Diversity has been an evolving concept; it can include visible or non-visible factors, and its dimensions are not restricted to age, gender, physical abilities or qualities, sexual orientations, race, religious beliefs, work experience, geographical location, (Cipd.co.uk, 2015). As the economy is becoming global, the workplace is increasingly becoming diverse.
In today’s business world diversity management is critical not only because of ethical consideration but also because it is a source of competitive advantages. Australian center for internal business research highlights that diversity improves the quality of management decision helps in the facilitation of innovative ideas and provides superior solutions to organizational performance. Downey et al., (2015) also highlights some of the advantages of diversity including creativity, flexibility, trust and staff engagement.
Diversity management needs to be at the core of HRM practices and policies as effective diversity management can aid organizations to benefit from bottom line return. In short, there exist a strong correlation between managing diversity and business performance, (Bamberger, Biron and Meshoulam, 2014).
However, for many organizations worldwide managing diversity is a strategic issue. It is worth pointing out here that diversity issues vary from country to country. Inequality and discrimination still widely exist in organizations; one can argue that failure to manage diversity is because not all HRM practices are associated with increase in diversity and also because of the organizations' diversity policies which frequently only tend to focus on compliance with only the equal employment opportunity (EEO) and affirmative action (AA) legislation. An example of this is highlighted by Rynes and Rosen (1995) indicating that only diversity training does not increase top management diversity or the workforce diversity, (as cited in Shen et al., 2009). Research also indicates that organization will not be able to achieve the potential benefit of diversity simply because of workplace diversity.
The key to diversity is via people-centered policies and strategic thinking therefore effective diversity management requires appropriate HRM strategies. HR diversity management practices and policies regarding recruitment, rewards, advancement, training and appraisals do not only help to enhance creativity but also improve inclusiveness, which aids in attracting the best talent pool and in reduction of staff turn over. Diversity management is not without its challenges; among communication and resistance to change implementation of the policies regarding diversity is also something that requires consideration, (Greenberg, n.d.).
To effectively manage diversity, top management at the strategic level must have a philosophy and foster organization culture that value diversity. At the tactic level, HRM should adopt a range of policies embracing Equal employment opportunities and at the operational level companies need to pay attention to networking, communication, educating employees and flexible working and should involve managers at all levels in HR diversity management.