What are the challenges of diversity

Today, diversity is typical in most workplaces. With new technology, businesses can connect with clients and customers from all over the world. Internally, the business landscape is recognising the benefits of diversity including wealth of knowledge, experience and different perspectives. By embracing those differences, we can spark innovation, problem solving, insight and creativity.

While diversity may be the new norm, the possible challenges of diversity must be addressed. Neglecting deep-rooted stereotypes can lead to various workplace challenges including:

Communication issues stemming from the failure of different groups to understand one another
Increased tension and conflicts between different groups
The tendency for individuals from similar backgrounds to stick together, hire similar individuals and choose similar individuals to work on projects together
Discrimination and harassment in the workplace

These challenges can often snowball, lead to a decrease in productivity and in some cases legal consequences.

Here are some ways that will help overcome diversity challenges:

Take a look at your recruiting and hiring practices

Ensure job advertisements and job descriptions are neutral and bias free to attract a wide variety of candidates. Make sure candidates are interviewed by various individuals within the organisation.

Establish mentoring opportunities

Challenge preconceived notions by providing employees with the opportunity to be mentored by individuals from different cultures, backgrounds and ages to improve communication and build relationships.

Promote team work

Encourage employees to focus on each other’s strengths and create cross-functional teams so that individuals from different backgrounds can work together. For example, its important you work on eliminating generation gaps. Employers should encourage and support employees to ensure they feel that they have a voice and seat at the table.

Make inclusion a priority

It’s important for an employer to go beyond diversity and strive to have an inclusive workplace, where all employees feel their differences are respected and valued for their different skills and ideas. An employer can support inclusion by providing accommodations to employees’ cultural requirements, like prayer times or religious holidays.

Provide Diversity Training

Diversity training can go a long way in encouraging employees to be accepting of differences and value the opinions of others. Awareness training helps foster and strengthen diversity initiatives in the workplace.

Regardless of your business type, it’s important to keep an open mind. By doing so, you can find a common ground where everyone can respect and embrace diversity.

GRC Solutions offers Diversity and Equality online training for staff at all levels within an organisation – contact us today to find out how we can help.

Discuss the challenges of a diverse workforce

What makes us different can also make it challenging for us to work well together. Challenges to employee diversity are based not only on our differences—actual or perceived—but on what we perceive as a threat. Our micro (e.g., organizational culture) and macro (e.g., socio-political and legal) operating environment can also be challenges for diversity. Long-term economic, social, political and environmental trends are rendering entire industries—and the associated skill sets—obsolete. For many in these industries and many slow-growth occupations, workplace trends seem to represent a clear and present danger.

In an article titled “Meet the US workforce of the future: Older, more diverse, and more educated,” Deloitte notes that the U.S. labor market is increasingly dividing into two categories: “highly skilled, well-paid professional jobs and poorly paid, low-skilled jobs.” The authors Dr. Particia Buckley and Dr. Daniel Bachman note that there are relatively fewer middle-skill, moderate-pay jobs—for example, traditional blue-collar or administrative jobs. Indeed, as we’ve discussed in other modules, the idea of a static set of skills for a given occupation is a historical concept. The authors note that participation in the future labor force will increasingly require computer and mathematical skills, even at the low-skill end.

Deloitte expects the workforce of the future to be older (“70 is the new 50”), more diverse and more highly educated. To the diversity point, Deloitte states that “if current trends continue, tomorrow’s workforce will be even more diverse than today’s—by gender, by ethnicity, by culture, by religion, by sexual preference and identification, and perhaps by other characteristics we don’t even know about right now.” The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that by 2024, less than 60% of the labor force will identify as “white non-Hispanic,” down from over 75% in 1994. Hispanics are projected to comprise approximately 20% of the 2024 labor force, African-Americans 13% and Asians 7%. Women are expected to comprise 47% of the 2024 workforce. For many, these economic and demographic shifts represents a radical change. Macro level challenges to diversity include fixed mindsets, economic trends and outdated socio-political frameworks.

Here are specific challenges that may be experienced at the organizational level:

Complexity. This is the flip-side of one of diversity’s benefits: it’s hard work! Reynolds notes that while it might seem easier to work on a homogeneous team, there is a tendency to compromise and “settle for the status quo.” The title of a Harvard Business Review article captures the dynamic: “Diverse Teams Feel Less Comfortable—And That’s Why They Perform Better.” The authors’ argument: “working on diverse teams produces better outcomes precisely because it’s harder.”
Differences in communication behaviors. Different cultures have different communication rules or expectations. For example, colleagues from Asian or Native American cultures may be less inclined to “jump in” or offer their opinions due to politeness or deference as a new member or the only [fill in the blank] on the team.
Prejudice or negative stereotypes. Prejudice, negative assumptions or perceived limitations can negate the benefits of diversity and create a toxic culture. As Reynolds notes, “although not all stereotypes are necessarily negative...all are simplifications that can prove limiting or divisive in the workplace. And while outright prejudice or stereotyping is a serious concern, ingrained and unconscious biases can be a more difficult challenge of workplace diversity to overcome.”
Differences in language and non-verbal communications. George Bernard Shaw quipped “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” Clearly, language differences can be a challenge, including accents and idioms. Translation errors can also occur with non-verbal communication; gestures, eye contact, personal space and greeting customs can be significantly (and disastrously) different across cultures and regions. For perspective, scan Business Insider’s infographic How to properly shake hands around the world.
Complexity & cost of accommodations. Hiring a non-U.S. citizen may require navigating visas and employment law as well as making accommodations for religious practices and non-standard holidays.
Differences in professional etiquette. Differences in attitudes, behaviors and values ranging from punctuality to the length of the work day, form of address or how to manage conflict can cause tensions.
Conflicting working styles across teams. In addition to individual differences, different approaches to work and team work—for example, the relative value of independent versus collaborative/collective thought and work—can derail progress.

PRactice Question

Embracing and managing diversity in today's business world is not a recommendation – it's an essential part of successful business practices. Even when business leaders understand and value the differences in the people in their companies, they face challenges when managing diversity programs. Leaders need to spend the time necessary to fully understand the issues that can lead a well-intended diversity program to backfire and create problems.

Business leaders know that embracing diversity brings various voices to a team, improves morale and increases overall productivity. However, when they develop and manage diversity programs, managers have difficulty understanding the value of each person's unique abilities or voice. This may be the result of unintended personal bias and differences. Even with diversity programs in place, some team members may be reluctant to share ideas or provide feedback based on historical cultural experiences.

Managers work with employees to help them understand their own value to the team. Holding team-building exercises encourages every member to work on a task that is not job-related while getting to know other employees in different ways. They schedule diversity potlucks where employees share their culture through food. By going beyond policies and creating diversity-building programs, business leaders motivate everyone on the team to share and celebrate.

While a business leader may try to develop a diversity program to build team spirit and morale, there may be instances where certain employees still have conflicts. Discrimination not only kills team morale and negatively impacts performance, but it is a human resources issue that companies need to address before facing lawsuits. Managing discrimination is challenging. There may be times where someone claims to be discriminated against by another employee when no discrimination occurred.

Business leaders protect themselves against discrimination and effectively manage diversity platforms by publishing and implementing workplace rules and protocols that are the same for every complaint. Employee handbooks need to clearly explain the company diversity and anti-discriminatory policies. They should also give employees protocol to follow when they feel there is an infraction of the policy. Investigations should be thorough and unbiased with documentation and actions taken when necessary.

Diversity by its definition attempts to celebrate people for who they are, their backgrounds and what makes them unique. Managing programs runs the risk of incidentally leaving out one particular group whether it be religious, ethnic or lifestyle. What business leaders have come to realize is that in growing diversity programs to celebrate one group, there is the risk of offending another.

For example, as businesses moved toward gender-neutral restroom policies, some groups celebrated the progress being made toward the transgender community while others became outraged. It is this fine line that managers must walk when they develop policies and programs that support office diversity.

Failing to overcome diversity management challenges could result in employee turnover and the loss of excellent talent because of discrimination or lack of inclusion.