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Friday, January 27, 2012

Advantages of diversity in workforce




 Previously I talked about what is diversity and how it is becoming more common in this century around the globe. There were several factors which made diversity possible; for instance; Immigration, technology, and etc. Its not easy to bring diversity in an organization. It requires commitments from all the departments as well as commitments from the top.

Today many organization and individuals ask is diversity in the workforce important. Well the answer is simple, YES. Diversity in workforce is a great way to enhance the organization's responsiveness to an increasingly diverse world of customers, improve relations with the surrounding community, increase the organization's ability to cope with change, and expand the creativity of the organization.

There are many advantages of diversity in workforce:-
  1. Diversity often gives competitive advantages to the organizations in many ways, like,sourcing people from a diverse background is an essential part of a successful employment strategy.
  2. Workers who differ in age, gender, ability, sexual orientation, socioeconomic upbringing or culture, ethnicity and language, make a positive contribution to an organization’s workforce — they’re an asset to company culture and the bottom line.
  3.  A diverse workforce brings innovative and creative elucidations to an organization from ‘outside the box’.
This clearly shows how diversity effects businesses. It makes organizations healthier in terms of productivity, ideas, and innovation.

The following video gives an example how businesses in Singapore are embracing a diversified workforce and how diversity in the workforce have enable them to succeed.












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Saturday, January 21, 2012

Increasingly Diverse Workforce

 


Diversity means differences; difference of age, sex, race, religion and culture. How does the workforce become diverse? Well the answer is simple. People with different demographic differences working in the organization makes diverse workforce.
In the 21st century competition is ever increasing and has forced businesses to change the way they; operate, manage, and how they lead.  In this age travelling is not difficult anymore and many people are migrating from one country to another in search for better; jobs, standard of living, and etc.
The following diagram shows the estimated number of immigration worldwide from 1990 to 2010:-
     
        
Source: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2009). Trends in International Migrant Stock: The 2008 Revision (United Nations database, POP/DB/MIG/Stock/Rev.2008).

Due to immigration our workforce has become diversified or I should say more multicultural. The work force has evolved and is completely different today as compared to the workforce 20 or 30 years back. The increasing diverse work force is happening globally and with this there come new challenges and opportunities for both the employer and employees. Today every human resource department have to deal with increasingly diverse workforce and have to mold their policies and regulations accordingly.

 We can take Canada as an example. Canada is one of the biggest immigration hubs in the world. Statistic has shown that more than 250,000 families have migrated to Canada in year 2010.


In Canada diversity is heavily promoted. Federal government passed a Canadian Multiculturalism Act in 1988. It is an Act for the preservation and enhancement of multiculturalism in Canada. There are several reasons for promoting diversity are pretty obvious:-
1.       To contribute to a fairer society,
2.       Improve the quality of staff by reaching unexploited pools of talent.
3.       To increase consumer confidence in a workforce that reflects the clients that it provides services for.

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