Values and Diversity

Company A shares the same goal of creating a successful organization as every other business owner in today’s modern world. An application developer for mobile games, Company A, develops software in the field of software development. A centralized headquarters in New Jersey houses fifty employees from Company A, a small-sized organization. Although Company A has grown significantly over the years since it was founded five years ago, its sales of mobile game applications have stagnated over the past year. As a mobile game app developer, Company A prides itself on being on top of the current trends, but its employee roster shows that majority of its employees are white males in their twenties to early thirties. To diversify their staff, the owner of Company A has hired a consulting Industrial and Organizational (I/O) Psychologist.

Diversity within the Workplace

In the age we all live in, workplace diversity (WPD) has evolved into a more complex concept. The first thought that may come to mind when considering diversity is the ethnicity of the employees. In the workplace, diversity refers to a workforce that is made up of people of different races, ethnicities, genders, ages, religions, physical abilities, and other demographics (Cletus et al., 2018). According to Cletus et al., (2018), WPD complexity has become one of the most critical issues in business and organization management today. It has been expressed that Company A’s owner is interested in diversifying the organization to appeal to a wider clientele.

In addition to allowing a wider pool of clients, having a more diverse workforce can lead to more success. It has been shown that diversity leads to a variety of benefits, both internally and externally, including improved problem-solving and increased productivity due to new perspectives, a broader range of candidates with better perspective skills within the organization, and increased employee performance when an employee sees a variety of cultures, backgrounds, and ways of thinking in the workplace (Brodock & Massam, 2016). As a result, increasing diversity within an organization can increase productivity within the workforce as well as increase profitability.

PSY FPX 6740 Assessment 2 Values and Diversity

Small organizations like Company A, however, face several challenges when it comes to creating a more diverse workplace, regardless of the reason. It is common for small business owners to have problems with cost when considering changing their practice’s operations. It can be difficult to justify spending and prove return on investment (ROI) for WPD, so it can be quite difficult to introduce a new diversity program within an organization. However, organizations implementing WPD have been shown to have higher employee retention rates, reducing the need to recruit and train new employees over time (Leone, 2020). Positive changes to company culture can result in better employee retention over time. According to Leone (2020), another common obstacle for small organizations in improving their WPD is the lack of tools to assist them. Despite this, the implementation of any strategy will always be fraught with challenges; the key is to identify them and develop solutions to help you overcome them.

Practices to Introduce

A key component of your diversity goals is identifying what inequities there are in your workforce in terms of diversity, equity, and inclusion. As part of diversity initiatives, members of target groups are encouraged to experience and achieve higher levels of employment. Women and ethnic or racial minorities are often the target groups for these initiatives, but they can target any group facing pervasive disadvantage in society as a whole (Dobbin et al., 2011). Corporate culture is more important than functional needs, in the context of innovations intended to achieve new societal goals. In this case, the functional need is determined by the lack of workforce diversity or regulatory oversight. According to Dobbin et al. (2011), companies with insufficient diversity in their workforce are not more likely to adopt diversity programs, but those that have a large number of women managers are more likely to do so, so pro-diversity industries and corporate cultures encourage diversity programs.

It was found that companies with a higher racial and ethnic diversity had a greater chance of better financial returns than companies with a lower diversity (Dobbin et al., 2011). By assisting Company A in diversifying its workforce, it will be able to achieve its goals of becoming more profitable. A study found that organizations with the greatest gender diversity experienced 15 percent higher financial returns, and in the US, companies with a diversity of race and ethnicity in the executive suite reported higher earnings (Dobbin et al., 2011). This scenario calls for the following diversity programs in order to achieve Company A’s goals, which are recommendations from both SIOP and SHRM: Employee Resource Groups, Mentorship Programs, and Standardization of Interviews.

Diversity Program

Conclusion

The implementation of a diverse workplace in a small organization like Company A is challenging, regardless of the reason. A thriving, competitive workplace and a fair work culture can be achieved by valuing the differences of others. It is possible for Company A to create a more diverse workforce as well as a more diverse customer base through the use of the suggested programs to improve their workplace environment.

References

Brodock, K., & Massam, G. (2016). How and why to hire a diverse workforce: What you need to know. Strategic HR Review.

Cletus, H. E., Mahmood, N. A., Umar, A., & Ibrahim, A. D. (2018). Prospects and challenges of the workplace diversity in modern day organizations: A critical review. HOLISTICA–Journal of Business and Public Administration, 9(2), 35-52.

Dobbin, F., Kim, S., & Kalev, A. (2011). You can’t always get what you need: Organizational determinants of diversity programs. American Sociological Review, 76(3), 386-411.

Leone, M. (2020). Diversity and inclusion in the workplace; benefits, challenges, and strategies for success. McNulty, Y., McPhail, R., Inversi, C., Dundon, T., & Nechanska, E. (2018).

Employee voice mechanisms for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender expatriation: the role of Employee-Resource Groups (ERGs) and allies. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 29(5), 829-856. Muehlemann, S., & Leiser, M. S. (2018). Hiring costs and labor market tightness.

PSY FPX 6740 Assessment 2 Values and Diversity

Labour Economics, 52, 122-131. Wilson, A. H., Sanner, S., & McAllister, L. E. (2010). An evaluation study of a mentoring program to increase the diversity of the nursing workforce. Journal of Cultural Diversity, 17(4).