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Managing a diverse workforce commerce essay

Contents

  • Decision

Pull offing the diverseness at workplace has become an of import country of concern among organisations in the United Arab Emirates today. The net migration rate in the UAE is one of the largest in the universe. Furthermore, the figure of workers from India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia, the USA, etc. has increased significantly in recent decennaries. This cross-border mobility of UAE has led to interaction between people holding diverse linguistic communication, civilization and cultural backgrounds. Although it has been stated that diverseness is advantageous and has a figure of benefits, including addition in employee ‘ s creativeness and competency, but this is frequently a instance more in theory than in existent pattern. Diversity besides has ill-effects like miscommunication or misinterpretations, dysfunctional version behaviours and the creative activity of barriers which can restrict the benefits it can convey to the organisation. With mention to the nature of the UAE workplace, specifically aviation industry ; and the work force which is dominated well by foreign category of people, this paper tends to critically analyse the benefits and the challenges organisations face in such diverse workplaces. It is an effort to analyze the theories, constructs and tools evolved by different communicating bookmans over clip and analyze and compare them in context to aviation major Air Arabia.

Contentss

Introduction

In today ‘ s globalized universe, corporations, whether located at one topographic point or more, have their operations in some or the other manner, spread across the Earth. When people from different backgrounds work hand-in-hand to accomplish the organisational ends, they bring in different sorts of accomplishments and expertness they have acquired from their civilization, which in bend increases the efficiency, productiveness and profitableness of the company, and as a consequence, inter-cultural communicating has become a necessity in most work environments. The work force is said to be diverse when employees belong to different races and ethnicities, societal and cultural background, caste and credo, age, gender, faith, etc. Pull offing such diverse work force is a truly really of import map performed by the HR director of any company, and the rise or autumn of such organisations depends on how efficaciously its work force is managed because diverseness does non convey in lone advantages ; it can besides do serious jobs in an organisation, like communicating jobs and intercultural struggles, thereby ensuing in hindering the smooth flow of concern ( Al-Jenaibi, Winter 2011 ) .

Diversity direction is a necessity in the Arabian Gulf, and more specifically, in the United Arab Emirates ( UAE ) , because it is the part which is most open to the international mobility of labour. A big portion of the work force here composes of foreign citizens. As a consequence, the companies have to understand and make a work environment of international criterions, which would fulfill occupants every bit good as non-residents working in the same workplace. In the UAE, expatriates form 90 % of its full population which includes occupants from South Asia, China, Thailand, Philippines, Iran, northern Africa, and Western states. This cultural diverseness may be attributed to the fact that the net migration rates of the UAE in the universe is among the highest.

With mention to the nature of the UAE workplace, specifically aviation industry ; and the work force which is dominated well by foreign category of people, this paper tends to critically analyse the benefits and the challenges organisations face in such diverse workplaces. It is an effort to analyze the theories, constructs and tools evolved by different communicating bookmans over clip and analyze and compare them in context to aviation major Air Arabia.

About Air Arabia

In the Middle East, Air ArabiaA is the first and largestA low-priced air hose. It was established by Dr. A Sultan bin Mohamed Al-Qasimi, the Ruler ofA SharjahA and member of theA Supreme Council of the United Arab Emirates ( UAE ) , by issue of an Amiri edict on 3rd February, 2003. The operations of the air hose started on 28th October, 2003 when its first flight flew fromA Sharjah, UAE to Bahrain International Airport. With its headquartersA in the Sharjah Airport Freight Center, on the belongings ofA Sharjah International Airport, Sharjah ( UAE ) , it operates its scheduled services to 46 finishs from Sharjah in 22 states, which includes the Middle East, A North Africa, Indian subcontinent, A Central AsiaA andA Europe, 11 finishs in 10 states from Casablanca and 5 finishs in 5 states from Alexandria. It functions as a low cost conduit base from its chief base, i. e. Sharjah International Airport. Although there are many other low cost air hoses runing, but Air Arabia separates itself from the point that it offers connexions to many flights at its base in Sharjah and has focus metropoliss in Alexandria and Casablanca. A Furthermore, Air Arabia is a member of theA Arab Air Carriers Organization. The air hose has witnessed net incomes and growing since the really first twelvemonth of its concern. In early 2007, it had brought its successful Initial Public Offering ( IPO ) for 55 % of its stock. ( Air Arabia )

Human Resources

We know good that a concern is successful merely when it has a capable every bit good as a satisfied squad. Air Arabia attracts air power industry ‘ s some of the best endowments because of its advanced techniques, comfy work environment and growing chart. It provides employment to more than 1, 400 employees worldwide and this figure grows annually as the group grows. It has besides been awarded as the best managed air hose in the Middle East ( AirArabia. com ) .

Diversity Management at Air Arabia

Airline industry is an industry which doubtless operates worldwide. It has employees from diverse backgrounds and belonging to different civilizations, working together for achievement of organisational ends. Diversity direction is a necessity in such industry, because without it, the company shall set down itself in conflicting state of affairss. However, it has been observed and reported by different beginnings that the direction in Air Arabia do non manage the work force diverseness really efficaciously, and as a consequence some groups of people are dissatisfied.

In order to pull off the work force diverseness, the company adopted the equal intervention scheme, under which, each of the employees is treated every bit irrespective of their caste, colour, race, linguistic communication, gender, faith, accomplishments, etc. When we have to pull off such diverse work force and cultural differences between them, anyone and everyone would believe the scheme to be perfect ; but in world it did non turn out to be unflawed and wholly helpful in a state like Dubai. Dubai is a state in which people belonging to different faiths and castes, talking different linguistic communications and holding different educational and mental aptitude degrees, live. Some prefer the equality attack, while some do non. For illustration, UAE indigens have low proficiency in English because it is their civilization that teaches them to give accent on Urdu, and non on English. Consequently, they are largely underrated and underestimated than few foreign categories of employee, like Indian work force, who are more fluid in English, thereby presenting a sense of sadness and dissatisfaction towards the occupation. ( Air Arabia exhibits job of work force direction due to workforce diverseness ) . In instance the equality attack is non followed, i. e. favoritism is on the footing of caste and faith, the foreign pool of people would non wish to work with the subjects and as a consequence there would be conflicting state of affairss in the organisations. This and many more similar jobs arise in instance of diverseness direction in Air Arabia.

Literature reappraisal

In recent old ages, drastic alterations have taken topographic point in the universe market, which has altered the manner people look at the organisations and interact within them. Globalization has created appositions, for illustration, an Arabian employee ( belonging to Gulf states ) could work in an American company and interact with an Indian co-worker. Today, an organisation is non simply a workplace ; instead they are the mini-societies holding their ain different forms of civilization and sub-culture. Employees from diverse backgrounds work together, interact, and in a word we can state, portion each other ‘ s life for some clip, in an organisation. Hence, employees in so called “ societies ” are non merely required to make merely their work, but besides to cognize inter-cultural communicating, i. e. communicating across linguistic communications and civilizations. Varied research has already been done in this context and a batch still traveling on. Research workers analyzing organisations and the factors act uponing its efficiency have started concentrating more closely toward definitions, theories, constructs and importance of civilization and diverseness in workplace, and application of a cultural attack to organisational communicating.

Culture is related to past, to history. Our great sires thought of some common thing, believed in it and they all practiced it coevalss after coevalss, which bit by bit formed our civilization. It, in one sense, refers to the merchandise of many old ages of civilisation of people, which had ab initio evolved from the heads and creativeness of a group of people who had a common heritage, and so grown bit by bit. Culture has besides been described as the entirety of those facts and Acts of the Apostless which are shared by a comparatively big group of people. LeBaron states that civilization is something related to values, manners, rules and patterns that are accepted by a group by and large without much thought, and that are passed on from one coevals to another by communicating and imitation. ( LeBaron, 2011 )

Diverseness means different. The construct is closely related to that of civilization. Culture was adopted by our sires, or groups of people coevalss back. These people or groups were rather different from one another, in footings of many demographic variables, including, but non merely limited to, race, ethnicity, faith, caste, colour, credo, gender, national beginning, disablement, gender, age, instruction, geographic beginning, and accomplishments. Workforce diverseness, hence, refers to the similarities and differences among employees in footings of these variables. ( Service, 2010 )

A group of people is identified by their civilization, which they receive and adopt from old coevalss, wholly or partly. This cultural individuality includes their degree of cognition, values, beliefs, patterns, attitudes, hierarchies, faith, functions, spacial dealingss, material objects and belongings obtained by them in the class of coevalss. However, this cultural individuality does non stay the same coevals after coevals. Due to assorted influences, cultural differences arise among persons over clip. Therefore, we can state, adult male or group today is non precisely a replicate of its old coevals and moreover, a individual in a group is different from another in the same group within the same coevals. Varadaraja opines that the influences either act in the early phases of one ‘ s civilization formation, or that it arises subsequently in life as a consequence of instruction, reading, going, etc. ( Varadaraja, 2010 ) . We know about a peculiar individual ‘ s or groups ‘ civilization through symbols used by them, rites performed by them, heroes worshipped by them, and values held by them. Elaine provinces that to some extent, communicating is the verbal signifier of our civilization and civilization is the beginning of our communicating. ( Elaine, 2011 )

With the coming of globalisation, operations every bit good as people have become nomadic and as a consequence, people of different beginning come together to function the same intent. This diverseness in workplace is inevitable, and it has advantages every bit good. When people from diverse background articulation hands to function one common intent, they bring in different sorts of accomplishments and expertness they have acquired from their civilization, which in bend increases the efficiency, productiveness and profitableness of the company. But diverseness does non convey in lone advantages ; it can besides do serious jobs in an organisation, like communicating jobs and intercultural struggles, thereby ensuing in hindering the smooth flow of concern. As a consequence, in today ‘ s globalized universe, diverseness is one of the inevitable modern-day challenges that organisations face. ( Peltokorpi, 2010 ) .

Peoples belonging to diverse backgrounds and civilizations interact daily in an organisation. They portion new thoughts and originative attacks to job work outing with each other for the benefit of the organisation as a whole ; but there are cultural differences among them, which, if non cover decently, might, at times, flicker conflicting state of affairss as each one plant within the boundaries of its deep-seated civilization. As a consequence, it creates challenges to the organisation and hampers the full work environment.

In order to contend the challenges originating from cultural differences, the Human Resource ( HR ) director has to play a truly of import function. Some basic stairss involved in effectual communicating within an organisation includes understanding the bing form of organisational communicating, understanding each and every individual working in an organisation and their very civilization, analysing the fluctuations and picturing the jobs that can happen, construing the communicating differences in productive ways, and introducing improved channels of communicating for employees to understand and esteem each other ‘ s civilization and make healthy communicating within a concern community. ( M. E. Pacanowsky, 1983 )

LeBaron has said that there is no comprehensive manner to understand civilization and its interrelatedness with communicating and struggle ; nevertheless, there are different theoretical accounts, theories and tools suggested by anthropologists and bookmans to assist the directors in categorising cultural differences, the conflicting state of affairss which can originate out of it and patterns to avoid such struggles. He discussed one tool to cover with the constructs of high-context and low-context communicating. High-context communicating refers to the high degree of trust which a talker has on the factors other than the clear communicating or expressed address given to convey the message. On the contrary, low-context communicating refers to the low degree of assurance a talker has on the other factors, and a high degree of trust merely on the expressed address to convey the message ( E. Wurtz, 2005 ) . To this, Hall added that grade of field dependance, i. e. the grade to which the factors or the things outside the expressed communicating, affects the significance of the communicating ; influences communicating, and it can be categorized into two – high-context and low-context field dependance. Furthermore, it is non merely related to single communicating schemes, but may be used to understand group communicating ( Hall, 1971 ) . He opined that by and large, people belonging to the Western civilizations are more inclined towards low-context communicating, while those belonging to Eastern and Southern civilizations tend to get down from high-context points. But once more the restriction stands that behaviour of one individual can non be applicable on the behaviour of the other individual or the full group, and furthermore, the cultural behaviour is dynamic in nature and therefore supports altering from clip to clip.

With mention to a survey conducted by Cox, Elmaddsia states that there are four methods of socialization, i. e. acceptance of the behaviour forms seen in the encompassing civilization or the procedure of absorbing new thoughts into an bing cognitive construction. The methods are – assimilation, separation, deculturation and pluralism. First one is assimilation, which is a one-way procedure of version, i. e. employees from different backgrounds comeA to see themselves as portion of a larger national household, the company. They adapt to the civilization of the company, and all other civilizations are absorbed within it and so the different minority civilizations are eliminated in order to run into the demands of the dominant civilization. Second method is separation, i. e. the societal act of dividing or separating and restricting the exchanges between diverse groups from a cultural and proficient position. The 3rd one is deculturation, under which there is no preferable civilization, i. e. no civilization dominates over others. As a consequence, the cultural differences are diminished and the accent is on grouping of people together to avoid misinterpretations. The last 1 is pluralism, i. e. the method in which employees hold moreA than one civilization atA aA clip. They combine several basic substances or positive facets from each minority civilization to organize their perceptual experience and each one additions from the other. In such a sort of work environment, equality exists and differences due to different civilizations are expressed, appreciated and positives learned. Therefore, harmonizing to Cox, pluralism can guarantee success for transnational corporations.

Analysis

Why is Management of Diversity of import?

The workplace today is full of people from diverse backgrounds and ethnicities. To function one common intent, they need to pass on with each other day-to-day. In order to accommodate or cut down the differences between such employees or between employees and the direction, without doing excessively much clash in daily interactions, direction of the diversenesss based on their ethnicity or gender is of import, as otherwise there is a possibility of the organisational public presentation acquiring hit and worse than that, cases and legal tangles from the harassed, discriminated or someway aggrieved employees ( Pull offing Workforce Diversity ) .

Fair V. Same Treatment

‘ Fair ‘ and ‘ same ‘ are frequently read as holding same significance, and as a consequence, many people believe that equity means handling everyone the same, nevertheless it is non so. ‘ Fair ‘ agencies merely and ‘ same ‘ means equal. Hence, just intervention means handling decently, i. e. in a manner one deserves to be, but same intervention means handling in precisely the same mode. Same intervention can non work for a diverse staff, whereas just intervention does. For illustration, there may be employees who have low proficiency accomplishments in English linguistic communication. This might non impact their ability to make their habitue occupations, but if the direction treats everybody the same, and distributes some complicated memos or handbills, this might non be an effectual manner of pass oning with them. The of import information might be missed out by or the message might acquire corrupted for that peculiar group of people and hence they might experience discriminated. The option in this instance should hold been giving the information in a simpler linguistic communication to them or to all, or better to give them excess clip to roll up the information from the message with the aid of their higher-ups. It would increase synchronism in squad and larning on the portion of employees. Furthermore, such excess attempts on the portion of employees every bit good as higher-ups should be supported and recognized as good direction patterns. ( Pull offing diverseness in the workplace )

Gender Sensitization

Gender sensitisation is one of the most of import issues in pull offing diverseness because of the preponderance or high quality in the figure and power of adult females in the work force today. Although work forces and adult females work together, they can non be treated every bit. Fair intervention is of import in this context every bit good. For illustration, director can inquire a male employee to make overtime, but the same can non be asked in instance of a female employee. There are Torahs, regulations and policies on gender specific issues for just intervention of adult females, enacted by both authorities, every bit good as direction in most organisations, but the job is that it is non decently being followed. Hence, a mentality alteration is the demand, instead than formation of more policies, and it is possible merely if the work force is sensitized to the demands of adult females.

Pull offing Diversity V. Affirmative Action

The chief purpose of diverseness direction is to pull off the diversenesss in the organisation in such a manner that the abilities of all employees are maximized and organisational ends finally met. However, affirmatory action is non concerned with all the groups in the organisation, but with some specific groups because of historical favoritism based on colour, gender, etc. While affirmatory action is a consequence of the legal necessity and carry throughing societal duty ; pull offing diverseness is due to necessity of concern. When we talk of pull offing diversenesss in an organisation, gender or colour favoritisms are concerned as the narrower positions, instead focal point is on the broader organisational position which helps everyone to turn on just footings. ( Diversity in Organizations )

Decision

It has been proposed that different executable attacks should be adopted by HR directors as a portion of their HRM schemes, to pull off the issues of diverseness in work force. Cardinal public presentation indexs should be specified in progress and the consequences should be evaluated consequently on a regular footing. Although Air Arabia has taken progressive stairss in this way, there is much advancement yet to be made, and a considerable portion of it depends on the functions and duties adopted and influences made by all directors, whether executives, line directors or HR directors towards development and execution of HRM and diverseness direction policies and patterns ( C. Sheehan, 2006 ) .

It is the undertaking of the HR professionals to happen ways and means to proactively assist the organisation ‘ s leaders and direction to understand the state of affairs and its negative deductions, and adjust their mentality consequently, so that diverseness direction becomes a beginning of competitory advantage. The positive results of diverseness direction should be considered and disadvantages should be worked upon in order to avail the advantages. First, diverseness tools and patterns can assist in increasing motive, occupation satisfaction and committedness towards work from the employees ‘ side, thereby ensuing in achievement of higher degrees of productiveness from the current pool of labour. Second, these patterns would bit by bit heighten the trade name value of an employer and assist them in the nucleus HRM schemes concerned with pulling, managing and retaining endowment. It would assist them pull better quality labour, retain the employees and cut down the labour turnover. Third, an effectual diverseness scheme would assist the gifted people to progress in the organisation and assist themselves construct a good calling graph. Finally, Air Arabia and the companies practising effectual diverseness plans and keeping harmoniousness in the organisation can obtain acknowledgment and good will in the market by being observed as following good corporate administration and being a lovingness organisation. This would besides assist them bridge the spread between the workplace and the market place ( Childs, 2005 ) .

But if this diverseness issues are non addressed decently and in clip, it would be clip, money, and efficiency to the organisation. Unhealthy tensenesss, loss of productiveness and profitableness, inability to pull and retain gifted people of all sorts, ailments and legal actions, blow to repute of the company, costs in enlisting and preparation, etc. are some of the state of affairss which an organisation has to confront in absence of appropriate diverseness patterns.

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