Chapter 2:

Diversity in Organizations
 What is Diversity?
• Diversity can be defined as
acknowledging, understanding,
accepting, and valuing differences
among people with respect to age,
class, race, ethnicity, gender,
disabilities, etc.
• Workplace diversity refers to the
variety of differences between
people in an organization.
 Importance of Diversity in the
Organization
Organizations need to become more
diversified to remain competitive in this era
of globalization.
1. Diversity enhance better decision making.
2. It increase productivity.
3. It ensure greater creativity and innovation.
4. It improve the way of problem solving.
5. It attract and retain talent.
6. It help to build synergy in teams and
enhances communication skills.
 Challenges of Diversity in the
Organization
Employing a diverse workforce has also some challenges:

1. Every workplace has people who resist diversity and the

changes it brings.

2. Differences among people can lead to miscommunication,

misunderstanding, and conflict which decrease productivity.

3. The investigation of employee complaints regarding negative

attitudes and harassment can take up a considerable amount
of management time, whether or not they are upheld.

4. Apart from the usual training, an organization must invest in

seminars, programs and lectures designed to promote diversity
in the workplace which increase the cost of training.

5. Existing employees may leave the organization if their personal

prejudices prevent them from working with colleagues from a
different background.
 Levels of Diversity
• Surface-level diversity: Differences in
easily perceived characteristics, such as
gender, race, ethnicity, age, or disability,
that do not necessarily reflect the ways
people think or feel but that may
activate certain stereotypes.
• Deep-level diversity: Differences in
values, personality, and work preferences
that become progressively more
important for determining similarity as
people get to know one another better.
 Discrimination
Managers have to eliminate unfair discrimination
for the effective management of diversity.
• Discrimination is the ability to understand that
one person/thing is different from another
person/thing. Which itself isn’t necessarily bad.
Noticing one employee is more qualified is
necessary for making hiring decisions.
• Unfair Discrimination is the act of treating a
person differently — negatively or positively —
because of that person’s race, class, sexual
orientation or gender or any other group to
which that person belongs, rather than assessing
individual needs and merits.
 Forms of Discrimination
1. Discriminatory policies or practices: Actions taken by
representatives of the organization that deny equal
opportunity to perform or unequal rewards for performance.

2. Sexual harassment: Unwanted sexual advances and other

verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature that create a
hostile or offensive work environment.

3. Intimidation: Overt threats or bullying directed at members of

specific groups of employees.

4. Mockery and insults: Jokes or negative stereotypes.

5. Exclusion: Unintentional exclusion of certain people from job

opportunities, social events, discussions or informal mentoring.

6. Incivility: Disrespectful treatment, including behaving in an

aggressive manner interrupting the person, or ignoring his or
her opinions.
 Biographical Characteristics
Biographical characteristics are representative of
surface-level diversity. Biographical characteristics are
the personal characteristics—such as age, gender, race,
and length of tenure—that are objective and easily
obtained from personnel records.
Age:
 Older workers bring a number of positive qualities to
their jobs such as experience, judgment, a strong work
ethic, and commitment to quality.
 Older workers are lacking flexibility and resistant to
new technology.
 Age has significant effect on job performance,
turnover, absenteeism, productivity and job
satisfaction.
 …Biographical Characteristics
Gender:
 Generally, gender does not have any strong influence
on job performance and productivity.
 Men are more aggressive and more likely to have
expectations of success than women.
 Women prefer jobs that encourage work–life balance.
 Women have high rate of turnover and absenteeism
than men.
 Workers who experience sexual harassment have higher
levels of psychological stress, and these feelings in turn
are related to lower levels of organizational
commitment and job satisfaction, and higher
intentions to turn over.
 …Biographical Characteristics
Race and Ethnicity (Race refers to a
person’s physical characteristics, such as
bone structure and skin, hair, or eye
color. Ethnicity refers to a person’s
cultural identity, such as language,
religion, nationality, ancestry, dress, and
customs):
 There is a tendency for individuals to
favor colleagues of their own race in
hiring decisions, performance evaluations,
pay, and workplace discrimination.
 …Biographical Characteristics
Disability (A physical or mental condition that
limits a person’s movements, senses, or
activities):
 Making inferences about the relationship
between disability and employment outcomes is
difficult.
 Workers with disabilities tend to encounter
lower performance expectations and are less
likely to be hired.
 Some jobs obviously cannot be accommodated to
some disabilities—the law and common sense
recognize that a blind person could not be a bus
driver.
 …Biographical Characteristics
Tenure (expressed as work experience):
 Tenure appears to be a good predictor
of employee productivity.
 People with high job tenure absent less
frequently.
 The longer a person is in a job, the less
likely he or she is to quit.
 Tenure and job satisfaction are
positively related.
 …Biographical Characteristics

Religion:
Religion may impact the workplace
in areas of dress.
Religious beliefs prohibit or
encourage certain behaviors.
Law prohibits employers from
discriminating against employees
based on their religion.
 …Biographical Characteristics
Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (Sexual
orientation is an inherent or immutable
enduring emotional, romantic or sexual
attraction to other people. People may be
identify as heterosexual, homosexual, or
bisexual. Gender identity is one’s innermost
concept of self as male, female, a blend of both
or neither. One’s gender identity can be the
same or different from their sex assigned at
birth):
 Many lesbian, gay, and bisexual employees keep
their gender identity from their co-workers
for fear of being discriminated against.
 Ability
Deep-level diversity elements (e.g. ability) are
closely related to job performance.  
• Ability is an individual’s current capacity to
perform the various tasks in a job.
• We weren’t all created equal in our abilities but
everyone has strengths and weaknesses that make
him or her relatively superior or inferior to others
in performing certain tasks or activities.
• An individual’s overall abilities are made up of
two set of factors:
Intellectual Abilities
Physical Abilities
 Intellectual Abilities
Intellectual Abilities are the abilities needed to perform
mental activities for thinking, reasoning and problem
solving.

• Mental activities can be measured by intelligent quotient

(IQ) tests that are designed to ascertain one’s general
mental abilities. Examples of such tests are Common
Admission Tests (CAT), Management programs admission
tests (GMAT) etc. Usually these tests try to measure and
evaluate one’s mental abilities on various academic areas
pertaining to the success in the relevant courses, such as
mathematics, English, General knowledge etc.
 Employees with more intelligence are usually more creative
and can adapt to change and solve problems quicker.
 The correlation between intelligence and job satisfaction is
about zero. Because intelligent people perform better and
tend to have better opportunities.
 Physical Abilities
Physical Abilities is the capacity to
do tasks that demand stamina,
dexterity, strength, and similar
characteristics.
In most of the cases, men exhibits
more physical ability than women.
• Research on hundreds of jobs has
identified nine basic abilities needed
in the performance of physical tasks.
 Nine Basic Physical Abilities
1. Dynamic Strength: Ability to exert muscular force
continuously over time (Rickshaw puller)
2. Trunk Strength: Ability to exert muscular using trunk muscles
(Lifting heavy load)
3. Static Strength: Ability to exert force against external objects
(Arm wrestling)
4. Explosive Strength: Ability to expand a maximum of energy in
one or a series of explosive acts (Breaking any door of a house)
5. Extent Flexibility: Ability to move the trunk and back muscles
as far as possible (Lifting any object from ground to a higher
place)
6. Dynamic Flexibility: Ability to make rapid, repeated flexing
movements (Cycling)
7. Body Coordination: Ability to coordinate the simultaneous
actions of different parts of the body (Swimming)
8. Balance: Ability to maintain equilibrium despite forces pulling
off balance (Cycling)
9. Stamina: Ability to continue maximum effort requiring
prolonged efforts over time (Football)
 Diversity Management
Diversity management is the process and
programs by which managers make everyone
more aware of and sensitive to the needs and
differences of others.
• Diversity management is a comprehensive
organizational and managerial process of
planning for, organizing, directing, and
supporting a collective mixture in a way that
adds a measureable difference to organizational
performance.
• Organizations must develop and implement a
diversity management strategy to attract,
select, develop, and retain diverse employees.
 Diversity in Groups
• Most contemporary workplaces require
extensive work in group settings. When
people work in groups, they need to
establish a common way of looking at and
accomplishing the major tasks, and they
need to communicate with one another
often. If they feel little sense of membership
and cohesion in their groups, all these group
attributes are likely to suffer.
• Groups of individuals with different types of
expertise and education are more effective
than homogeneous groups.
THE END