CONTEMPORARY PERSONNEL PERSPECTIVE

BBDUH B.A (HONS) IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT NOVEMBER 2011

NAME OF CANDIDATE; ANN-MARIE MARIAM MACHIMU STUDENT MATRIC. NO; I08000757 SECTION; 8H1 COURSECODE; CONTEMPORARY PERSONNEL PERSPECTIVES (MGT 418) LECTURER; JAGDEEP SINGH JASSEL

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TABLE OF CONTENT

1. INTRODUCTION..............................................................................PAGE 3 2. EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY.....................................PAGE 3-4 3. DIVERSITY.......................................................................................PAGE 4-5 4. CUSTOMER SERVICE....................................................................PAGE 6-7 5. EMPLOYER BRAND.......................................................................PAGE 7-8 6. ACCESS TO SKILLS.......................................................................PAGE 9-11 7. CONCLUSION.................................................................................PAGE 12 8. BIBLOGRAPHY..............................................................................PAGE 13

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INTRODUCTION Due to the advent of globalisation, the world requires more interaction among people from diverse cultures, beliefs, and backgrounds than ever before. People no longer live and work in an insular marketplace because they are now a part of a worldwide economy with competition coming from nearly all the continents in the world. For this reason, profit and non- profit organisations need diversity to become more creative, innovative and open to change. (Mondy, 2010). Maximizing and capitalising on workforce diversity has become an important issue in todays business world. In this study, the diversity approach and the equal employment opportunity approach will be discussed thoroughly and there will be more focus on the benefits that diversity can bring to the workplace. The drawbacks of both diversity and EEO will also be evaluated. The workforce of today has become truly diverse but this was not the case in the early1960s. There were little opportunities available to women and minorities and this lead to legislation, supreme courts and government to encourage public and private organizations to tap the abilities of a workforce that was underutilised before the mid-1960s (Mondy, 2010) According to Torrington (2011), equal opportunities approach seeks to influence behaviour through legislation so that discrimination is prevented. It has been characterised by a moral and ethical stance promoting the rights of all members of society. It can be referred to as a liberal approach which concentrates on the equality of opportunity rather than the equality of outcome found in more radical approaches. It basically means that individuals are being discriminated against due to the lack of irrelevant criteria. For example the belief that women will not perform well in the workforce due to family commitment or disabled individual will not perform well in certain jobs due to more time off sick. The equal opportunities approach seeks to formalise procedures so that relevant, job-based criteria are used (using job description and person specifications) and discrimination is based on fair criteria i.e. the ability to do the job. The idea around it is to provide a fair environment on which all can compete on equal terms. EEO encourages positive action which means allowing everyone to reach a level at which they can compete equally. For example, an organisation may advertise its vacancies in publications which target particular under-represented ethnic groups. Once it has generated a pool of applicants, however, it must not then use ethnic origin as a selection criterion (Torrington et al 2011).

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One of the drawbacks of EEO approach is that it focuses on formal processes but yet it is not possible to formalise everything in the organisation. Not all the rules and regulations laid down are actually carried out in real life and some organisations will try and find loopholes in the law which will enable them escape from practicing fulltime equal employment opportunity without discrimination. Simon-Kumar (2004, pp.20) stated that recent accountability documents in the New Zealand context indicate that despite the presence of EEO policies in various sectors since the mid 1980s, the actual realisation of EEO outcomes have been limited. There have been some progress in some of the target group (mostly women) but these have not been realised in all work sectors (Simon-Kumar, 2004) There has been criticism of the assumption that once members of minority groups have demonstrated their ability to perform in the organisation this will change attitudes and beliefs in the organisation. However this theory has not been proven since discrimination is still taking place with the presence of EEO. Employers are usually reluctant to pursue EEO because it is viewed as a compulsory action rather than a strategy that the company or business is willing to undertake (Kirton and Greene, 2003). This leads to a general lack of support within organisations because equality objectives are not linked to business objectives and partly because equal opportunities have often been viewed as the concern of the HR function (Kirton and Greene, 2003). A focus on disadvantaged groups may also alienate the large sections of the workforce not identified as such, for example, flexible working for those with children which creates a burden for those without children. In summary the equal opportunities approach is considered simplistic and to be attempting to treat the symptoms rather than the cause of unfair discrimination.

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DIVERSITY Diversity refers to the co-existence of employees from various socio-cultural backgrounds in a company. The basic concept of managing diversity accepts that the workforce consists of a diverse population of people consisting of visible and non-visible differences and is founded on the premise that harnessing these differences will create a productive environment in which everyone feels valued, where all talents are fully utilised and in which organizational goals are met (Kandola and Fullerton, 1998). Diversity includes cultural factors such as race, gender, age, colour, physical ability, ethnicity, etc. The broader definition of diversity may include age, national origin, religion, disability, sexual orientation, values, ethnic culture, education, language, lifestyle, beliefs, physical appearance and economic status (Wentlin and Palma-Rivas, 2000). Diversity requires a type of organizational culture in which each employee can pursue his or her career aspirations without being inhibited by gender, race, nationality, religion, or other factors that are irrelevant to performance. Managing diversity means enabling the diverse workforce to perform its full potential in an equitable work environment where no one group has an advantage or disadvantage. (Torres and Bruxelles, 1992). Diversity management involves pursuing an inclusive culture that will make newcomers feel welcome and appreciated for their value in the company. For organizations, this means that their market share, efficiency, human capital, international competitiveness, and level of innovation will dependant in part upon their ability to effectively manage a diverse workforce both within and across organizational boundaries. It involves creating a supportive culture in which all employees can be effective. In creating this culture it is important that top management strongly support workplace diversity as a company goal and include diversity initiatives in their companies business strategies. Susan Meisinger, former president and CEO of SHRM said that if organisations want to remain competitive in the marketplace, diversity has to be a part of strategic goal. According to a SHRM survey, workforce diversity is becoming a top-level initiative around the world. Achieving diversity is more than being politically correct; it is about fostering a culture that values individuals and their wide array of needs and contributions (Mondy, 2010). The benefit in which diversity can bring will be discussed below focusing more on the customer service, employer brand and access to skills.

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CUSTOMER SERVICE There are many personal benefit that one can derive from working in an environment that consist of diverse set of people however there are many economical benefits that arise when diversifying staff members in the customer service sector. There have been rapid shifts from manufacturing jobs to service jobs. Roughly 87 percent of U.S employees work in servicebased industries (Cascio, 2010). This means that virtually all the growth in new jobs will come from service-producing industries like banking industry, financial services, health services, tourism, and retailing which will require lots of interaction with customers. Diversity in the workplace will strengthen the communication skills between the employees and the customers. This is because the world is different, customers are different and what they want is constantly changing so a diverse workforce will make it easier for employees to serve the customers better. For instance a customer will be more comfortable talking to an employee with the same cultural background or gender with him therefore if a company has diverse workers then they will be able to attract a wider group of customers. In U.S, the Hispanic, African-Americans, Asians, people with disabilities and gays /lesbians /bisexuals /transsexuals (GLBT) have a combined $1.5 trillion in buying power (equivalent to the GDP of France). It will be a fatal mistake for companies to ignore them or not employ this group of people who can serve the diverse market better. Companies now realise that it is important for their workforces to mirror their customers. Similarities in culture, dress, and language between service workers and customers create more efficient interactions between them and better business for the firm. EXAMPLE OF A COMPANY. (PEPSI.CO) The former CEO of PepsiCo, Steve Reinemund enforced aggressive hiring and promotion rules that half of all new hires at Pepsi have to be either women or ethnic minorities. The diversity push is part of Pepsis game plan to understand better the disparate taste of new consumers as it continues to expand globally. To do that, it needs to tap the creative, cultural, and creative skills of a variety of employees and to use those skills to improve company policies, products, and customer experiences. The Latino Employee Network at Frito-Lay, the snack-food division of PepsiCo also performed this strategy. During the development of Doritos Guacamole-flavoured tortilla chips, members of the network provided feedback on the taste and packaging to ensure the product will sell in the Latino community. Their insight helped make the guacamole-flavoured Doritos one of the most successful new-product
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launches in the companys history generating more than $100 million in sales in its first year alone(Yang, 2008). Today, 25 percent of Pepsis managers are women, up from 22 percent four years ago, and six of its top executives are now women or minorities and the present CEO of PepsiCo is a woman (Indra Nooyi), the largest U.S. Company by market capitalization to put a woman in charge (Morris, 2008). EMPLOYER BRAND In todays highly competitive market, organisations are increasingly focusing on the concept of the employer brand to underpin their efforts to attract, engage and retain talents, which is the key to optimum organisations (Hartel, 2004). Employer branding has been gaining popularity in the business community over the years, and there is now widespread recognition of its importance as a potential business differentiator. Diversity-driven organisation can boast of a strong employer brand image because they attract and retain top performers which remain the key to their business success. A diverse driven organisation receives more attention from qualified candidates and they have more opportunities to fill their staff with talented employees. For example organisations that embrace diversity will be able to tap the opportunity to employ the Gay group of people who are considered highly educated and most likely to be talented in industries like the fashion and entertainment industry. The Gay/lesbian/bisexual/transsexual (GLBT) employees as a group are highly educated; they comprise, by some estimates, 6 percent of the population (about 17 million people); and they have a buying power of $660 billion, expected to exceed $835 billion by 2011 in the United States (Cascio, 2010). Stonewall (2010) adopts a workplace equality index analysing the policies or organisations which support lesbian, gay and bi-sexual employees and each year it makes awards to the best 100 employers in the UK, IBM has won the award for the past two years. Organisations that implement the diversity featured employer as their branding tool into their recruitment efforts will effectively create an image that makes people want to work for them. Practicing workforce diversity can boost an organisations employer brand image in the sense that adept handling of diversity can multiply motivation and enhance productivity due to the satisfaction employees enjoy on being treated fairly, valued equally and given dignity at workplaces. It reduces the chances of absenteeism and attrition too as the undue stress,
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unnecessary frustration or low morale due to being insensitive, discriminatory etc gets drastically reduced. Hence the implementation of diversity initiative will help organisation to reap the business benefits especially in terms of better recruitment and higher retention among the talented workforce. Mosley (2009) stated that the Sears study concluded that a 4% increase in employee satisfaction would translate into more than $200m in additional revenue. A similar study conducted by the global retail bank Standard Chartered, found that branches with highly engaged employees were associated with greater revenue growth (+ 6%) and greater profit margin growth (+100%).

EXAMPLE OF A COMPANY (IBM) In 2004, IBM was listed among the top companies on Fortune magazines list of Americas Most Admired Companies. It was appreciated for recruiting and retaining the best talent across the world. IBM actively encouraged recruiting people from various social and cultural backgrounds irrespective of their age, sex or physical status. In the same year, IBM had developed a talent marketplace to effectively manage its workforce. The marketplace supported employees to find the most suitable job across different organizational units within the company. It was also involved in recruiting and training people with disabilities. In each business unit, IBM had line champions the managers experienced in hiring and working with people with disabilities to facilitate the recruitment process. The company also worked with various educational institutions for campus recruitment of such candidates. IBM has a diversity website where prospective candidates with disabilities could submit their resumes directly (Mosley, 2009). Fortune was appreciative of IBM for recruiting and retaining the best talent across the world. Analysts attributed IBMs success to its skilled diverse workforce that included people from almost all the countries in the world. Now IBM can boast of revenue worth 99.9 billion dollars, profit worth 14.8 billion dollars, and branches operation in over 2000 locations in 170 countries (Mosley, 2009).

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ACCESS TO SKILLS

We have emphasized that diversity enables organisations to attract and retain a pool of talented employees however it is important to know that organisations really need to implement diversity in an adept way in order to attract those scarce talented pool of employees.

Academics is not the only factor which makes a person an expert in his career field, the personality, cultural background and gender plays an important role in making an individual the best in what he does. Valuing diversity means more than learning to appreciate and respect those employees whose race, ethnicity or gender that differs from you own. It means recognising their different talents and skills as individuals and using it to improve your organisation in order to yield positive outcome. Embracing diversity to the fullest makes it possible for organisations to access those scarce talented individuals as their employees and using them to make their organisation more successful. Diversity has made it possible for organisations to improve their performance and productivity by gaining access to diverse set of talented employees. There is some evidence from the business literature and experimental economics that a culturally diverse team may outperform a homogenous team at problem solving or ideas-generation. Rodrguez (2006) emphasized that a diverse range of problem solvers may be preferable to a homogenous group because a diverse team brings about new and innovative solutions on how to solve a problem while a homogenous group might think the same way to solve a problem. A diverse pool of talented employees can broaden firms knowledge sources, increase options for organising production or widen the set of downstream markets. All of these processes are likely to foster innovation. It also reduces the direct costs of sourcing information if the employees have existing contacts in the origin country. International ethnic networks may reduce the cost of communication, as the diverse team are more likely to speak the language of those in their origin country and will be more astute at tacit communication. (Rodrguez, 2006).

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An example of how an organisation can reap the benefit of talented employees from a diverse environment is will be explained in the highly diverse country of America. Apart from the white American race, America comprises of the African-American, the Hispanics and the Asian-Americans. a) AFRICAN-AMERICANS The African-Americans make up about 12.3 percent of the U.S civilian workforce by the year 2016 and according to the U.S Bureau of the Census, they own 823,500 business in the states(38 percent of the owners are women), employ more than 718,000 people, and generate $71.2 billion in revenue. There are very successful in the entertainment, fashion and media industry and are also prominent in the service sectors (Humphreys, 2007). b) HISPANICS The Hispanics will comprise 16.4 of the civilian labour force by the year 2016. The Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans constitute the three largest groups classified as Hispanic. Hispanics are getting wealthier with their household income growing from 11.2 percent in real terms from 1990 to 2005 to $35,967. Their buying power is expected to soar from $653 million in 2003 to $ 1.2 trillion in 2012 (Marlantes, 2006). The Hispanic market represents one of the biggest growth opportunities for the consumer financial industry. This market not only represents the fastest growing minority but is also expected to have the biggest increase in buying power for the next 20 years. Several financial institutions are hiring more Spanish-speaking tellers and customer service agents, launching websites in Spanish, and partnering with Latin American companies (Marlantes, 2006). c) ASIAN-AMERICANS The share of the workforce comprised by Asian American was 4.6 percent in 1998 and is expected to reach an estimated 5.3 percent by 2016, largely due to immigration. Buying power among Asian Americans has increased from $269 billion in 2000 to $459 billion in 2007 to an estimated $670 billion in 2012 (Moran, 2007). This is due to the fact that Asians Americans are better educated than the average American with 44 percent of them ages 25 and over having a bachelors degree or higher compared with 26 percent of the total population. They are very good in professional offices like medical and law practices, IT and technology careers, and many other enterprises and they tend to earn higher wages. Asian Americans have made considerable contributions in science and technology in the United States, in such prominent innovative R&D regions as Silicon Valley and The Triangle (Moran, 2007).

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The statistics above shows that organisations especially multi-national organisations need talented diverse employees to understand the cultural effects of buying decisions and mapping strategies in order for their customers to respond to them. It will be a fatal mistake for a company to ignore employing people from any of the cultural backgrounds above because the statistics clearly shows that they contribute highly to the economic success of the country. EXAMPLE OF A COMPANY (AT &T) AT&T (formally known as pacific Bell) realised for two basic reasons that it had to change the way it traditionally recruited employees and managers. For one, the population of Hispanics, African-Americans and Asian Americans were increasing rapidly in California and secondly based on forecasts by the companys planners, its largest growth in management jobs would be in the high-technology areas of engineering, marketing and data systems. The work in these management jobs requires advanced technical skills and formal education, and they had traditionally been filled via promotion from lower levels (Jackson, 2008). But the company realised promotions could not produce the number of skilled managers needed in the near future so AT&T developed a new, four recruitment strategy which included advertising directly toward specific ethnic groups. The advertisements showed a diverse group of people employed in marketing, engineering, and management positions. These ads were placed in local and national publications regularly serving the targeted minority communities to demonstrate the companys interest in minority hiring and the fact that it valued diversity. The same ads were placed in campus publications to announce appointments for employment interviews. For managers from minority groups who were already employed, Pacific bell offered six-day, offsite training programs conducted by external consultants and designed to help further develop their skills. The programs also provided a safe place for participants to talk about sensitive issues such as racism and prejudice topics not likely to be discussed in the work setting. Due to the changes they made, AT&T was included among DiversitiesIncs 2008 Top 50 companies for diversity and it was also named as one of the top 10 companies for suppliers diversity. In 2005, DiversityInc named the company to its hall of fame as a result of making the Top 50 list every time since the inception of this ranking (Jackson, 2008).

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CONCLUSION Though many saw the diversity approach as revitalising the equal opportunities agenda and as a strategy for making more progress on the equality front, this progress has been slow to materialise. Most companies are faced with the dilemma of how to implement and maximise the business benefits of diversity and there is an increase in the cost of training. This increase comes from costs associated with seminars, programs and lectures given to promote diversity in the corporation. There is also complexity in the diversity management approach in the sense that there are different interpretations on how to approach diversity which can be quite confusing to organisations. Liu (2007) highlighted the two different approaches to the management of diversity. The first approach is where individual differences are identified and celebrated, and where prejudices are exposed and challenged via training. The second approach is more orthodox, where organisation seeks to develop the capacity of all as a group either by gender, ethnicity, class or age. The fundamental issue is whether peoples achievement can be explained by their individual talents or by the outcome of their gender, ethnicity, class or age. Another significant criticism of diversity management is that the business case is unreliable because it only works in certain context (Liu, 2009). For example, where skills are easily available there is less pressure on organisations to promote and encourage the employment of minority groups. Not every customer interacts with the employee so if image and customer contact are part of a business case this will apply to only certain jobs. A diverse workforce is a reflection of a changing world and marketplace. No organisation in this world of globalisation would survive without workforce diversity. It is the duty of the management to critically evaluate the benefits of workforce diversity in their organisation. On the other hand the management should put in place conditions which would enhance the workforce diversity in their organizations, more especially in their strategies formulation on the diversity of the workforce. Hence, with the diversity of the work force, the organisation would be internally and externally competitive. It is the approach to diversity, not the diversity itself which determines the actual positive and negative outcomes (Henry and Evans, 2007). Managing diversity in organizations is absolutely dependent upon the acceptance of some primary objectives to which employees are willing to commit, such as the survival of the firm. In today's fast-paced work environment a successful organization is one where diversity is the norm and not the exception (Mondy, 2010).

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BIBLOGRAPHY 1. Atkinson, C. and Hall, L. (2009) The role of gender in varying forms of flexible working, Gender, Work and Organisations, vol.16, No.6, pp.650-660

2. Cascio, WF (2010) Managing Human Resource-Productivity, Quality of Work Life and Profit (10th edn), New York, McGraw Hill Irwin Ltd. 3. Hartel, E.J (2004) Towards a Multicultural World: Identifying Work Systems, Practices and Employee Attitudes that Embrace Diversity, Journal of Australian management, 29 (2): pp.189-200.

4. Henry, O. and Evans, A. (2007) Critical review of literature on workforce diversity, African Journal of Business Management, pp. 072-076, (online) (cited on 7th November 2011) Available from http://www.academicjournals.org/ajbm

5. Humphreys, J.M (2007) The multicultural economy 2007: Americas minority buying power. Selig Centre, University of Georgia, (online) (cited on 7th November, 2011) Available from www.selig.uga.edu

6. Jackson, S.E (2008) Diversity in the Workplace, New York, Guilford, pp65-68

7. Kandola, R. and Fullerton, J. (1998) 1998 Pearn Kandola Survey of Diversity Practice, summary report, Oxford, Pearn Kandola.

8. Kirton, G. and Green, A. (2003) The Dynamics of Managing Diversity: A critical approach, Oxford, Butterworth Heinemann. 9. Liu, Y. (2010) Employer Branding and Diversity, Royal Institute of Technology, ISSN-1653-5715, (online) (cited on 7th November 2011) Available from www.kth.se/csc

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10. Marlantes, L. (2006) Hispanic-owned business booming (online) (cited on 7th November 2011) available from

www.abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=1752325&page=1

11. Mondy, W. (2010), Managing Diversity An Employment and Service Delivery Challenge, The International Journal of Public Sector Management, 12, 1, pp. 27-48.

12. Moran, S.V (2007) Managing Cultural Differences (7th edn) Oxford, UK: Elsevier 13. Mosley, R, (2009) Employer Brand, (7th edn), Texas, Shoulders of Giants Group ltd

14. Rodriguez. R (2006) Diversity finds its place, HR Magazine, 51 (8), 56-61.

15. Simon-Kumar, R. (2008) A Feminist Critique of Fairness and Discrimination in a case study of EEO in the New Zealand Public Sector, Womens study journal, vol 22, No.1, available at www.wsanz.org.nz/

16. Torres, C. and Bruxelles, M. (1992). "Capitalizing on global diversity", HR Magazine. pp.30-3.

17. Torrington, D. et al (2011) Human Resource Management (8th edn), England, Pearson Education Ltd 18. Wentling, R.M and Palma-Rivas N (2000). "Current status of diversity initiatives in selected multinational corporations", Human Resource Development Quarterly, 11 (1). pp.35-60. 19. Yang. J.L (2006) Pepsis Diversity Push Pays Off, Fortune, September, p.32

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