Workforce diversity and HRM in 21st Century

 

Figure 1- Workforce diversity (Burns and Barton, 2012)

According to Loysk (1996), with globalization, as the whole world became a village, today people are no longer living and working in an insular environment. They are part of a worldwide economy competing within a global framework. According to Burns & Barton (2012) a research done in U.S workforce, companies are required to be interact among people from diverse backgrounds in order to maintain competitiveness in the global market.

According to Moorhead & Griffin (1989), workforce diversity can be defined as,

                 Figure 2 - Definition of Workforce diversity (Moorhead & Griffin, 1989)

According to SHRM (2007), research done among 5000 SHRM HR proffesionals, in order to manage diversity, HRM practisesis must adapt to accommodate a multicultural work environment. Loysk (1996) stated that, bringing all the people of different nature under a one roof of organization the key responsibility of HRM on diversity management. 

According to Bedi & Lakra (2014), in past diversity was treated as a legal issue which is only a challenge but now in 21^st century accoring to Roosevelt (2001), companies realize that diversity is a reality to build a stronger, competitive enterprise rather than something deal with. 

Challenges of workforce diversity on HRM in 21st Century 

According to Morais, Pena, Shacket, Sintilus, & Ruiz (2014), research done on Starbucks, as an international company, HR is responsible on recruiting qualified candidates while promoting diversity by recruiting employees from all genders, races, religions, nationalities and etc. where two roles appear to be at cross purposes to each other, which is a great challenge for HRM in today. 

According to Patrick & Kumar (2012), a research done on IT sector of India, training employees to be sensitive and accept to cross-cultural differences and offering foreign language trainings to increase inclusiveness, is a challenge for HRM as it pushes HRM more for a cost center inside the company. 

Especially in Multinational companies practicing mindful of ‘Think Global, Act Local’ approach in order to motivate highly qualified culturally diverse professional and assure foreign professionals are not a threat for career advancement of local professionals is a great challenge of HRM. At last according to SHRM (2007), author would suggest for HRM to practice culturally relative perspective (Let's take the best variety of ways) rather than ethnocentric view (our way is the best) in the business context to manage diversity in an effective manner.

References 

Bedi. P. and Lakra. P. (2014). Workforce Diversity Management. IOSR Journal of Business and Management (IOSR-JBM) , 102-107.

Burns. C. and Barton. K. (2012). The State of Diversity in Today’s Workforce. Center for American Progress, 4-10.

Loysk. B. (1996). Managing a changing workforce: Achieving outstanding service with today’s employees. Davie: Workplace Trends Publishing.

Moorhead. G. and Griffin. R. (1989). Organizational Behavior. Indiana: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Morais. U., Pena. J., Shacket. K., Sintilus. L. and Ruiz. R. (2014). Managing Diverse Employees at Starbucks: Focusing on Ethics and Inclusion. International Journal of Learning & Development , 35-40.

Patrick. H. A. and Kumar.V. R. (2012). Managing Workplace Diversity: Issues and Challenges. SAGE Open , 1-15.

Roosevelt, T. (2001). Elements of a successful “diversity” process.  The American Institute for Managing Diversity: Accessed by: https://www.coursehero.com/file/p5u15p6/Roosevelt-T-R-Jr-2001-Elements-of-a-Successful-diversity-process-The-American/ Accessed on  28th May  2018, 10.29pm. 

SHRM. (2007). State of Workplace Diversity Management. Society for Human Resource Management , 14-19.