Business Advantages of Diversity in the Workplace

Link to referenced article: http://www.ethnoconnect.com/html/articles_09.html

There are so many benefits for encouraging diversity in an organization.  It is crucial for an organization to stay one step ahead of United States Office of Employment statistics in order for that organization to survive.  The United States Office of Employment predicts that more than 29 percent of the labor force in the U.S. will be composed of minorities by 2008.  This has already passed so more than one third of the country's labor force comes from minority groups.

If a company's workforce does not come close to this 30% threshold, that company is not being as proactive at hiring minorities to increase diversity within the organization.  Increased diversity inherently makes an organization stronger.  The market is becoming increasingly globalized.  Just because a company is based in the U.S. doesn't mean that global markets do not affect the company.  Many companies have to take products onto a global stage to remain solvent and keeping an American cultural mentality during such a transition can be disastrous to the effort.  Often times, a company will have to adapt a product or service to a specific culture or area in order to be successful.

Diversity in a workplace increases creativity, increases productivity, introduce new attitudes into the environment, and may encourage new processes to occur.

Diversity increases creativity by combining a wide array of opinions and ideas in order to solve difficult problems.  Diversity increases the flow of idea sharing and can increase participation. Overall this advantage can help solve issues an organization has struggled with for years.

Diversity can increase productivity by involving multiple cultures into one singular goal.  Different cultures have different strengths and weaknesses.  By involving multiple cultures, one culture will compensate for another culture's weakness.  This greatly increases the productivity of the team by assigning separate roles based on strengths.

Diversity brings in new attitudes into an organization due to diverse cultures.  Americans taking into account other culture's value of time and relationship-building may increase morality and good ethical behavior.  Exposing American culture to a more collectivistic culture may rub off and improve relations with other business partners.

Diversity can also create new processes due to increased collaboration from multiple cultures.  Employees keeping an open mind is essential for new processes to occur.

Overall, diversity has immeasurable impacts on an organization.  Opening an organization to all new processes, ideas, cultures, and attitudes really does have a great impact on the bottom line of an organization.

Do you think organizations do enough to promote diversity in organizations today?  What are some ways diversity can increase?