Diversity

Diversity

Team C

HRM 531

May 7, 2012

Callie Burnley

Diversity

Diversity is a key element in any business that exists in today’s society. For a company to maintain its success, a diverse work environment is necessary. Although many companies succeed in possessing a diverse workforce, there are many that experience difficulty and how the companies choose to analyze, approach, and fix the issues that have or may occur are key elements in providing success. Blahna’s company had issues concerning the increase of diversity within upper management and Team C looked into aspects of diversity within the company. The following will discuss the challenges many companies face in managing diversity: the key elements of the successful strategy of Blahna, what circumstances the consulting pairs approach will be the most useful, and the steps that management should take ensuring that the consulting pairs approach is working as planned.

Challenges in Managing Diversity

Diversity brings new ideas, as well as becoming one of the major competitive factors for many companies. However, diversity poses challenges, such as culture difference in workplace and encumbering millions of dollars to correct imbalance, injustice, and past mistakes.

Culture is the foundation of diversity in the workplace. Culture refers to family patterns, languages, customs, social classes, religion, political systems, and or laws. People who are from different cultures will not only work and live different life styles but also do things and respond differently to the same situation due to his or her culture. Individuals find it difficult working with someone who does not speak the same language, and the listeners more often feel frustrated when someone does not understand the question. Moreover, it is harder to learn values, build trust, and respect the styles or ways of behavior of people from different cultures and backgrounds. Thus, cultural...