Abstract
Diversity refers to the presence of a wide range of differences and similarities existing among the workforce population of an organization. Diversity benefits the organization in multiple ways, including helping in the generation of a variety of ideas to help solve complex problems. An organization that has a global face will approach a problem with solutions that are varied and are likely to work. Also, an inclusive employee population helps to create a comfortable working environment for all workers because none of them feels like a specific community owns the firm. Despite the benefits that come with variety, there are challenges that organization leaders face when bringing together all workers. Cultural diversity brings about difficulties in language that make it difficult for workers to understand each other. Also, organizations that have workers from different communities are heavily resistant to changes because of the multiple perspectives that the workers hold, which makes it difficult to bring them together. Gender diversity brings about challenges when appointing female leadership in STEM-related careers because the junior staff have stereotypes that enforce beliefs like men are the superior gender in science and technology industries. Furthermore, it is challenging to implement gender-inclusive practices in an industry that has few female workers because the employee pool does not have sufficient women to choose from. Cross-generation diversity is prevalent in modern organizations because of the increased level of awareness among employees. Each generation has a specific set of characteristics that distinguishes it from the rest, creating a different working environment for leaders to bring everyone on board. The paper identifies communication gaps and experience-related challenges that hinder the creation of an employee team that caters to the interests of all people across different times. Providing training to the workers and the leaders will help alleviate inclusivity challenges. Finally, promoting the development of inclusive policies and maintaining an open dialogue with the team is essential in the creation of a working environment where everyone belongs.
Introduction
Diversity refers to the variety of similarities and differences existing among the people working in an organization. The modern workforce is highly diverse compared to what existed in the past. Technology has enabled people to travel between nations to create a highly mixed workforce containing people of different colors and ages (Charlesworth & Banaji, 2019). Diversity is essential in an organization because it leads to the generation of multiple ideas on how to handle complex issues. An individual from China will not think similarly to a person from Argentina because of the cultural variation that exists among them. Additionally, variety in the workforce helps to create a comfortable working environment for all the involved workers. However, the increasingly diverse workforce creates numerous leadership challenges for management teams in organizations.
Cultural Diversity in the Workplace
Morris (2023) explains cultural diversity in the workforce has increased in the recent past due to advances in technology and easy accessibility to education. Although no specific figures explain the cultural composition of workers in the modern-day workforce, there is no denying that communities that could not access education in the past are now able to go to school and become professionals in different fields. Despite the increasing number of people from different communities in the modern workplace, stereotypes and biases continue to impact the harmony that exists in organizations. In white-dominated societies like the US, cultural stereotypes against minority communities are rampant. Priest et al. (2018) explain how black people in the US are viewed as dangerous and hostile people, affecting their chances of ascending to leadership positions. Additionally, black managers with baby faces were perceived to be warmer compared to African-American individuals with a mature look (Priest et al., 2018). These stereotypes against people of specific cultures impact the ability of the workforce to be culturally diverse.
Different cultures communicate in a variety of languages, which can be a possible hindrance to unity within the workplace. Latinos in the US mainly speak Spanish alongside people from South America. People from French-speaking countries will have a challenge coming to English-speaking countries because it is hard for them to express themselves. The language barrier becomes a problem when leaders are communicating because it becomes difficult to pass the right message to the intended audience correctly. Premji et al. (2021) explain that workers who experience language barriers are likely to get sick or hurt at their places of work. Additionally, language barriers make it difficult for workers to understand policies and fill out forms correctly (Premji et al., 2021). Other problems include trouble following procedures and respecting deadlines as they are incapable of understanding things quickly and providing the necessary report on time. Language barriers make it difficult for leaders to impact organizations as they create misunderstandings between the workers and the management.
Diverse teams might find it challenging to implement changes because of the variety of values that the workers possess. In a diverse team, the workers look at things in different ways. Stahl and Maznevski (2021) conducted a literature review on 108 studies touching on 10,362 work groups. The study revealed that cultural diversity impacts creativity and cohesion. It is challenging to implement changes in a team sufficiently lacking unity as it becomes hard to get everyone on board. For example, it is difficult for managers to require Muslim workers to report to work on Eid al-Fitr when workers are given a break on Christmas. The leader will have to offer the same benefits to the Muslim workers as Eid is a unique religious day in Islam. Leaders have to consistently work out differences among groups before implementing changes, leading to delays in the decision-making process.
A culturally diverse workforce becomes possible to create in a community that contains people from multiple communities, which can be a challenge for the organization’s leadership. It is difficult to hire diverse employees in a less diverse community. Countries like Argentina and Uruguay are among the least diverse countries in the world. Aguiló and Vivaldi (2023) explain how the white population in Argentina worked hard in the past to cleanse black people from the country. Since then, the black population in the country has been significantly less compared to countries like Brazil. In such a nation, it is difficult for organizational leaders to create a highly diversified workforce because the working pool does not have a significant amount of black people to choose from.
Gender Diversity in the Workforce
The number of educated women in the current society exceeds what was present in the past, impacting the current workforce population. Unterhalter et al. (2022) explain how global communities have invested resources in creating equality within the education sector by raising non-governmental organizations that are tasked with improving the number of women receiving higher education. With more women gaining access to universities and colleges, it has become easier for organizations to hire more women to increase female gender representation in the workplace. Some persistent biases and stereotypes exist in workspaces despite the rising number of professionally capable women. Mella (2022) explains a common stereotype that exists in the energy sector where women are looked at as being less knowledgeable in scientific-related issues compared to men. Such biases and stereotypes limit leaders from appointing women to leadership positions in such industries.
There is blatant gender discrimination in workspaces as a result of the existence of stereotypes. Mella (2022) denotes how women miss out on leadership positions in the energy sector because workers believe that men understand science better than women. The existence of this thinking stops competitive women from assuming leadership positions due to being undermined by the people below them. Gender discrimination is a problem leaders face because it limits their choices when appointing managers and directors to take over departments. It becomes difficult to change the minds of the junior workers to see that women are also capable of the work that men are performing well. These biases greatly limit the success of the organization as leaders struggle to hire women due to their low acceptance rates in positions of leadership.
Glass ceilings in firms exist, blocking women’s access to specific leadership positions. Babic and Hansez (2021) explain how gender stereotypes in Belgium stopped women from occupying leadership positions for a long time due to the notion that the woman’s place is in the kitchen. Men looked at women as individuals who were responsible for taking care of children. Women were not given the priority they needed to assume some of the top leadership positions. The leaders had a difficult time appointing women to lead teams because they would be sabotaged due to the existing cultural stereotypes of gender roles. Gender biases and outdated beliefs have greatly limited the ascendancy of women to top positions. However, that has recently changed with the passing of laws that require organizations to have a leadership structure that accommodates women. The law in Belgium has set aside a quota requiring companies to reserve a third of the leadership positions available to women (Babic & Hansez, 2021). Such practices will help to eliminate the challenges that leaders face in developing a diverse workforce because of the inability to change the mindsets of people.
Science and technology are subjects that have been considered male-oriented for a significant period, and the population of women in such industries is severely limited. Charlesworth and Banaji (2019) outline that in the traditional science and technology courses, women account for 38% of the degrees received. This means that more men are coming out of colleges and universities with degrees that are related to traditional STEM subjects. This gender imbalance creates a workforce pool that makes it difficult for leaders to develop gender-balanced teams (Charlesworth & Banaji, 2019). There are going to be organizations that struggle to find competitive women to fill up the available positions because the employment pool does not have sufficient workers.
Cross-Generational Diversity
Every human belongs to a particular generation of people who have specific characteristics that are distinct from each other. People born between 1946 and 1964 are called baby boomers and are considered to be highly competitive and retire later compared to the rest of the population (Stelling, 2023). Generation X involves people who came to life between 1965 and 1980, and they value autonomy and have clear lines of separation between their work and personal lives (Stelling, 2023). Millennials are workers who came into existence between 1981 and 1996 and got their name because they were born at the turn of the millennium (Stelling, 2023). In the workplace, they prefer to collaborate, and they are quick to take up corrections when given. Generation Z were born between 1996 and 2015, and they like working from different institutional structures than the one that exist and value social responsibility (Benítez-Márquez et al., 2022). Another essential characteristic of Generation Z is that they hold technology in high regard compared to previous generations. These differences in their preferred way of work create challenges for organizational leaders.
The characteristics defined above create challenges for leaders because it becomes difficult for the entire working population to take up a joint stand regarding issues. For example, people from the earlier generations prefer work visibility (Guerrero et al., 2019). They like working from physical locations that they can identify as their workplaces. However, Generation Z likes working from home as they believe in the power of technology to maximize production (Guerrero et al., 2019). These different perspectives make it difficult for leaders to bring them all on board to decide on one course of action regarding how a company should operate. This creates division among workers that can quickly impact motivation negatively and cause problems for the management team.
Communication is an issue that separates people from different generations, creating problems for leaders in organizations. Workers from Generation Z significantly embrace technology compared to Generation X, which can cause communication problems (Benítez-Márquez et al., 2022). While people from Generation X prefer physical team meetings, Generation Z workers might prefer online calls and webinars, creating divisions within the organization. In such a situation, it becomes a challenge for the leaders to settle on the right communication framework that appeals to the needs of all the workers (Benítez-Márquez et al., 2022). These differences in communication styles hinder unity in firms, which can be a headache for team leaders.
Experience is required to become a leader in many organizations, which can be lacking among Generation Z, limiting their ability to be part of the management team in the organization. A highly diverse leadership team is capable of developing policies that take care of the needs of all people within firms. However, due to limited experience, it is difficult for directors to appoint Generation Z members to leadership teams because they lack the necessary knowledge to occupy such positions (Benítez-Márquez et al., 2022). This creates a divide within the organization because the people who are capable of influencing policies do not understand the needs of the young workers. For example, Generation Z would like to work in stations that offer them the necessary flexibility to have time with their families and friends (Guerrero et al., 2019). This is different from the baby boomers, who value working hard at work. This divide in expectations can lead to the formulation of policies that do not work to accommodate the interests of everyone. It is challenging for leaders to find a middle point when dealing with a population of workers from across different generations.
Recommendations
Education and training are important in creating a common understanding within a workforce that contains many differences. Through education, the workers can learn the importance of tolerance in building unity (Shepherd, 2019). Therefore, leaders can provide such training to the workers while they also indulge themselves in the same to understand how to deal with a diverse group of employees. Shepherd (2019) states that cultural awareness training improves self-reflexivity, which is the ability of individuals to look at their actions and self-correct. Also, it is important to provide learning opportunities to young people to create a management team that has people from all generations. Leaders in organizations can mentor young people and delegate tasks to them to build their experience (Guerrero et al., 2019). Through experience-building, Generation Z workers can enter into management and help influence favorable policies.
Also, proper change is realized through conversations with the affected parties. Managers should encourage conversations with workers on how they can improve cohesion despite the different perspectives they have. Improved communication of ideas will bring about solutions to the problems the workers face (Stahl & Maznevski, 2021). Also, through meetings and the exchange of ideas, it becomes possible to formulate inclusive policies. Laws that consider the interests of all parties are important in the creation of a platform where leaders will not have a difficult time providing direction to the firm (Guerrero et al., 2019). Inclusive guidelines help create an atmosphere where all parties feel comfortable regardless of their differences.
Conclusion
Overall, diversity is important in any organization because it leads to the generation of new ideas that bring about solutions to persistent problems. Also, diversity helps workers from all communities to feel safe and protected to express themselves through their work because they understand that no community is favored over the other in the firm. While diversity carries with itself positives, some challenges come with it. Inclusivity brings about conflicts and disunity because of the different perspectives that workers share on issues. Additionally, leaders struggle to create a highly inclusive employee population because, in some countries, the population pool does not contain a high number of minorities. Intergenerational conflict is prevalent in modern organizations due to modern technology. It is best to create an inclusive leadership team that is capable of creating policies that cater to the needs of all persons.
References
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