Essay Sample on Globalization's Cultural Challenges: Diversity, EEO & AA

Introduction

Globalization has created a working environment that incorporates a variety of cultures, something that has proved to be a challenge to many human resource departments in the United States and all over the world. To cater for all present cultures, and more so the minority ones, the federal government, as well as the HRMs, work with principles such as diversity management, equal employment opportunities (EEO) and affirmative action (AA) to ensure equality. Balancing the workforce to ensure that the human resource, a critical input in by organization, is diverse culturally, ethnically, racially, ability-wise and gender-wise among other variations to ensure that the social and economic trends are at par, and hence attain competitive advantage is what diversity management entails. This is different from EEO and AA as the two involve some form of anti-discriminatory principles aimed at creating diversity. These principles are often legal. EEO, for instance, is contained in Title VII of the American civil rights act of 1964 dictating the provision of equal employment opportunities to everyone during recruitment, promotions, hiring and layoffs, irrespective of race, age, gender, ability among other variations (Kossek & Pichler, 2009). Even though distinctive, it is critical to assess the various functions that diversity management, EEO, and AA have in the workplace, more so the adjustments they introduce in the human resource management department.

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Organizations are often run by the set of values that the various systems and departments operate under. These values include the vision, mission, and culture (organizational) that define the various activities within the organization. Diversity management, however, calls for a gradual or immediate change in the ways that an organization operates. However, many leaders within such organizations often make mistakes by changing the practices while forgetting to change the values first. Diversity management thus aims at improving practices by first addressing the values. This, therefore, requires adjustments in the mission and vision, while paying particular attention to the underlying values and thus, cultures that the employees operate under. These changes create the grounds for new cultures to be formed, new practices within the HRM as well as new policies that are inclusive of all employees.

Human Resource management handles specific policies and practices including recruitment and retention, job design, education and training, benefits and rewards and performance measurement and improvement. Diversity management affects all these practices and policies at different intensities. The workforce provides a critical part of an organization, and this thus makes all the processes involved in attaining, creating, and retaining the talents brought by the employees crucial. Recruitment, selection, and the maintaining of employees are thus critical processes for any human resource management department. Diversity management ensures that while talent seeking is a constant hustle for organization, the process has to be fair for all applicants and those who meet the requirement, while ruling out the issues of ability, race, age, gender, ethnicity or any other factor other than the required professional prowess of the applicants (Noor, Khalid & Rashid, 2013). Diversity management adds value in the workforce of an organization by advocating for diversity, a quality that creates competitive advantage, harmony as well as an environment that attracts diverse talents all over the world.

Job design is yet another critical aspect of the HRM. It forms an outline regarding the expectations from a particular job and thus from the employee. There are a variety of job designs among them the mechanistic, biological, motivational, and perceptual approaches. Diversity management demands for a certain level of flexibility in the job patterns and designs for the employees and this flexibility allows for the employee discretion, while still sticking to the goals of the company (Nzewi, ReineNkiruka, Onwuchekwa & Augustine, 2018). Diversity management has similarly revolutionized employee retention as employees with time appreciate the diverse working environment alongside the rewards, recognition, and respect they receive and thus prefer to stay. Training and education, appraisal, and improvement are also influenced by diversity management. It ensures that these practices are objective rather than subjective to the worker, fair, and job-related (Noor, Khalid & Rashid, 2013). Training, in this case, is thus designed in a way that alters the attitudes, values, and behaviors of employees amidst diversity, and therefore create respect to the individual differences that exist within the workforce. The appraisal process could be revolutionized too to involve multicultural committee members to develop an objective and just appraisal process.

Affirmative action is a proactive policy employed in the devoting of resources by an organization, to ensure that every employed is considered and none is discriminated against as a result of their gender, color or ethnicity (Crosby, Ayer & Sincharoen, 2006). It is often conducted within the organization's human resource management. AA, alongside EEO, regularly contribute to diversity management. The characteristics of successful diversity management include the equitable distribution of resources, diversity-linked training, a diverse workforce, multicultural teams, and diversity-friendly policies, strategies, and organizational culture.

Conclusion

Globalization brought forth an aspect of cultural diversity in the workforce, something that has been taken with a lot of enthusiasm for organizations that need to gain competitive advantage, and negatively for those that consider it a liability. Through diversity management, EEO, and AA, many organizations have come to voluntarily or through legal obligation, enforce a culturally diverse workforce.

References

Crosby F., Iyer A. & Sincharoen S. (2006). Understanding Affirmative Action. Annual Review of Psychology 57(1). Pp.585-611. DOI: 10.1146/annurev.psych.57.102904.190029

Kossek E. E. & Pichler S. (2009). EEO and the Management of Diversity. In The Oxford Handbook of Human Resource Management, Chapter: EEO and the Management of Diversity. Oxford University Press, Editors: Peter Boxall, John Purcell, Patrick M. Wright. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199547029.003.0013.

Noor A. N., Khalid S. A. & Rashid N. R. N. A (2013). Human Resource Diversity Management Practices and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: A Conceptual Model. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences. 3 (8). Pp. 301-308. DOI: 10.6007/IJARBSS/v3-i8/144

Nzewi H., ReineNkiruka O, Onwuchekwa F. & Augustine A. (2018). Diversity Management and Employee Performance in Plastic Manufacturing Firms in Anambra State. Pp. 1-15. DOI: 10.9790/487X-2006053946