Thinking About Diversity and Inclusion

Thinking About Diversity and Inclusion

Today's competitive workplace environment needs to stay competitive and the need to recognize the importance of multiple dimensions of diversity within the company is an important factor. Management policies should be adaptable and leverage the skills and talents of all employees to be competitive. There are many dimensions of cultural diversity that are misunderstood and controversial. Implementation of a diversity program will help employees within a company understand each other, and help maintain the competitiveness of the company.

The Dimensions of Cultural Diversity

Dimensions of cultural diversity include race, ethnicity, religion, and gender along with many more dimensions. Race is a socially constructed concept of a group (Schaefer, Chapter Exploring Race and Ethnicity, 2011) that is socially set apart because of obvious reasons like the color of a person's skin, and physical reasons like the way a person looks different in his or her facial features that differ from other people (Schaefer, Chapter Exploring Race and Ethnicity, 2011). Ethnic groups are set apart because of distinctive cultural languages, parenting methods, or the food they prepare and consume. The national origin of a person is a distinctive pattern of ethnicity that originates from one's nation. These ethnic patterns recognized in the United States as a difference between black and white that includes dark skinned cultural traits of Latin Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans. The white skinned cultural traits include the Irish, Polish, and Norwegian Americans (Schaefer, Chapter Exploring Race and Ethnicity, 2011).

Religious groups are another distinguished dimension of cultural diversity. An individual associated with a religion other than the dominant religion of Christianity in the United States sets a religious group apart and labels the religion as socially unacceptable (Schaefer, Chapter Exploring Race and Ethnicity, 2011).

Gender another dimension that women encounter involuntarily through discrimination a behavior brought upon a social identity group that unfairly or unequally treats the members of the group, and prejudice a personal attitude already formed about a person based on his or her membership with a group. This produces dominate groups (majority), and subordinate groups (minority) even though the person may not exhibit the characteristics outlined as gender like women. The special challenge is for the women of race and ethnicity that face the challenge of gaining equality in the workplace. These women face many more challenges in equality because the forces against them that they must encounter regarding race, ethnics, and gender to obtain equality in the workforce.

Identifiable Ethnic, cultural, and Other Groups

There are several cultural dimensions of people who I identify with daily and have identified with in the past, including African American, Hispanic, Japanese, Polish American, Italian, and myself a Norwegian American group member. The diverse people I identify with are a group of very close friends who I have contact with on a daily or weekly basis. Some of which I am going to school with or have just completed school, and others include the people I work with each day. My Italian friend loves to cook Italian entries she has brought me so many dishes for tasting that I have a hard time choosing one that is my favorite. One of my dearest friends is African American who lives in North Carolina that I met taking classes at the University of Phoenix online. She and I connected when we were in a class together and have kept the connection, and I am looking forward to the day we can meet in person.

I enjoy the company of my Hispanic friend who can keep in touch with me at different times, and if it is over a week that we last talked we seem to catch up with what is going on in a matter of a few minutes because we can read each other well. At one point I identified with a coworker from another job, and we were able to become close friends but as the way things go people advance to new jobs and contact is lost. Finally, the man I had known for 33 years was Polish American he recently passed away unexpectedly but I had the pleasure of knowing him and enjoying his company for many years. He cooked several different types of food that at times I could not bring myself to try.

The company I work for is becoming more global and I am the one person who handles the major accounts in the billing and answering customer questions. Therefore, this puts me in the position of talking with individuals from companies across the Canadian border and with customers across the Mexican border. At first there were some challenging language barrier issues but I have overcome many of them. The most important thing in the language barrier is to listen carefully and do not have distractions when on the phone with the customer. Many global customers have learned the English language and listening carefully is helpful in understanding their needs in phone conversations.

The difference between diversity and inclusion

Diversity is an individual's performance, motivation, communication, and inclusion that affect the organizational experience of an individual in addressing the difference in cultural dimensions from those of coworkers (Harvey & Allard, Chapter A Framework for Understanding Individual Perspectives of Diversity, 2009). Diversity is important to recognize in the workplace because of the globally growing workforce, and the impact on a company if the diversity issue is not adapted to management practices in the changing needs of the worker. A nation with such a diverse workforce as the United States has multiple dimensions of diversity with relevant differences that may be of significance to their organizational experiences.

Diverse employees bring different perspectives to the company in decision-making that can foster a competitive advantage for the company. This is an inclusive working environment in which the diverse employee does not believe they are ostracized but recognized as an important contributor to the company's goals (Harvey & Allard, Chapter A Framework for Understanding Individual Perspectives of Diversity, 2009). It is important that management of the company can produce an inclusive work environment of important significance in drawing off the richness of a diverse workforce. The competitive advantage that a company can gain from an inclusive workforce will improve and strengthen the company's bottom line. It is difficult to prove or measure that inclusive diversity is a competitive advantage for a company because many companies have not reached the inclusive stage establishing the business case