Diversity in Today’s Organizations

With today's workforce becoming increasingly diverse and organizations doing more to maximize the benefits of the differences in employees, organizations are relying on managers to get the people who get the job done. People have always been the central to organizations, but there strategic importance is growing in today's knowledge-based business world. An organization's success increasingly depends on the knowledge, skills, and abilities of its employees excluding there gender, age, ethnicity, and the differences in skill and abilities. When employees' talents are valuable, rare, difficult to imitate and organize, an organization can achieve an advantage. Having managers or human resource departments that are superb for identifying, recruiting, and hiring the best talent available will allow the organization to employ people with skill, and capabilities that add value to the organization. There are times when gender, age, and ethnicity are considered. Is this an overall process that effective and efficient business organizations base there employment status on? A diverse workforce that has been established within business environments are important. Companies that value the ways cultural and workforce diversity contribute to long-term success, innovation and productivity embrace methods that enhance efficiency (Waller,2006 pg.50-52).

Diversity has many different meanings. The description of diversity can be classified into categories: human, cultural and systems. Human diversity encompasses the physical difference of individuals, such as skin color, gender and appearance. Cultural diversity, on the other hand, looks at individual cultural issues such as religious beliefs, family background and upbringing. Systems diversity focuses on personality styles such as extraverts versus introvert or analytical versus emotional thinkers. Today's workforce is undoubtedly varied. Creating an environment that is acceptable and optimum for performing is what you want in the business environment. This will reduce the chances that an employee will feel under-valued, which can ultimately affect absenteeism rates and employee turnover. More diverse companies produce better results. Companies that respect and support individual employees ethnicity, age, gender, skills, and abilities provide for an all-inclusive atmosphere that allows employees to feel comfortable. Understanding cultural mannerisms, linking them to there abilities and not taking there age and gender to heart may help the judgement of candidates for their job skills, not their interview skills.

The world is full of unique people. To reach people that are from all walks of life, you'll need employees who are representatives of all these walks of life. Employees with different backgrounds bring different ideas to an organization. Because today's business environment is filled with people of all age groups, both male and female, and different cultural backgrounds, business' have the opportunity to take advantage of that and us it to benefit there company. You have the younger generation with wide varieties of nationalities that have different views and are able to assist with there knowledge and there background, educational and culturally. Take an Asian employee within an business setting and an American within the same setting that has the same qualifications, drive, aspiration, and goals within that business to work on a special project with a company from Asia. It would be to the business' advantage to have the Asian employee to work on that project. They would be able to communicate and understand more of there background where as the American may not know many of the things that would off set the project due to cultural differences. In this, there are many advantages that make diverse environments important and give others a chance to learn the differences in cultures, and the beliefs associated with multiple perspectives.

Reflecting diversity at all levels, in all key occupations, and in all organizational components make businesses valuable. "The BLACK ENTERPRISE '40 Best Companies for Diversity' truly understand how critically valuable a diverse workforce and inclusive business practices are to the success of their operations (Business Wire, 2006 pg. 1). Taking