Question

1. Explain the challenges in managing diversity. Integrate your “personal” opinions/experiences throughout.

Answer 1

Diversity means having the individuals from different gender, educational background, ethnicity, culture, languages and many other factors, in any society or organization, the diversity of its members can be very fruitful for its existence and survival. A diverse workforce is always considered to be better than the uniform workforce mainly due to the fact that when there are the members of the organization belonging to various backgrounds, they will come up with their own thinking process, pattern of dealing with the situation, addressing the various concerns and even they will provide the varied solution of a single issue due to their cultural, and other difference. These factors can be really fruitful in the present competitive environment

The main limitations of diversity are as below:-

1. Due to cultural and linguistic differences, there can be some problems related to the free communication.
2. These kinds of groups also face the lack of freedom of speech as the members need to respect the differences in the cultures and backgrounds.
3. This can also incur an increased cost of training.
4. There can be some issues related to the team integration as the group cohesiveness can be a problem.

In my present organization, the department in which I work has a lot of employees belonging to diversified background and cultures. This somehow creates a lot of problems while understanding the concept, opinion and thought the process of others as varied cultures and backgrounds have varied value system, though process and communication skills. This creates a lot of conflicts and the work of management becomes quite difficult as there are linguistic, personal, cultural barriers while managing these employees.