Managing Diversity

Managing cultural integration and diversity is becoming an important function of Indian enterprises. Earlier, such things were heard of in the United Nations workplace, where diversity training was performed on moral and humanitarian grounds to do away with race, religion, gender and nationality biases. The same is being seen increasingly in the corporate sector, especially in companies operating in the global market. Managing diversity issues at the workplace, such as ignorance about other cultures, lack of capacity to understand the points of views of others, racism and even reverse cultural effect (the rejection of one's own culture), is a key area of management for companies operating at the global level.The rationale for diversity management may be different for different enterprises. However, in most of the cases diversity management has to do with retaining talent and doing business in a globally interconnected world. The same has been observed in the case of Infosys. In the case of ONGC, diversity is in terms of senior employees who come from diverse talent backgrounds and new employees. There is disparity in talent pools. Both of these groups of employees have different needs and requirements that need to be managed by the management (see Exhibit 35.1). Irrespective of the way in which diversity is considered and defined, it is increasingly becoming apparent that not understanding cultural diversity can cost a company heavily. The lack of cultural awareness may adversely impact different levels of management in an organization, for instance, from an embarrassing moment to a breakdown in intercompany communication to a lost deal or accord. Th is is why it is becoming necessary to invest in diversity training. Therefore, understanding diversity is essential for managers today. In this chapter, the focus is on workforce diversity and challenges and strategies in managing diversity