Diversity as a Business Asset - Free Essay Example

Diversity is the acceptance and inclusion of others’ differences and using the differences as strengths in the workplace. Diversity is a new requirement in contemporary times since people in society have been able to achieve instances when they are in places of equality in terms of attaining education and exposure in terms of experience. Therefore they should not be discriminated against when it comes to the recruitment and selection process. This being so, some leaders in the technology industry, that is, Apple and Google, have sought to reduce the lack of diversity in the sector they occupy, with previous practices showing the existence of discrimination through the hiring of the majority of male employees and those of Asian backgrounds. Through diversity, an organization is at an advantage of accessing the different creative powers that the different members have in them as well as the ability to have an improved public perception, hence increasing demand for their products, which ultimately leads to profits for the organization.

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Benefits that Apple gains through its diversity practices

The diversity experienced at Apple helps them in their achievement of organizational goals. First, through a diverse workforce, Apple has managed to increase its productivity and maximize their efficiency in their daily operations. When an organization undertakes proper and rigorous research on the areas of production that they need to work on, then the possibility of the organization reaping maximum benefits from exploiting the diverse opportunities in the workforce increases since exploring the different categories and kinds of people in the workforce will help in achieving maximum benefits for their efforts (Page, 2019). Different people are gifted differently, and engaging them on different levels will aid in reaping maximum benefits from their gifting.

Secondly, Apple has been able to gain the advantage of improved creativity in their organization through embracing diversity. When a workplace has people from different backgrounds, they can exploit the advantage of the people’s diversities to gain different perspectives for the production process, hence enabling them to create products inspired by the unique backgrounds from which all the employees came from (Kahney, 2019). Through having a diverse workforce, Apple has been able to maximize their products’ efficiency since when products are created by people from diverse backgrounds, their experiences in life will inspire them to create creative, innovative and technologically advanced products. Diversity enables products to be accepted by different groups of people since they address the different needs of the people concerned.

Finally, the diversity in Apple has played a key role in the profits posted by the organization. First, the employment of people from diverse backgrounds has helped to improve the public perception of the company. Therefore, there will not be instances when a particular group will boycott Apple products on account of feeling misrepresented in the company (Page, 2019). Additionally, the improved creativity that comes with the inclusion of people from diverse backgrounds increases the chances of the organization creating superior quality goods, hence increasing the sales of the products that they launch.

Reasons for Google’s Change in its Staffing Policies and the Impact it has on the Organization

The disclosure by Google on their workforce unsurprisingly showed the trends in the technology-based companies, the workforce was made up of Asians, mostly males, and this showed the gross lack of diversity is not only the technology giant but also on the other companies in their industry (Haim, Graefe & Brosius, 2018). The decision by Google to review its workforce composition has been because for a long time, the racist and sexist outlooks to life and workplaces have kept the workplaces lagging in their creative process since the assumption that one race or gender has superior creativity or abilities over the others is strongly misplaced, especially since the improved educational openings and equal opportunities availed to all offer the different races and the genders in society (Phetmisy et al., 2020). Additionally, the decision came in light of the court cases that the company has been involved in, with employees and former employees suing the company for their lack of diversity and for what they experienced while working under the company due to their lack of diversity in the composition of the workplace.

Due to their embracing of the need for diversity in the workplace, Google has been able to improve the public perception of the Organization. In light of the report on the composition of their workforce, the public held the opinion that the Organization was both sexist and racist in their recruitment and selection process. Still, due to their recent efforts in achieving a diverse workforce, the negative perception has been changing for the better, meaning that more people are feeling represented in the Organization, hence increasing the customer base for the Organization (Haim, Graefe & Brosius, 2018). More importantly, Google has acted as a leader and pacesetter for the industry that it occupies, since the possibility of others following their example on account of their successful implementation of diversity is now increased.

Ways through which Diversity Strengthens a Workplace

When a workplace is diverse, the possibility of the workplace having a better understanding of the market that they serve is improved. Through a diverse workforce, the organization can exploit the existence of a workforce that has different views and experiences due to their diverse backgrounds, and therefore increasing the possibility of the company has improved understanding of the marketplace and hence increasing the possibility of the organization addressing the needs of the market that the market needs to be addressed through their products (Van Dijk & Van Loon, 2019). Secondly, through a diverse workforce, the organization in question will be able to enjoy the benefit of having a workforce that has an improved problem-solving ability and the ability to creatively address the issues that they may face in their daily encounters (Morgan, 2019). When an organization is diverse, the different encounters and experiences that they have will come in handy in their ability to solve the issues that they face in their daily operations and experiences in the workplace.

How Lack of Diversity Weakens a Workplace

When an organization’s workforce is not diverse, the possibilities of the workplace being discriminative of the groups, not representative are higher. This is seen in the organization’s hiring and firing process since they will prefer to hire from the same pool of categories, and this will create a culture of discriminative practices that will, in turn, create an imbalanced workforce. When a workplace is not diverse, the public perception of the market towards the organization changes, thus affecting the demand for the organization’s products (Van Dijk & Van Loon, 2019). When a market does not feel represented by the products that an organization produces or offers to the market, then the market base of the products will decrease since the unrepresented parties will feel the need to purchase goods in whose workplaces they feel less discriminated and more represented.

References

Haim, M., Graefe, A., & Brosius, H. B. (2018). Burst of the filter bubble? Effects of personalization on the diversity of Google News. Digital journalism, 6(3), 330-343.

Kahney, L. (2019). Tim Cook: The Genius who Took Apple to the Next Level. Penguin UK.

Page, S. E. (2019). The diversity bonus: How great teams pay off in the knowledge economy. Princeton University Press.

Van Dijk, G., & van Loon, R. (2019). Leading Diversity by Dialogue. The Dialogical Challenge of Leadership Development, 125.

Morgan, J. D. (2019). Harnessing the Diversity of Ideas for Competitive Advantage. INSIGHT, 22(3), 21-25.

Phetmisy, C. N., Godard, R., Trau, R. N., & Hebl, M. (2020). 36 Diversity and Workplace Affect. The Cambridge Handbook of Workplace Affect, 483.