therefore, the employees in most companies are from very diverse cultures. In some cases, this situation leads to conflicts between the workers.

Importance of diversity planning

Diversity planning refers to organizing ways in which people from different cultural backgrounds in the organization can unite and work to achieve a common organizational goal. It is crucial for a company to develop diversity planning to ensure that their workers are all committed to achieving common objectives of their firm. Diversity planning allows employees to share ideas that are instrumental in enhancing business processes in an organization (Price, & Nelson, 2018). Employees grow significantly when they are exposed to a variety of cultures. Therefore, diversity planning enables employees to gain much personal social growth effectively. Some of the workers can discover untapped talents and make use of them to serve the company. This situation enables the employees to unify their diverse strengths, and hence the weaknesses of the employees do not affect the company since they are curbed. The unity created by diversity planning is essential for improving the attractiveness of a company. A firm with an effective diversity plan finds it easy to convince investors to fund them compared to an organization which has internal cultural conflicts (Price, & Nelson, 2018). Effective diversity planning provides suitable working environments for every laborer, and hence the company experiences a low employee turnover rate.

Proposed diversity plan

The proposed diversity plan will entail four significant steps. The first step is setting the objectives of the company. No plan can be developed without clear goals in mind. Plans are made to enable a person to achieve some specific targets. Therefore, it is crucial to ensure that each worker understands the goals of the organization before implementing the diversity plan. The second initiative will be designing the plan. The objectives of the company will act as a blueprint while developing the plan. The diversity plan will aim at creating a common organizational culture which will be taught to all employees. The prevailing culture will overcome all the other cultural differences. After designing the plan, the final two stages will be implementing the plan and measuring the results.

Challenges

Political differences are one of the most critical challenges to implementing cultural diversity policies in the US workforce. Although workers may be sharing many common aspects in their cultures, it is difficult to alter their political alignments. Age diversity has also proven to a challenge in the implantation of a suitable diversity plan (Park, & Park, 2018). The US workforce is composed of people from different age groups. In most cases, the young generation shares different views from the old generation. Other challenges posed to the implementation of the diversity plan include gender balance and also disability inclusion (Ozturk, & Tatli, 2016).

Control measures

Adequate training of new employees on the importance of organizational culture will enhance the success level of the diversity plan. The training will ensure that employees from different backgrounds can find common ground and relate well with each other. Developing employee incentives will also be instrumental in ensuring that all workers are motivated to implementing the diversity plan. Employees who show the most dedication to maintaining the organizational culture and achieving the set objectives should be well rewarded.

Conclusion

The success of a company relies on its employees. Therefore, it is crucial to ensure that the differences in the cultural backgrounds are controlled. The proposed diversity is essential in developing unity through a common organizational culture. Many firms have failed due to cultural differences, and hence the issue of diversity planning has been researched extensively for SME's as well as global enterprises. Every company should ensure that it develops a solid diversity plan which incorporates each member of the company staff and ensures that they feel accepted and relevant to the company.

References

Lambert, J. (2016). Cultural diversity as a mechanism for innovation: Workplace diversity and the absorptive capacity framework. Journal of Organizational Culture, Communications, and Conflict, 20(1), 68.

Ozturk, M. B., & Tatli, A. (2016). Gender identity inclusion in the workplace: broadening diversity management research and practice through the case of transgender employees in the UK. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 27(8), 781-802.

Park, S., & Park, S. (2018). Exploring the generation gap in the workplace in South Korea. Human Resource Development International, 21(3), 276-283.

Price, K. M., & Nelson, K. L. (2018). Planning effective instruction: Diversity responsive methods and management. Cengage Learning.