Diversity is the presence of individual differences, such as gender, race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, and the ability to perform various tasks. An organization that completely values diversity will have management that makes diversity a priority and practices it.
An effective manager can practice diversity by executing the following seven steps: focus on getting the best talent, develop career plans for all employees, provide career mentoring by diversity cohorts, promote minorities to responsible positions, maintain accountability for diversity goals, make diversity part of organizational strategy, and build diversity into senior management. Members of an organization that practices embracing diversity are skilled at working together despite of the difference of the employees (Schermerhorn, Hunt, & Osborn, 2005).
Since there is growth in the diversity of the labor force, there is a growth in the racial and ethnical terms surrounding it too. The fastest growing groups of people in the workforce are Hispanics, Asian, and other minorities. These groups are growing the fastest because of immigration and birthrates that are above the national average. The increase of women joining the workforce is on a rise as well. Since there is a large diversity in the work force, then the role of the Human Resources Manager (HRM) has an increase number of challenges (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gehart, Wright, 2004).
A HRM needs to remain neutral at all times, setting aside their own believes and opinions. When hiring new staff a HRM cannot treat one applicant differently than another based on race or gender. For example, a Car Dealer named DCH Auto has only one female automotive technician on staff out of all seven of their dealerships. Seeing a woman as an automotive technician is rare since it is not a job field woman typically go into, therefore it is hard to find a woman to hire for that type of position.
There is some ethnic diversity among the automotive technicians, the majorities are white (non-Hispanic) and Hispanic but there are other races as well. As for the other departments at DCH Auto, there is great diversity in the number of women as well as the number of minorities. When training staff a HRM needs to consider the diversity of those who are being trained. Diversity training is training that is designed to change staff members’ attitudes about diversity and or develop skills needed to work in a diverse environment.
Three main goals that a HRM wants employees to learn; 1. They should understand how their values and stereotypes influence their behavior towards others of different gender and ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds; 2. They should gain an appreciation of cultural difference among themselves; 3. They should avoid and correct behaviors that isolate and intimidate minority group members (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gehart, Wright, 2004).
