Managing Diversity
The need for a diverse workforce started with a rigid ‘quota’ system, shifted to being ‘the right thing to do’ and is only now moving on to becoming a platform for a wider customer/market reach, greater innovation and explosive growth potential. The hope is to transition to the stage of true integration soon (following the business case rationales for diversity of - Fear & Avoidance, Fairness & Justice, Marketplace Opportunities and Workplace of Choice). It is important to mention that these stages are not necessarily linear and successive in nature. There are many organizations even today, which view diversity as primarily a legal obligation while there were pioneers in the late 70’s and 80’s (Xerox and PepsiCo, for instance) who aimed to integrate the need for diversity almost akin to a business strategy. The attempt to increase diversity through quotas drew a lot of flak from different quarters, since it was perceived to de-emphasize competence and underline race/gender as the qualifier. The move to increase diversity from a moral and social standpoint (‘it’s the right thing to do’) could not withstand the vagaries of business cycles and was one of the first initiatives to be eliminated during times of financial downturns. Further, this was a very person driven approach and with every change in management composition, diversity initiatives closely mirrored (either being emphasized or done away with) the values of the ‘new Boss’ in charge. The current approach of many organizations views diversity as a catalyst toward being a truly global organization and reaping the benefits that comes from a large, multi-national market base. This approach believes that employee diversity translates to higher innovation, more customer reach (and t ...