Question

Define the term “workforce diversity” and describe benefits and management challenges associated with it.

Answer 1

Workforce diversity refers to the diversity in the workforce of an organization in terms of age, cultural background, race, sex, religion etc.

Benefits of workforce diversity are:

Increased productivity as people get competitive

Increased creativity as different ideas come from different people

Global expansion easier as the workforce is diverse and can aid in communication barriers

Reputation of the company increases and it gets respected

Challenges of workforce diversity are:

Managers might have to deal with groupism and racism in workforce

Managers might hire a diverse workforce just for the sake of it and not as per the job requirements

Too many different opinions can lead to clashes

Trust issues can persist

Employees might have pre conceived notions about a type of people in their teams which can create a non cooperative environment

Thus, having a diverse workforce has its pros and cons, as discussed above.