Benefits and Challenges of Diverse Workforce in an Organization

Discuss the benefits and challenges a diverse workforce brings to an organization
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Introduction
Workforce diversity refers to bringing together different kind of people to one workplace. Ordinarily, such a workplace would comprise employees with a wide range of experiences, backgrounds, and characteristics. The major features of a diverse workforce include race, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, abilities and sexual orientation. With a dynamic business environment, organizations are adopting diversity strategies and approaches that appeal to the employees, the clients and even the suppliers. This paper will examine and explain the benefits and challenges which a diverse workforce brings to an organization.
Businesses and organizations may consolidate and integrate diversity in their workplaces without generating great changes in their operations. This is possible through integrating diversity practices such as employing from a diverse talent pools so as to ensure that the company is open to workers from different backgrounds. It is also essential to mention that diversity may be instilled into marketing activities to ensure that products and services are particularly targeted to all individuals who constitute the target population.
Diversity in an organization increases productivity and it also promotes employees morale. Workforce diversity may help in increasing productivity and competitive advantage. Usually, employees are able to offer more solutions to the customers because of the new ideas provided by different employees and the processes brought into the organizations. Also, productivity may increase by balancing male and female workers to the firm, this is so because women work in the same ration as their counterparts (Saxena, 2014). Furthermore, diversity in the workplace also improves workers' morale and this enables them to work more constructively and effectively. Diversity promotes morale among company’s staff, this make them to feel as being part of the organization and they therefore work towards the success of the company.
Diverse workplace aids in increasing the pool of qualified employees. Diversity opens opportunities for individuals from different backgrounds and also helps in widening the scope of eligible candidates for hire. This is critical for the organization because it can recruit professionals with the desired qualifications (Foma, 2014). Most importantly, recognizing and accommodating differences in a diverse workforce helps in creating harmony and also enable the organization to establish appropriate practices which are key in developing desirable employees interactions. Recognizing the differences that exist among the workers may also help in uniting the staff despite their differences. Diversity is key attracting new workers and retaining the existing workforce because no employee is left uncertain about his or her position in the organization.
A diverse workforce may also help in increasing creativity in a firm. This is particularly because heterogeneous workers help in improving each other within the firm. Workers from different backgrounds also bring to the company a number of solutions on how to attain a desired goal. As m...