Question

Diversity is a potential source of conflict in organizations.

Answer 1

Workforce diversity refers to people with different skills, ideas, knowledge etc. who work collaboratively to meet the goals and objectives. Workforce diversity are very useful in proper functioning of the organization. It is very important to build trust and maintain cooperation by diverse workforce.

The two major form of workforce diversity are:-

• Surface-level diversity
• Deep-level diversity

Surface level diversity refers to the human differences that can be seen easily in terms of ethnicity, race, age, sex, gender, etc. Examples are workforce consisting of older workers and younger workers, workforce consisting of male and female employees and workforce consisting of employees of different religions.

Deep-level diversity refers to the differences in values, personalities and work preferences that are not seen easily but can be determined when people get to know each other. Examples are workforce consisting of people prefer to do night shifts and day shifts, workforce consisting of people who prefer to work in a group and people who work independently and workforce consisting of people adaptable to change and people resistant to change.

Diversity is a potential source of conflict in organizations because: -

• there are few people with different personalities who don't get along easily. These type of people can affect the work force diversity negatively.
• difference in opinion leads to arguments that affect the work force diversity negatively.
• people at work place might get encountered with discrimination as per sex, age, race etc. This affect the work force diversity negatively.
• Values, belief and thought process of individuals are different from one another. This difference in opinion may lead to a conflict