Diversity in the Workplace: Understanding Two Dimensions - Research Paper

Introduction

In the organizational context, diversity refers to the recognition, understanding, and acceptance of different individuals regardless of their gender, race, age, religion, physical ability, and ethnicity, among other differentiating factors. Workplace diversity can be explained in two major dimensions. First, the primary aspect is defined with such factors as gender, race, and age, and they can easily be realized. The fundamental element of diversity impacts the employees at the place of work for the first time of encounter, and it may results in differentiation in terms of duties and also roles the employees perform in an organisation.

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On the contrary, secondary diversity is not easy to recognize at the first encounter, and it is defined by some factors, including religion, income level, and also the geographic location for a person. It is essential to realize that secondary diversity can only be achieved when individuals interact. The increase in globalisation in the past two decades has played a crucial role in triggering increased diversification in the workplace. The geographic location of an organization is no longer a barrier for individuals to seek employment even across the national borders. Technology has facilitated people to be open-minded in various fields of work. Also, increased competition is an essential factor that fosters diversity in the workplace. Organizations are continuously looking for highly skilled candidates and hence the higher chances of having a diversified pool of employees. It is essential to note diversity has a two-fold impact on organizations. Differences can be of significance to an organization leading to increased productivity and also the exchange of culture. Conversely, workplace diversity can also be a problem to organizational management when not well managed because it may lead to communication challenges and even discrimination.

Problem Statement

Workforce diversity is an overall place of work and business focus point. Any organization that plans to be productive must have an outskirt less assessment and a fundamental vow to guarantee that workforce diversity is a bit of its day-today business direct. Moreover, understanding the effects of diversity on organizational results, for instance, organizational performance, worker fulfilment, and turnover has ended up being central. Correctly when these forms were initially alleged in the mid-1980s, they were broadcasted as an open entryway for organizations to end up being increasingly imaginative, to reach beforehand undiscovered markets, and by and large to accomplish and keep up an upper hand.

Regarding age variation and employee performance, there is a significant relationship between both variables. However, they argued that the age or generational gap creates more disadvantages compared to advantages. This is mainly due to the different ideologies and mindset between two groups of employees. The different ideology and skill set would increase the productivity of the employees, the older generation would have the experience and younger generation would be tech-savvy, the combination of both would boost the performance, since the findings have mixed outcome, there is a need to further investigate in the context of United Kingdom.

There is a significant relationship between age diversity and employee performance. Gender diverse groups have a better capability to come out with conclusions and solving issues. Only with internal conflicts, it would affect the performance negatively. The studies all prove with the right balance between males and females would increase the productivity and performance of the employees. Further investigation with the M.N.C.'s in the U.K. is needed to validate these studies

The employees create the culture in an organization; having a diverse culture in an organization would somewhat force the organization to wind up their learning and change according to the culture of the employees. An organization with a mixed culture have negative impact on employee performance, this is mainly due to the idea of most employees to discriminate and ideas not being shared widely with all employees but only being shared with their own groups. Further investigation would be carried out in M.N.C.'s in the U.K. to determine how cultural diversity is affecting the employee's performance.

Research Aim and Objectives

The purpose of this research is "to analyse the influence of workforce diversity on employee performance- A case study on Amazon Inc'.

Research objectives

These targets are frame by the researcher based on the purpose of research, which is as follows:

• To review literature on Workforce diversity and employee performance.
• To conduct a primary study on Workforce diversity and employee performance.
• To recommend how Amazon can use Workforce diversity to increase employee performance.

Research Questions

• How is managing workforce diversity important for an organization?
• How does managing diversity influence employee performance?
• What are the challenges or threats faced by organizations in administration workforce diversity at the workplace?
• What are the strategies or methods to overcome the challenges of workforce diversity at the workplace?

Research Rationale

This study will elucidate the impact of workforce diversity administration on employees and overall organizational performance in Amazon Inc. The findings of this study will provide support to the management of organization and stakeholders for the appreciation of workforce diversity and also learn to resolve the challenge of workforce diversity incorporate business strategies to attain improve workforce as well as organizational performance. The study will also provide a practical approach to the management of workforce diversity in another business enterprise.

Theoretical Background of Study and Research Focus

Workforce diversity within an enterprise is mainly concerned with the different capabilities every employee takes into the business enterprise. The successful business enterprise is considered as ready to utilize the vast resources to make sure that they have managed the diversity in their workplace (Barang' a and Mande, 2019). Equality management in H.R.M. is considered as the key to cultivating the performance of any business firm, improvement in services providers and ensuring the fulfilment of the workforce. The concept of equality and diversity administration has been utilized to improve the performance of individuals, teams, and business enterprises. Along with this, it has been described to create transformation in the production and culture of business enterprises. For effective regulation of business operations, the firm needs to promote equality between workforces based on their performance.

Multinational firms have developed a worldwide economy in which profitable and non-profitable organizations need to create significant diversification if they need to remain competitive in the market. A firm that usually fails to manage the variety is continuously exposing their business towards the risk, with the inability to attain the expected business advantage of diversity administration (Trehan and Glover, 2019). Diversity and equality plays a vital role in providing support in aiding retaining knowledge and experience, administration of shortage of skills, expansion of the base of recruitment, and also increase the profits through the attraction of more consumers (Sanghvi, 2019). This research has been conducted by a scholar to analyse the impact of equality and diversity on employees and organizational performance. The study will be carried out Amazon Inc, An American multinational corporation based in Washington that usually deals in E-commerce, cloud computation, digital video streaming, and also provide artificial intelligence services for its clients. The research will be based on the analysis of workforce diversity and the promotion of equality in Amazon.

Organizations are increasingly embracing diversity in the workplace as a way to initiate positive change. It is essential to note the difference among employees is a crucial factor that contributes to creativity. Managing workplace diversity is gaining significance in today's organizational management because of the dynamism in the workplace. However, managing diversity presents challenges to organization management as managers strive to create a balance between employees' differences and treat each employee with dignity. As such, managers are finding a hard time to establish the factors that effectively influence workplace diversity. Even more, organizational management is focusing on identifying leadership and management roles that can contribute to workplace diversity effectively and efficiently. This report aims to present to examine the factors surrounding workplace diversity and to establish how organizations are impacted by the difference among the employees.

Regardless of the size of an organization, large, medium, and small organizations employ a diverse workforce with individuals of different gender, race, age, and ethnicity. It is essential to note that managers view workplace diversity as a critical factor that a company can leverage on to meeting the emerging challenges as a result of workplace dynamism (Noe et al., 2017). It is crucial to consider the effective managing of workplace diversity to realize the benefits in the extended run operations of an organization. It is prudent to explore the impact of age diversity in an organization because many organizations have employees falling in different age groups. The age groups may be based on highly experienced staff, medium experienced staff, and also recent graduates with little experience in the organization. Importantly, each age group has a unique set of features, and managing the different groups may need different styles of management. It is also important to note that the existence of different age groups may results in odds as a result of variances in experiences and differences in perception (McNeely, 2019). For instance, older individuals are patient compared to the millennial generations who need things to be completed speedily. Having employees with diversified age groups can benefit an organization because each group of individuals has unique strengths that support performance in the organization. However, having a mixed group may also present challenges to organizational management, especially when there is low cohesion between employees of different age groups.

Literature Review

According to Greene (2019), Equity theory introduced by Adams, equity, and fairness is considered as the vital characteristics of a motivated person. The argument determines that "employees can be driven by extroversion. If employees find out unequal input or output situation of themselves and their referent group, they usually aim to adjust their performance to attain their expected equity. Nachmias et al. (2019) also determined that the theory of equality mainly emphasis upon due fairness of an employee. It also concludes that employees in an organization strive to attain equity among themselves and their colleagues. However, this can be achieved when the results of employee performance are equal to the outcomes of other employee's performance.

Yeo and Grant (2019) stated that Workforce diversity management plays an essential role in the growth of an organization. In organizations, teams with appropriate gender mixes have a variety of skills and conceptual knowledge and that teams will provide better results through the development of meaningful relationships (Andrew, 2019). Workforce diversity includes an influence on employee...