Final Project

Running head: DIVERSITY 1

DIVERSITY 9

Diversity

Tolby Markham

Kaplan University

PP698: Master’s Capstone in Public Administration

March 31, 2015

INTRODUCTION TO DIVERSITY

The concept of diversity refers to the variety of different things. Diversity means the things or persons having the unique attributes. Mostly diversity is defined as “the dimension differentiating the groups and individuals from each other on the base of their different attributes”. Accept and respects are two major components of diversity. According to these components, it is compulsory that everyone must accept each other in the group or organization and there must be respect for each other (Imbs and Wacziarg , 2003). One thing must be understood that every individual is unique and have different characteristics. These different attributes create the differences among the individuals. These differences may be in form of following dimensions.

· Race

· Religious beliefs 

· Ideologies

· Socio-economic status

· Political beliefs

· Sexual orientation

· Age

· Gender

· Physical abilities

· Ethnicity

Importance of Diversity:

Diversity is one of the big and influential ideas in an organization or society. Diversity management is the processes through which employees are educated at the work place that how they can the mange the difference among the each other. Managing the diversity is very important for the organization. Hiring the diverse workforce is the demand of today scenarios. Various organizations are moving towards the diversity management. Through diverse workforce, it is very easy fort the organization to create the talent pool (Graham, Lemmon et al. , 2002). Moreover it is very helpful for t organization to go across borders. Through diverse workforce, organizational productivity is increased due to multiple work experience. Overall diversity is compulsory for the organization to go on global level.

ROLE OF DIVERSITY IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Public administration is an agency which implements the policies formulated by government body on the civil societies through hiring the civil servants. Civil servants are the persons who implement the government rules and regulations on the public and manage them. Various problems are created within the societies. Sometimes these problems are very simple to solve while sometime they are very complex. In hence, a diverse workforce is needed to solve these problems. As already mentioned, diverse workforce has become the need of today scenario. To manage the various situations, the organization needs the persons with different experiences. In the same line, Public administration is just like an organization (Lozano and Vallés , 2007). It has some specific objectives which the public servants have to achieve. To achieve these objectives effectively, it is very compulsory to hire the people from ever gender, experience, ethnic group even religion etc.

Diversity is the name of managing these differences and nurturing the employees in favorable and friendly environment. Every person in this world comes with some diverse experience. Every person has its own lifestyle different from the other people. The experience of every individual is the example of diversification. Various researches demonstrated that in society, the major problem is to manage the diverse people. In society, people from every ethnic, religious, language, gender and age group are living. That public administration is called most effective which manage all types of people (Raadschelders and Lee, 2011). To increase the efficiency of the public administration, it is compulsory to hire the diverse work force. From above discussion, it can be concluded that diversity play an important role to enhance the work efficiency and effectiveness of the public administration. Moreover it is easy to understand and respect the norms and values of various ethnic and religious groups.

ROLE OF DIVERSITY IN ADMINISTRATION ON AGING

Administration on aging is the welfare agency in United States of America dealing with the aging population of the country. The agency works for the aging population of the country through providing them residences and health care facilities. Almost, agency is operating in every part of the country. The recent calculations stated the agency one of the big organizations of the world.

The American population is extremely diversified. People from different areas of the world, different religious groups, race, gender and sex are living in the country. One of the greatest challenges being faced by the country is increasing demand and needs of diverse aging population. From year 2013 to 2030, it is estimated that the aging population of only white people will increase to 59%. These demographics changing may create problems in future of the country (Aoa.acl.gov, 2015).

With the increasing rate of diverse aging population, the agency has also adapted the diversification strategy to manage the aging population of the country. According to the agency report, the minority groups in the USA are facing poor conditions of health facilities and residence. So the organization is working for the welfare of those people. Moreover the diverse aging population of the country is increasing day by day. For the year 2030, the current facilities are not enough to fulfill the growing needs of increasing population (Aoa.acl.gov, 2015).

Racial and Ethnic Grouping of population of America for younger (Ages 0–64) and Older (Ages 65–plus) for2014

	0–64		65+
	Number in 1000s	%	Number in 1000s	%
Non-Hispanic White	168,253	62.7	31,237	80.0
Black	35,387	13.2	3,315	8.5
Asian	12,254	4.6	1,294	3.3
Hispanic	44,282	16.5	2,661	6.8
AIAN/NHPI	3,383	1.3	261	0.7
Two or more races	4,906	1.8	260	0.7
Total	268,465	100	39.028	100
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2014 Annual Population Estimates

Moreover, agency facilitates the aging population according to their ethnic group. The agency uses three bases to diversify its target population.

· Cultural Competency

· Translated Materials

· LGBT

1. Cultural Competency:

Through cultural competency, the agency removes the cultural complexes and disparities to provide the better health care facilities to the people. Cultural competencies include many things like Language, norms, values, traits and personality of the individuals. Every individual is treated according to its personality. Moreover, before the treatment or any facilitation, the information about the ethnic group, religious group or area is collected where from an individual belongs. For this purpose, an individual is asked to fill specific forms (Aoa.acl.gov, 2015).

2. Translated Materials:

A program named as ADDGS is launched by the agency to understand and translate the language of different ethnic groups. The use of this program is basically an attempt to manage the diversification of aging population (Aoa.acl.gov, 2015). This program helps to understand and translate any language including Urdu and Hindi etc.

3. LGBT:

LGBT refers to lesbian, gay, bisexuals and transgender respectively. This is sex based diversification which is being managed by the agency. It is estimated that over 4 billion American fall in above four categories (Aoa.acl.gov, 2015). In many areas of the world, these groups face a lot of discrimination. But understanding the unique needs of these groups, agency is funding to these people to meet their specific needs.

ADDED VALUE TO AGENCY DUE TO DIVERSIFICATION

Through diversification management, the major benefit to the Administration on Aging is tracing and helping the people according to their need and ethnic group. Diversification management helps the organization to predict the needs of people before the time. For example, in cultural competency, first the organization collect the information about the specific group where from the individual is belonging. Through collecting information, the organization can predict the needs of whole population. In the same line, through diversification management, the organization is launched the translation programs. In short, agency succeeded to understand the secret that how the increasing aging population of America can be managed. It is good value addition to the overall performance of organization.

ROLE OF LEADERSHIP IN AGENCY AND MANAGING THE DIVERSITY

The recent reports demonstrated that the Administration on Aging is playing the role of leadership in all the welfare associations’ of the country. In the same line, the leadership of organization and the assistant secretary of the organization are playing its effective role for the development of organization. The organization is launching new programs and growing day by day. Many new centers are opened by the organization to increase its covering area (Yoder-Wise , 2014). The major objective of the leadership of the organization is to empower the aging population so that they can stand again on their feet.

The leadership of the organization is very responsive to the issues. Moreover organization is making the use of diversification management to manage the extreme diverse aging population of the country. Overall performance of leadership working in the organization is good. But still there is need to improve it more.

Diversification is best tool through which organization can improve its progress more. The diverse population of the country is an opportunity and target through which agency’s leadership can enhance the performance of the company. Through hiring the diverse workforce, agency can understand the needs of various ethnic groups and can meet them (Bovaird and Löffler , 2009). Moreover various translation programs are also good opportunity for the organization to increase the circle of its activities more. In short, agency has good opportunity to improve its performance and leadership through managing the diversification.

REFERENCES

Aoa.acl.gov. (2015). Diversity. From http://www.aoa.acl.gov/AoA_Programs/Tools_Resources/diversity.aspx

Bovaird, T. and E. Löffler (2009). Public management and governance, Taylor & Francis.

Graham, J. R., M. L. Lemmon, et al. (2002). "Does corporate diversification destroy value?" The Journal of Finance 57(2): 695-720.

Imbs, J. and R. Wacziarg (2003). "Stages of diversification." American Economic Review: 63-86.

Lozano, M. and J. Vallés (2007). "An analysis of the implementation of an environmental management system in a local public administration." Journal of environmental management 82(4): 495-511.

Raadschelders, J. C. and K. H. Lee (2011). "Trends in the study of public administration: Empirical and qualitative observations from Public Administration Review, 2000–2009." Public Administration Review 71(1): 19-33.

Yoder-Wise, P. S. (2014). Leading and managing in nursing, Elsevier Health Sciences.