1 Work Effectively with Diversity

Occupational Standard: Marketing Services Level III

Unit Title Work Effectively with Diversity
Unit Code BUF MKS3 02 0812
Unit Descriptor This unit describes the performance outcomes, skills and knowledge required to
recognize and interact productively with diversity in the workplace. It covers
sensitive responses to, and interactions with, all manner of diversity that might be
encountered during the course of work.
Workplace cooperation is about working in harmony with both your colleagues and your supervisors
within the requirements of the organization. Cooperation is a two-way behavior and applies equally to
employers and employees. You can begin to work cooperatively by:

Working as a team member

Discussing and negotiating problems and tasks with other employees
Solving problems as a group
Listening to the ideas and opinions of other employees
Sharing your knowledge and skills.

Most organizations expect you to behave in a courteous and polite way, and
to treat colleagues, customers and visitors with respect. This requires an
understanding of the organization’s requirements in relation to interpersonal
communication, workplace procedures, customer service and values and
behaviors.
1. Recognize individual and respond appropriately
Individual differences in colleagues, clients and customers are recognized
and respected. This differences most of the time appeared in difference in
values and personality.
Values
Values represent basic convictions that "a specific mode of conduct or end
state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or
converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence. They contain a
judgmental element in that they carry an individual's ideas as to what is
right, good, or desirable value. Values have both content and intensity
attributes.

Values will affect the choices people make. For example, someone who has a strong
stimulation orientation may pursue extreme sports and be drawn to risky business
ventures with a high potential for payoff
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Are values fluid and flexible?

Generally speaking, No. Values tend to be relatively stable and enduring. A significant portion of the
values we hold is established in our early years-from parents, teachers, .friends, and others. As children,
we are told that certain behaviors or outcomes are always desirable or always undesirable. There were
few gray areas. You were told, for example, that you should be honest and responsible. You were never
taught to be just a little bit honest or a little bit responsible. It is this absolute or "black-or-white" learning
of values that more or less ensures their stability and endurance. The process of questioning our values,
of course, may result in a change. More often, our questioning merely acts to reinforce the values we
hold.
Types of Values
Values are classified into two kinds
Terminal value refers to desirable end –states of existence (the goals that a person would like to achieve
during his or her lifetime).
Instrumental value refers to one’s preferable modes of behavior or means of achieving terminal values.
Terminal Values Instrumental Values
 A comfortable life (a prosperous life)  Ambitious (hardworking, aspiring)
 An exciting life (a stimulating, active life)  Broad-minded (open-minded)
 A sense of accomplishment (lasting  Capable (competent, efficient)
contribution)
 A world at peace (free of war and conflict)  Cheerful (Light-hearted, joyful)
Because values differ across cultures, an understanding of these differences should be helpful in
explaining and predicting behavior of employees from different countries as managers are dealing in
“Global Village”.
PERSONALITY
When we talk about personality, we don’t mean a person has charm, a positive attitude toward life or a
smiling face. When psychologists talk of personality, they mean a dynamic concept describing the
growth and development of a person’s whole psychological system.
Personality Definition: The sum total of ways in which an individual reacts and interacts with others.
Personality Determinants
Is individual’s personality was the result of heredity or environment? Was personality predetermined at
birth, or was it the result of the individual’s interaction with his or her environment? There is no clear
white-and-black answer for these questions.
Personality appears to be a result of both influences. Additionally, today it was recognized that situation
influence personality. Thus, an adult’s personality considered to be made up of both hereditary and
environmental factors, moderated by situational conditions.
I. Heredity
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It refers to those factors that were determined at conception. Characteristics that are generally considered
to be either completely or substantially influenced by who your parents were are:
Physical statue
Facial attractiveness
Sex
Temperament
Muscle composition and reflexes
Biological rhythm
II. Environment
Environmental factors exert pressure on our personality formation. Some common environmental factors
influencing our personality are:
Culture in which are raised
Our early conditioning
Norms among our family, friends, and social groups,
Other experiences we encounter
Culture establishes the norms, attitudes, and values that are passed along from one generation to the next
and create consistencies over time. Personality characteristics that has significant place in one culture has
little place in other culture. For instance, North American instills the following personality characteristics
through books, the school system, family and friends:
Industriousness
Success
Competition
Independence
As a result North Americans tend to be ambitious and aggressive relative to individuals raid in culture
that have emphasized getting along with others, cooperation, and the priority of family over work and
career. Does heredity or environment have primary impact on personality? Both are almost equally
important.
III. Situation
A third factor that influences/modify the effects of heredity and environment on individual’s personality
is situation. An individual who generally demonstrated stable and consistent personality does change in
different situations.
The different demands of different situations call forth different aspects of one’s personality. Situations
vary substantially in the constraints they impose on behavior, with some situations (e.g. church and

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employment interview) constrain many behaviors while others (e.g. a picnic in public park) constrain
relatively few.

Individual differences it may include:

ability past experiences thinking and learning

age physical styles
belief system/values characteristics interests
culture politics interpersonal style
expertise/experience/ religion language
working styles sexual orientation mental ability
gender

Big Five Personality Traits

How many personality traits are there? How do we even know? In every language, there are many words
describing a person’s personality. In fact, in the English language, more than 15,000 words describing
personality have been identified. When researchers analyzed the terms describing personality
characteristics, they realized that there were many words that were pointing to each dimension of
personality. An impressive body of research supports that five basic personality dimensions underlie all
others. The Big Five factors are:
Extraversion: A personality dimension describing someone who is sociable, talkative, assertive.
Agreeableness: A personality dimension that describes someone who is good natured,
cooperative, and rusting.
Conscientiousness: A personality dimension that describes someone who is responsible,
dependable, persistent, and achievement oriented.
Emotional Stability: A personality dimension that characterizes someone who is calm,
enthusiastic, secure (positive) to tense, nervous, depressed, and insecure (negative).
Openness to Experience: A personality dimension that characterizes someone who is
imaginative, artistically sensitive, and intellectual.

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Colleagues it may include:

Internal customers
Junior staff
Managers and supervisor
Peers
Stakeholders
Behavior that is consistent with legislative requirements and enterprise guidelines is ensured.

Legislative requirements it May include:

Disability discrimination legislation
Human rights and equal opportunity legislation
Racial and sex discrimination legislation

Enterprise guidelines it May include:

Codes of conduct or ethics
Diversity policies
Human resources policies and procedures

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2. Work effectively with individual differences

Work place diversity

One of the greatest challenges facing organizations today is managing workforce diversity in a way that
both respects the employees' unique attitudes and promotes a shared sense of corporate identity.

Any perceived difference among people: age, functional specialty, profession, sexual orientation,
geographic origin, life style, tenure with the organization, or position.

Diversity simply refers to human characteristics that make people different. The sources of individual
variations are complex, but they can generally be grouped into two categories:

Those over which individuals have little or no control and

Those over which individuals have more control.

Unless effectively managed, diversity among employees may have a negative impact on productive
teamwork. Affirmative action is not diversity management. Affirmative action emerged from government
pressure on business to provide greater opportunities for women and minorities. Moreover, diversity is
considered an asset in terms of improving organizational functioning and reflecting the customer market.

Sources of work force Diversity

Today diversity refers to far more than skin color and gender. It is a broad term used to refer to all kinds
of differences.
Racial & Ethical Groups: Workers of color often experience stereotypes about their group. At
times, they encounter misunderstandings and expectations based on ethnic or cultural differences.
Older Workers: as the world population is growing older, a trend that is expected to continue
through the year 2000. In addition, the trend toward earlier retirement appears to be reversing
itself.
Gender (Women in Business): Today, there are more than 9 million women-owned businesses,
number of nontraditional, single-parent households growing. Because more than half of all
marriages today end in divorce, this trend is expected to continue. Often, one or more children are
involved. Of course, there are always widows and widowers who have children as well, and there
are some men and women who choose to raise children outside of wedlock.
Education: Another form of diversity that is now found in the workplace is that of the
educational level of employees. The world becoming a bipolar country with regard to education,
with a growing number of very educated people on one side and an alarming increase in the
illiteracy rate on the other.

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Dual-Career Families: The increasing number of dual-career families presents both challenges
and opportunities for organizations. As a result of this trend, some firms have revised their
policies against nepotism to allow both partners to work for the same company. Other firms have
developed polices to assist the spouse of an employee who is transferred. When a firm wishes to
transfer an employee to another location, the employee’s spouse may be unwilling to give up a
good position or may be unable to find an equivalent position in the new location. Some
companies are offering assistance in finding a position for the spouse of a transferred employee.
Religion and Culture: Due to globalization religion and culture based diversity is also increasing
in organizations.
Persons with disabilities: A handicap, or disability, limits the amount or kind of work a person
can do or makes achievement unusually difficult. They discriminate against qualified individuals
with their disabilities.
Immigrants: Today the permitted level of legal immigration is increasing. Some are highly
skilled and well educated, and others are only minimally qualified with little education. They have
one thing in common—an eagerness to work. They have brought with them attitudes, values, and
mores particular to their home-country cultures.
Creativity, innovation, and problem solving: Work team diversity promotes creativity and
innovation, because people from different backgrounds hold different perspective on issues.
Diverse groups have a broader base of experience from which to approach problem; when
effectively managed, they invent more options and create more solutions than homogeneous
groups do. In addition, diverse workgroups are freer to deviate from traditional approaches and
practices.

Managing Work place diversity

The basic concept of managing diversity accepts that the workforce consists of a diverse population
of people. The diversity consists of visible and non-visible differences which will include factors such
as sex, age, background, race, disability, personality and work style. It is founded on the premise that
harnessing these differences will create a productive environment in which everybody feels valued,
where their talents are being fully utilized and in which organizational goals are met.
Managing diversity is about ensuring that all people maximize their potential and their contribution to
the organization. It means valuing diversity, that is, valuing the differences between people and the
different qualities they bring to their jobs which can lead to the development of a more rewarding and
productive environment.
Moreover, workplace diversity can provide tremendous benefits in terms of improved morale,
outside-the-box thinking, greater teamwork, and an atmosphere of mutual understanding and respect.

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Managing diversity is defined as ‘planning and implementing organizational systems and

practices to manage people so that the potential advantages of diversity are maximized while
its potential disadvantages are minimized,’ according to Taylor Cox in Cultural Diversity in
Organizations."
Managing diversity well provides a distinct advantage in an era when flexibility and creativity
are keys to competitiveness. An organization needs to be flexible and adaptable to meet new
customer needs.
Heterogeneity promotes creativity and heterogeneous groups have been shown to produce
better solutions to problems and a higher level of critical analysis. This can be a vital asset at a
time when the campus is undergoing tremendous change and self-examination to find new and
more effective ways to operate.
With effective management of diversity, the campus develops a reputation as an employer of
choice. Not only will you have the ability to attract the best talent from a shrinking labor pool,
you can save time and money in recruitment and turnover costs.
The campus will fulfill its role as a public institution by reflecting the diversity of the state as
well as meeting the increasing demand to provide informed services to an increasingly diverse
customer base.
How Well Do You Manage Diversity?
Do you test your assumptions before acting on them?
Do you believe there is only one right way of doing things, or that there are a number of valid
ways that accomplish the same goal? Do you convey that to staff?
Do you have honest relationships with each staff member you supervise? Are you comfortable
with each of them? Do you know what motivates them, what their goals are, how they like to
be recognized?
Are you able to give negative feedback to someone who is culturally different from you?
When you have open positions, do you insist on a diverse screening committee and make
additional outreach efforts to ensure that a diverse pool of candidates has applied?
When you hire a new employee, do you not only explain job responsibilities and expectations
clearly, but orient the person to the site and department culture and unwritten rules?
Are you willing to listen to constructive feedback from your staff about ways to improve the
work environment? Do you implement staff suggestions and acknowledge their contribution?
Do you take immediate action with people you supervise when they behave in ways that show
disrespect for others in the workplace, such as inappropriate jokes and offensive terms?
Do you make good faith efforts to meet your affirmative action goals?

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Do you have a good understanding of institutionalisms such as racism and sexism and how
they manifest themselves in the workplace?
Do you ensure that assignments and opportunities for advancement are accessible to
everyone?
If you were able to answer yes to more than half the questions, you are on the right track to managing
diversity well.
Most people believe in the golden rule: ‘treat others as you want to be treated.’ The implicit
assumption is that how you want to be treated is how others want to be treated. But when you look at
this proverb through a diversity perspective, you begin to ask the question: what does respect look
like; does it look the same for everyone? Does it mean saying hello in the morning, or leaving
someone alone, or making eye contact when you speak? It depends on the individual.
We may share similar values, such as respect or need for recognition, but how we show those values
through behavior may be different for different groups or individuals. How do we know what
different groups or individuals need? Perhaps instead of using the golden rule, we could use the
‘platinum rule’ which states: ‘treat others as they want to be treated.’ Moving our frame of reference
from what may be our default view ("our way is the best way") to a diversity-sensitive perspective
("let's take the best of a variety of ways") will help us to manage more effectively in a diverse work
environment.
Benefits of diversity in the workplace
Diversity is beneficial to both the organization and the members. Diversity brings substantial
potential benefits such as better decision making and improved problem solving, greater creativity
and innovation, which leads to enhanced product development, and more successful marketing to
different types of customers. It provides organizations with the ability to compete in global markets.
Diverse organizations will be successful as long as there is a sufficient amount of communication
within them.
Because people from different cultures perceive messages in different ways, communication is vital
to the performance of an organization. Miscommunication within a diverse workplace will lead to a
great deal of challenges. Diversity, the idea, is not only prevent unfair discrimination and improve
equality but also valuing differences an inclusion include ethnic, age, race, culture, sexual, orientation
of physical disability and religious and belief.

Challenges of diversity in the workplace

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There are challenges to managing a diverse work population. Managing diversity is more than simply
acknowledging differences in people. There are many challenges which face culturally diverse
workplaces, and a major challenge is miscommunication within an organization.
In an article entitled “Developing Receiver-Centered Communication in Diverse Organizations,”
written by Judi Brownell, she explains that ‘meanings of messages can never be completely shared
because no two individuals experience events in exactly the same way.’ Even when native and non-
native speakers are exposed to the same messages, they may interpret the information differently. It is
necessary for employees who are less familiar with the primary language spoken within the
organization to receive special attention in meeting their communication requirements. ‘In high
context cultures, communicators share an experiential base that can be used to assign meanings to
messages. Low context cultures, on the other hand, provide little information on which to base
common understandings and so communicators must be explicit.’ Because of this fact, it is better to
view all diverse organizational environments as low-context cultures.
Cultural bias is an additional factor which challenges culturally diverse work environments. Cultural
bias includes both prejudice and discrimination. ‘Prejudice refers to negative attitudes toward an
organization member based on his/her culture group identity, and discrimination refers to observable
adverse behavior for the same reason.’
Another challenge faced by culturally diverse organizational environments is assimilation.
Assimilation into the dominant organizational culture is a strategy that has had serious negative
consequences for individuals in organizations and the organizations themselves. Those who
assimilate are denied the ability to express their genuine selves in the workplace; they are forced to
repress significant parts of their lives within a social context that frames a large part of their daily
encounters with other people.
Creating the Multicultural Organization
‘The key to managing a diverse workforce is increasing individual awareness of and sensitivity to
differences of race, gender, social class, sexual orientation, physical ability, and age.’ There are
several ways to go about creating the multicultural organization that performs extremely well.

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