Globalization and Diversity

Diversity in a Company
Diversity in a Company
Introduction
Globalization has led to an interconnected world that has grown to be interdependent for business. This has led to the transfer of information, goods, and services worldwide, with more people working together to achieve their goals and objectives. As businesses grow and expand to reach global audiences, people from different backgrounds get to interact. Consequently, the concept of diversity comes into play since the differences among people make them unique in their way (Roberson, 2019). With workplaces engaging people from diverse backgrounds, it becomes essential to understand the differences among people and respecting them. Developed countries tend to have problems with minority groups who face discrimination, especially in the workplace. In recent times, black people have faced discrimination due to their skin color, hence showing the disparities in the world today. Therefore, companies must tackle the issue of diversity to ensure that they can respond to changes brought about by globalization and an interconnected world.
The George Floyd case showed an instance of discrimination against a black individual that ultimately led to his death. The police officers arresting George Floyd acted in a manner that did not value his life in which he died a slow and painful death as an officer put his leg on his neck, restricting his breathing (Parks, 2020). Such behavior would not be displayed when arresting an individual who was white hence, it led to the worldwide protests of racial discrimination. The issue of racism in the United States has persisted over the years and famously created the Black Lives Matter slogan that has been prominent in recent protests against black individuals' discrimination and police brutality. Questions on diversity arise in such instances where individuals cannot be treated the same due to their backgrounds. In this case, a simple arrest that would have seen George Floyd arrested and placed into the police vehicle would have averted the entire crisis. Therefore, the importance of diversity shows that people should be treated equally and given the same level of benefit of the doubt despite their race.
Importance of Diversity
Diversity exposes employees to different cultures and backgrounds since the individuals may come from different parts of the world. Through their interactions, employers and employees can learn more about such cultures hence understand certain attitudes and stereotypes (Roberson, 2019). Getting to learn about new cultures also develops a sense of respect since several individuals may have faced a myriad of challenges and overcome them to reach their current positions. Exposure plays a vital role in an organization since it reduces the ignorance and stereotypes that some individuals may have towards others from different backgrounds. Exposing both employers and employees to people from different backgrounds ensures that they can understand such backgrounds before making decisions or carrying out activities that may be offensive to them. Nike provides an example of measures undertaken to improve its diversity talent with mandatory training on diversity included involving training on unconscious bias among employees (Chen, 2018). Learning that specific phrases, terms, or actions that may cause others to be uncomfortable prevent escalation of situations involving the people involved. Prior exposure thus ensures that there is a learning process that allows people to learn and understand before talking or taking a particular action. Therefore, such an understanding of backgrounds ensures that mutual respect can be developed and prevents instances of discrimination based on superficial differences.
Furthermore, a business can garner a better reputation and better public perception based on its decisions to employ or consider a diverse workforce. By having a larger diverse workforce, companies thus put effort into ensuring that they promote interactions among culturally diverse individuals. A diverse workforce enables the sharing of information and experiences that build up relationships hence making such a workplace excellent for all types of people (Roberson, 2019). Such diverse workplaces encourage people to work collectively despite their differences, thus creating environments that promote collaboration. Public perception thus ensures that the business can be able to attract and maintain clients. Furthermore, diversity helps build up public perception and brand loyalty since these companies are viewed to include the ideas of diverse backgrounds. For instance, products such as cosmetics that provide options for clients with darker skin tones are perceived to be inclusive and diverse. Cosmetics company Fenty by Rihanna recently launched a line of products with 40 shades cutting across different products thus setting a precedent in the industry (Fetto, 2020). This is because such choices to include the right tones for African-American people require the input of black individuals who understand and can relate to such products. Companies such as Google that have diverse workforces can attribute their success to the diversity of all individuals available at the company (Berwick, 2018). In this case, their brand has garnered worldwide recognition for its policies towards employees and their welcoming environment that accepts people despite their backgrounds. The public view of such businesses improves since they are perceived as welcoming and tolerant of all types of people and backgrounds.
More so, brand image plays a vital role in attracting new talents from the ever-growing pool of talented individuals. Potential employees nowadays look for conductive environments that accept all individuals and offer equal chances for progression. The retention of such employees further requires environments that support a diverse culture and lack discrimination based on an individual’s background. Employee turnover plays an important role in determining the success of the businesses hence a higher turnover can lead to huge losses (Roberson, 2019). The failure of business to retain employees that are high performing affects their productivity due to the time required to search for replacements and train them adequately to perform as required. Therefore, companies that are unable to put in place measures to improve their diversity and inclusivity programmes tend to lose more employees over time. Google is working hard not only to increase its diversity in the employment process but also in retention of these minority employees thus in turn impacting their relations with their suppliers to do the same (Berwick, 2018). By ensuring that the work environment allows equal treatment devoid of any form of discrimination in promotions and renumeration thus encourages employees to stay and work harder for better positions. Satisfaction of employees lies on the treatment of its employees hence companies that do not have the necessary strategies to satisfy the needs of their minority employees face the possibility of increased employee turnover.
Diversity also reduces the instances of conflicts in the business among both employees and employers. A better understanding of individuals ensures that conflicts can be quickly resolved since they may be based on small inconveniences to either party (Cletus, Mahmood, Umar, & Ibrahim, 2018). Therefore, understanding the needs of others and respecting them makes the workplace a better place for all. This has been accomplished by Nike through its training program that mandates all managers to undergo training while employees further receive training on diversity to reduce instances of conflicts (Chen, 2018). Additionally, escalation can be reduced and possibly avoided due to the nature of understanding available in the business. Instances, whereby offensive words or behaviors occur without the prior knowledge of their offensive nature, can be easily corrected by colleagues. Employees who can understand such different points of view can quickly apologize and make corrections to their behavior, thus reducing the need for further action. This reduces the possibility of litigation cases in the business since individuals can collaboratively solve their problems once the problem's cause can be determined. This further ensures that the relationships among colleagues can be maintained over time due to the understanding available among them over their diversity.
More so, a business that employs diversity in its workforce gains a competitive advantage. Globalization has made the world interconnecting with businesses interacting with other businesses and clients based in different parts of the world. This means that the differences in these interactions require employees to understand and work in cohesion to improve the business (Cletus, Mahmood, Umar, & Ibrahim, 2018). With a diverse number of employees, the company can gain insights, solutions, and ideas that can help it navigate problems in society that other companies may be unable to solve. People from different backgrounds have different experiences, worldviews and insights regarding different elements of the marketplace. Therefore, by pooling these different bac...