Unit 1 Cultural & Business environment Assignment Level 3 (GC01206)
Task 2.1 Explain what is meant by ‘diversity’ in a business context
Diversity has to do with more than race or ethnicity. Diverse workplaces are composed of employees with varying characteristics including, but not limited to, religious and political beliefs, socioeconomic background, sexual orientation and geographic location, gender, ethnicity, education, every company’s owner wants employees to bring different skills to his job (Miranda Brookins, 2016). In the same way, each employee has qualities individual to himself – such as his educational background, physical ability or disability, age, and sexual orientation. His past experiences have shaped him into the person he is, and these impact how he interacts with you, other management and employees, and your business’s customers. For instance, an employee may privately use his faith to help him make a
Employees and management cannot help but learn from the experiences of others as everyone interacts during the workday. The company benefits from a diverse employee workforce when each employee or staff member contributes ideas based on her experiences and background. A company’s workforce learns to work with different ethnicities, faith backgrounds, and gender orientations, each staff member learns to adjust her way of thinking, especially if she wants to contribute to the efficient functioning of the company. A staff that comes from many backgrounds and beliefs can enhance the company’s ability to compete in the community, thus increasing business for the company’s employees.
Diversity and inclusion work together when employees and managers make staff decisions based on fairness. If a portion of the organization’s staff speaks no English, then you need to find a way of communicating with those employees so they are up-to-date with your decisions, policy changes, and upcoming events. This may mean relying on bilingual managers, who discuss matters with staff and then communicate them to the non-English-speaking staff. While this takes a little extra time – the employee has to talk to the bilingual supervisors, who then have to gather the staff in a meeting and pass on your decisions, both in English and in the staff members’ native language – company’s non-English-speaking employees are not left out of the line of communication.
As the company works toward inclusion, staff members need to recognize that it does not mean playing the role of “happy family.” Each employee will like some staffers while she dislikes others. It is not necessary for everyone to like each other to the extent that they get together for lunch on Saturday afternoons (Genevieve Van Wyden, 2016). Company’s staff members are not all cut from the same cloth. Because they won’t all like each other, they need to recognize that they just need to learn to communicate professionally, getting along. Instead, they recognize that everyone comes from different backgrounds, and then resolve to work as a team.
Task 2.2 Recognize the benefits of having a diverse workforce.
When managers think about diversity, what springs to mind? The first things that people usually think of are factors such as age, gender, race, cultural background, etc., but there is far more to creating a diverse workplace than hiring people who fit into different age brackets or creating the perfect male to female ratio. Though managers may share things in common with other individuals, at the end of the day, everyone is their own person and can bring different things to the table, which is why diversity is so important among a team (Sophie, 2016).
- Talents, skills, and experiences
Though some crossover of skills can be beneficial when it comes to assisting each other, it’s important to hire people with the appropriate skills to fit each of the roles within the company. Individuals from diverse backgrounds can offer a selection of different talents, skills, and experiences, that may be of benefit to the organization and their work performance. A variety of skills and experiences among the team also means that person can learn from each other
- It creates innovation
Whereas one person may be great at generating exciting, out of the box ideas, another individual may have the necessary experience to execute it. By working alongside people of different backgrounds, experiences, and working styles, creative concepts can be born from bouncing ideas off of each other and offering feedback and suggestions. So it is essential to play on each individual’s strengths and collaborate with others in the team………………