Workforce Diversity

Diversity at the workplace is accepting the employees from different cultural background, value, ethics, age, ethnicity. diversity aggregate the team level construct represents difference among members of an interdependent workgroup concerning specific personal attribute. Diversity is a positive factor in an institute it not only increases the opportunity for research, collaboration, students & faculty exchange it adds value in knowledge by gathering various creative thoughts. It provides a distinct advantage in an era when flexibility and creativity are key competitiveness. When the institute is struggling to make the student ready for the industry it is important to have diversified employees. Conglomeration promotes creativity and amalgamated groups have been shown to produce better solutions to the problem and higher level of critical analysis. When the education industry is undergoing tremendous changes for the improvement and betterment of the education systems it is important to find more effective and better ways for the institute to operate. Diversity improves the work culture, provides a competitive advantage, buildability to compete in globally and improves the performance, job satisfaction and relationship with multicultural communities, attracting multiple talents and skills.

The Institutes having varied people with creative and problem-solving skills creates a competitive the environment in the institute. Many times when the people join the Institute from different culture, background, the language they have different human nature and this leads to friction/complication with the local employees, however when the Institutes make sure that they will have a diverse workforce from the very initial stage, they do not face the problem of acceptability. They are forced to keep their personal opinions outside the Institutes which result in better growth and work culture in the Institutes. Sometimes the Institutes faces the problem of high turnover, but many times high turnover is good to avoid organization politics. If a person with high calibre joins the institute irrespective of the state, caste, background and performs high and leaves the job early compared to a person who is in the Institutes for many years with zero output naturally the early employee is beneficial for the Institutes.

When there is a mix of employees the employees those who are high performers many times creates a sense of insecurity among the employees those who do not wish to perform they just want to be in the Institutes, in such cases the turnover ratio is less but at the same time productivity is poor, diversification in such cases helps the Institutes to create competition among the employees and get the output from them with fewer efforts. Same time it is observed that there are certain unknown impediments which lead toward disengagement at the workplace, resulting in high employee turnover, and consequent poor performance of the Institutes. Because of existing workforce hindering the performance of the other employees. Many psychologists believe that understanding and appreciating the emotions of another person will give the organization a sensible upshot in terms of managing diversity at the workplace. Hence hiring employees with good emotional intelligence or training your employees is EI helps in the smooth functioning of the team.

The term diversity may sound small and simple but it is a mix of holding and managing the objectives of the people from different human nature, hence diversity brings significant challenges to the Institutes and HR plays a vital role in handling the issues about an individual difference arising out of diversity, to support HR top management are equally expected to join the hands in handling such diversified workforce to confront these kinds of challenges, understanding and appreciating each individual’s emotions.

In short, workplace diversity is a people issue, focusing on the difference and similarities that people bring to an institute. Globalization crafts workforce diversity in the Institutes, however, it is blessing and curse both depending on the management style of the organization if accepted it brings creativity and performance in the Institutes, on the another hand, bringing in the diversified workforce is the real challenge for HR as various behavioural dynamics like trust-mistrust, conflict-collaboration sabotage etc get involved.

When we listen and celebrate what is both common and different, we become a wiser, more inclusive, and better organization. ~Pat Wadors