Diversity in the Workplace Essay

Common Assessment

In today’s multicultural workforce, gender remains an area where power disparity occurs. While other barriers are being broken down, there remains stereotypical views regarding gender roles that can influence the modern workplace. This paper will examine some of the prevailing research on the subject to determine the current state of gender norms within the workplace.

Diversity is typically considered a benefit to the workplace, but the way in which diversity manifests should nevertheless be taken into account. Diverse environments still retain some elements of bias, and these should be understood in order to get the best out of diverse environments. If the point of diversity is to improve overall organizational functioning, then the way that diversity works in the workforce needs to be understood complete. Ely and Thomas (2001) note that diverse organizations achieve mixed results, and have sought to understand the underlying factors behind those mixed results. They note that there are three main ways of approaching the integration of diverse identities, but only one has shown to have success in the workplace. When people are encouraged to use their backgrounds and cultural experiences as a “resource for learning” this benefits the organization, but when this is not the case, it “conveys mixed messages at best about the degree to which all members and cultural identities are valued.”

One of the factors that influences the impact that diversity will have on the organization, as noted above, is the willingness of the dominant culture to allow for different perspectives to have that influence. A diverse population devoid of a platform is little better than a homogeneous population. However, when members of different cultural groups are aware that their voices are valued, they are more likely to express those voices clearly. In the dominant culture in the United States, the social norms are quite different, and can leave an international person, for example, feeling that their experiences are not valued; this is the way many cultures interpret the lack…

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…Corse (2013) discussing how gender education can contribute to fostering this greater degree of openness.

Diverse work environments are the norm, but there remains ongoing challenges with respect to getting the most out of those environments. There is a natural segregation that occurs along gender norm lines, and this tends to occur even in environments that are otherwise culturally diverse. As such, is important to explore ideas of how to break down these norms, first by understanding where they come from, and second by understanding the different means by which such norms can be challenged from the outset. Education seems to hold some promise, as organizations where the dominant culture is more aware of, and curious about, the value that different cultures have to offer, tend to be more effective in terms of their outcomes. Organizations that lack such understanding of the value of diversity will typically tend to perform little differently than organizations without much diversity, simply because they are not trained, educated and conditioned to…