My thoughts on Diversity

As the companies today are going global and are eager to trap the best possible talents from all across the world, diversity has taken a prior importance in work cultures. Every company today employees a diverse workforce in order to understand different needs of different markets spread over large geographical areas. IBM is one good example of companies that not only adopts diversity into its work practices but also tries to address that even a minority segment has equal representation on the company. I came across an article on "Diversity as Strategy," by David Thomas (HBR 2003) wherein IBM initiated task forces as Hispanics, people with disabilities, women etc. and ensured that none of the segments was left on its own to decide what was there in the organization for them. It suggests that the key to manage diversity successfully is to treat employees as “real partners”.

Diversity becomes strength for a company that knows how to manage it with equity but turns into a fiasco if the individualized goals are not aligned with the common organizational goals. There are often issues like discrimination, favoritism, unequal opportunities for employees that show up in a diverse culture. But it important to identify that these diversity issues cannot be taken care of only at the one single level as top management. These are implicit issues and have to be addressed at each level of the organization. As in case of IBM, there is a sponsor assigned to each task force that links the group with the other parts of the organization. In today’s competitive scenario it is difficult to work without being “Geo centric” in nature and be successful at an international level. But then there is a need to be impartial and ethical to people from different backgrounds and ensure that everyone grows with the growth of organization.