5OS05  Assignment Example

5OS05 Diversity and Inclusion

Task One

An assessment of the value of diversity and inclusion in organisations for employees, customers and wider stakeholder (AC 1.1) 

Diversity and inclusion benefits employees’ customers and stakeholders in different ways such as accepting and understanding cultural differences, tolerance, improved customer engagement, innovation and improved employer brand. Diversity and inclusion enhances innovation and creativity among the employee as they have different ideas and abilities. An organisation that embraces employees from different backgrounds to be more productive, since diverse employees have diverse ideas on how to achieve goals. Different employee experiences and perspectives leads to generation of new and creative ideas on how to tackle different tasks. In case of any issues within an organisation, diverse employees give different approaches to solving the issue, which makes it easier to find an effective solution. additionally, diverse employee enhances quality customer service, since they understand different customer needs. Diverse workforce makes effective decision in case an organisation is facing challenges (Greene, 2019).

Diversity and inclusion enhances customer engagement within an organisation. An organisation that values diversity and inclusion has a welcoming culture to people from different nationalities, ethnicities, gender and religion. Customers feel safe purchasing from an organisation that values diversity and inclusion, since they know they cannot be biases or wrongly judged. According to Brown (2022), customers like doing business with organisations that tend reflect their values. An organisation that has embraced diversity and inclusion is a reflection of different cultures, which makes customer feel safe. Additionally, an organisation that value diversity and inclusion achieves a wide range of productivity since customers feel proud to refer others. A diverse organisation has the ability to cut down on high employee turnover rate. Customers do not like to keep explaining themselves to different employees’ every time they visit an organisation or call the customer care centre. According to Maxwell (2021), high employee turnover leads to decreased productivity, since customers tends to get dissatisfied and loss trust. 

Improved employer brand is achieved through embracing diversity and inclusion. Kinnie and Swart (2020) states that diversity and inclusion leads to high employee retention rate, return customers, referrals and collaboration. This increases sales and production, and a competitive advantage in the labour market. Organisation with a diverse workforce tend to have a high rate of return customers and referrals, which increases on sales hence organisational growth. in the case of tight labour market, diverse organisation tends to attract top talent. Attracting and retaining the right employees is crucial in organisational growth and development. Additionally, diversity enhances effective collaboration among the stakeholders, which increases business opportunities.

An overview of Diversity and Inclusion legislation using key employment case studies to highlight the consequences of non-compliance (AC 1.2) 

Diversity and inclusion legislation protects the right of employees to secure job opportunities without discrimination, if they qualify. Among the diversity and inclusion legislation practices are Equality Act 2010, Equality Impact Assessment and protected characteristics. These legislation protects the right of employees and govern ways an employer is supposed to handle staffs within an organisation. Additionally, these legislation aims at promoting equal job opportunities for everyone regardless of their differences. The legislation advocated for equal employee opportunities at workplace and avoid discrimination.  It is the duty of employers to abide to the legislations to avoid biases. 

According to Nachmias, Ridgway and Caven (2019), The Equality Act 2010 protects employee discrimination during recruitment. It states that people professionals should avoid being biased during interviews and give employees equal opportunity to express their skills, knowledge and understanding. The Act regulates the type of questions people professionals are supposed to ask employees during an interview. In appropriate questions such as employees’ originality, race and religion are protected by the Act. It also protects existing employees from being denied opportunities for career advancement for specified people.  Additionally, the Act aims at promoting good relationship between different people working within the same organisation. Employees are protected from being victimised or harassed as a result of being different from others. The consequence of non-compliance to The Equality Act 2010 is that an employer might be charged with criminal offence and be fined. Non-compliance can also lead to negative employer brand, hence increased employee turnover and loss of productivity.

Equality Impact Assessment is designed to ensure organisational policies, practices and decisions are fair. It protects employee right to participate in organisational activities. According to Stokes and Woodhams (2022), the Equality impact assessment is designed to eliminate any barriers to equality within an organisation. Equality impact assessment is very important as it measures the effectiveness of organisational activities and judges the significance impact of change as a result of those activities. Equality impact assessment helps organisations to prioritise on equality, diversity and inclusion, to ensure favourable organisational strategies, policies and practices. Equality impact assessment analyses the effect of organisational policies in respect to employees’ characteristics such as age, race and disability. The consequences of an organisation failing to comply with the legislation are being fined for non-compliance. The fine may not only apply to legal costs, but also to prosecution. There is also a possibility of imprisonment for breaches if an organisation fails to comply. 

Protected characteristics are prevent employees’ discrimination as a result of gender, age, disability, religion, sex orientation, pregnancy and maternity or race. The protected characteristics are protected by anti-discrimination laws which ensures that employees are treated equally regardless of their race, age and sex orientation. harassment policies also protect employees against being intimidated as a result of their gender or race. accommodation policies also protect employees being biased because of their disabilities. and affirmative actions. The main aim to increase diversity and inclusion among different people. It advocates for equal treatment to everyone regardless of their differences and originalities. It is important for people to have good relations with each other to effectively carry out their day to day activities. 

Illustrate two barriers to achieve diversity and inclusion in organisations (AC 1.3) 

Achieving diversity and inclusion in organisations is the dream and goal of every organisation. There are several factors that hinder the full success of diversity and inclusion in our organisation. Lack of resources is a factor that is really affecting us. To achieve a diverse and inclusive workforce we require a lot of resources for several activities like taking our workforce for training. Some employees are willing to support the movement but a lack of the necessary skills is a big hindrance to the organisation’s goal of achieving the set targets. Employees who require regular training tailored to enhance diversity and inclusivity which ensures the whole workforce is well positioned to be proactive in achieving the set goals in regards to diversity and inclusion by the organisation (Turner, 2020). Lack of resources to recruit well-trained employees is also a challenge to the organisation especially in the entry positions because most well-trained applicants apply for higher positions or ask for higher pay which is not available according to the organisation’s capability leaving us with the option of the less trained employees. Training of employees and lack of well-trained employees is a challenge that is really affected by the lack of resources which results in a not-so-diverse and inclusive workforce.

Unconscious bias is another factor affecting us from achieving diversity and inclusion in our organisation. Unknowingly some employees suffer from this. We have different forms of bias in our organisation as stated below. Cassell and Kele (2021). Sates that confirmation bias is a challenge. This is when an employee embraces ideas that support their presumed ideas or beliefs shutting off any idea which contradicts his or hers hindering the decision-making or teamwork. Another form of biasness is attribution bias where employees tend to make favourable judgments to the ones in relation to them in terms of social connections or other forms. Affinity bias is another form of bias that is affecting our organisation. This form of bias is where some employees tend to form relationships and focus their energies on people of similar interests and similar lifestyles and not relating well with others. Affinity bias creates a boundary among employees and creates camps among the organisation. The fact that Unconscious bias is happening unknowingly makes it a very difficult barrier to tackle and control because it is part of human nature to have different preferences. A solution to this is intensive training of the workforce explaining the various forms of bias and how to prevent or minimize such and also the effects of such on the organisation and the sidelined individuals.

Evaluate the role that both managers and leaders play in creating an organisational culture which fully embraces diversity and inclusion. (AC 3.1)

Managers and leaders play a vital role in ensuring an organisation has embraced a culture of diversity and inclusion.  To be able to achieve this, managers and leaders use various approaches with includes training and development, managing discrimination, leading by example and effective communication. It is the role of managers and leaders and leaders to ensure they have created training and development programs to impact employees with relevant skills on diversity. Training enhances diversity competence, which impacts a culture of diversity and inclusion in an organisation. Trainings on diversity and inclusion helps employees to realise personal biases as they interact with each other. When recognised at an early stage, it becomes easier to solve the issue, enhancing the culture of embracing diversity and inclusion within an organisation. 

Managing discrimination is another approach that managers and leaders use to enhance a culture of diversity and inclusion. Managers play the role informing employees that organisation’s resource centres are open to all employees regardless of their differences. Some organisations like hiring employees from the similar religions, ethnicities and gender. This leads to loss of trust, motivation and satisfaction. It is the role of managers to prevent discrimination by discussing the importance of diversity and inclusion with the management. Managers use such strategies as respecting differences at workplace to ensure the culture of diversity and inclusion has been embraced states Ali (2022). 

Finally, managers and leaders use effective communication to ensure a culture of diversity within an organisation. Employees value an organisation whose culture and policies a safe environment to effective communicate issues that impact diversity and inclusion. Effective communication enhances ways in which employees from different backgrounds, religions and age groups discuss issues, share opinions and ideas. It the role of managers and leaders to ensure they have incorporated diversity in communication between internal employees, external employees and the wider stakeholders. Leaders plays the role sending the message on the importance of diversity (Takhar et al., 2022). They ensure that employees understand diversity and inclusion promotes innovation and creativity. Diversity and inclusion also promotes employee satisfaction and talent management, which is essential for organisational growth.

It is the role of managers and leaders to make sure they have reviewed organisational policies, to ensure diversity and inclusion of diverse range of employees. They also play an important role of ensuring an organisation use a neutral language that can be understood by different people. Different employees view the world differently. Therefore, it is the role of managers and leaders to ensure employee respect each other’s differences. 

References

ALI, L. (2022) Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in the workplace Available in https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/fundamentals/relations/diversity/factsheet [Accessed 5th Jan, 2023]

BROWN, B. (2022). 17 How is your workplace supporting your. Agile Resilience: The Psychology of Developing Resilience in the Workplace, 259.

CASSELL, C., AND KELE, J. (2021). Managing diversity and inclusion. Contemporary Human Resource Management: Text and Cases, 278.

GREENE, M. (2019). HRM, equality and diversity. The SAGE Handbook of Human Resource Management, 238.

KINNIE, N., AND SWART, J. (2020). Cross‐boundary working: Implications for HRM theory, methods, and practice. Human Resource Management Journal, 30(1), 86-99.

MAXWELL, G. (2021) Employee turnover and retention Available in https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/strategy/resourcing/turnover-retention-factsheet [Accessed 4th Jan, 2023]

NACHMIAS, S., RIDGWAY, M., AND CAVEN, V. (2019). The Legal Framework on Diversity and Equality. Organizational Practice (pp. 15-36). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

STOKES, M., AND WOODHAMS, C. (2022). Equality, diversity and inclusion. Human Resource Management In Inequality and: People and Organisations, 199.

Takhar, S., Aziz, R., Ahmed-Landeryou, J., & Thomas, P. (2022). Strategy, planning and accountability. In Anti-Racism in Higher Education (pp. 182-194). Policy Press.

TURNER, P. (2020). Engagement Driven Strategic HRM. In Employee Engagement in Contemporary Organizations (pp. 223-256). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Task Two

Identify different areas within your organisation where D&I can have an impact on people. Confirm an area with your organisation that requires development and explain why. (AC 2.1) 

Recruitment and selection is an area where D&I can have an impact on people. According to Ali (2022), employers should strive to accommodate candidates with different backgrounds, candidates of different ganders, age, race, sexuality and even the disabled. People professionals in the area of recruitment should be fair and follow legal guidelines from the Equality Act 2010 to ensure that they acknowledge and respect people’s different ideas and contributions to organisation progress and success. Additionally, people professionals should consider other areas in employees’ life cycle in talent development, by developing training programmes that accommodate the employees’ different needs. When designing D&I policies and practices, people professionals should evaluate the different means to ensuring that they appreciate all facets of personal appearances, while making sure that they accommodate different criteria that enhance organisation progress. 

An area that requires development in the organisation is that which focuses on employee training and development. In my organisation, there have been different learning opportunities for the employees, but it is evident that most of the minority groups of employees are not aware of the opportunities. According to CIPD (2017), lack of diversity in many organisations affects the minority groups, even in situations of career progression. Employees from BAME (Black, Asian and Minority ethnic) rarely get opportunities to develop and grow in their careers, hence the need to accommodate them by providing information on the available learning programmes at work. Additionally, employers may provide an opportunity for the employees to balance work and education, support them and allow them to gain knowledge to enhance employee development. To improve on these areas, people professionals should strive to avoid bias when making decisions and accommodating the different people in learning and development programmes. Additionally, all employees in the organisation should go through training to understand the value of diversity, which will help all employees appreciate each other (Swartz et al., 2019). 

Developing policies and practices to accommodate the employees is crucial for the line managers and people practitioners, as this enhance developing values for all employees. According to Sachdev and Dutt (2021), implementing diversity policies make it possible for employees to cooperate with each other, build trust in relationships, enhance employee commitment and create an organisation with positive effects. 

Conduct an Equality Impact Assessment (EqIA) within the chosen area of your own organisation (from AC2.1 above), to ensure that there are no disproportionate impacts on protected individuals or groups. (AC 2.2) 

People professionals need to address the area of learning and development by collecting data from the native employees, and compare the results with information that they might collect from the BAME employees. Professionals can use questionnaires to evaluate and find out the opportunities that the native employees have and the BAME employees do not have. Information from the questionnaires will help identify areas of possible discrimination. 

According to CIPD (2917) issues that prevent BAME employees from accessing the development opportunities in the organisation, include less pay, lack of guidance, lack of minority representation in the organisation top positions and lack of inclusion. Managing these issues would require organisational managers to build inclusive cultures that hold value for all employees. This becomes possible once the managers start developing change programmes, which will accommodate the development needs among the minority employees. Dennissen, benschop and van den Brink (2020) explains the value of treating all employees equally and with fairness, give them equal pay, and a good representation in the senior management, where instead of making them feel inferior, the employer gives them a chance to express themselves. 

External consultants should conduct equality impact assessment in the organisation using information that they develop to understand the organisation practices that affect diversity and inclusion. The consultants are experts who should take note of the information they receive and keep a record to help assess the feedback and come up with solutions to eliminate and deal with any form of discrimination. According to Ishaq and Hussain (2022), the assessors help identify gaps that the line managers and people professionals in the organisation should consider in providing opportunities that will intervene to improve BAME employees’ engagement in the organisation. 

Develop two approaches to strengthen diversity and inclusion within organisational policies and practices. (AC.2.3) 

People professionals focus on strengthening diversity and inclusion within an organisation with an aim of enhancing employee satisfaction. According to Ali (2021), promoting diversity and inclusion at workplace creates a conducive working environment for employees. Employees feel a sense of safety and belonging in an organisation whose culture has embraced diversity and inclusion. It is the duty of people professionals to create strategies on how an organisation can improve on its approach towards a diverse and inclusive working environment. To be able to achieve these, people professionals use a wide range of approaches which include equal opportunities, leadership development programs and promoting an environment and resources that meet equality, diversity and cross- culture needs.

Providing equal opportunities for employees regardless of their age, gender, beliefs and culture strengthens diversity and inclusion within an organisation’s policies and practices. It is the duty of people professionals to ensure they have eliminated any biases and inequalities within an organisation (Ali, 2020). An organisation is supposed to put in place policies that promotes diversity and inclusion such as work life balance that accommodates diverse employees’ needs. For example, allocating prayer rooms and breastfeeding areas. These will strengthen diversity as employees will feel the organisation values their needs and has no discrimination. 

To ensure a diverse culture at workplace, it is the duty of people professionals to promote a conducive environment and allocate resources such as training. Trainings are very essential for an organisation to be able to achieve cultural awareness and competency at workplace. It is very important for an organisation to put in place learning and development policies and practices to maximize on diversity and inclusion in an organisation. Inadequate resources limit an organisation’s ability to enhance its improve on the plan to strengthen diversity and inclusion. (Afsar et al., 2020) states that employees who learn various cultures at work feel safe working with those differences. Learning different cultures enhances confident interaction among employees from various social groups. 

According to Quilliam (2022), people professional use leadership development to impact people professionals with the relevant skills and capabilities. Leadership development programs enhances people professionals’ way of communicating with employees from different cultures. it strengthens diversity and inclusion as people professional’s initiates informed policies and practices. leadership development enhances people professional’s ability to understand different employee, their culture, and work with them to achieve a common goal. through leadership development, people professionals are able to influence, inspire and motivate different employees to embrace organisational culture and work together as a team. Leadership development helps people professional to cautious of biases that are most likely to be experienced during recruitment and reward. It helps people professionals understand the need of being professionals and treating all employees equally regardless of their beliefs, race or gender. 

Recommend at least two approaches your organisation can take to celebrate difference and engender a culture of diversity and inclusion among workers and other stakeholders. (AC.3.2) 

People professionals use a wide range of approaches such as celebrating events and cultural awareness and employee engagement, to celebrate difference and engender a culture of diversity and inclusion within an organisation. To be able to achieve this, an organisation need to have a diverse leadership and an organisational culture that embraces diversity and inclusion. An organisation that has embraced diversity and inclusion work with people from different ethnicities, religions, nationalities and gender. embracing diversity and inclusion helps an organisation achieve a competitive advantage in the labour market. Additionally, diversity and inclusion enhances creativity and innovation essential for organisational growth and development (Kinman, 2021).

Organisations use event and culture awareness program as an approach of celebrating cultural differences. Diverse employees celebrate events in different ways and on different days. It is the role of people professionals to identify different employees’ culture and events, and plan to celebrate with them. For example, in such events as Christmas, Diwali and Eid, it is the duty of people professionals to ensure they have celebrated. An organisation can decide to gift their employees and stakeholders with personalised gifts, and also post a, and also post a branded poster on social media, as a way celebrating difference and engender diversity and inclusion culture. Additionally, an organisation can plan for a culture awareness day within an organisation, where employee and stakeholders get a chance to showcase their diverse culture and beliefs. People value organisations that celebrate differences and engender diversity and inclusion. It gives an organisation a competitive advantage in the labour market. It also enhances employees trust, motivation and commitment toward achieving organisational goals.

Employee engagement is another great approach that people professional use to celebrate and engender diversity and inclusion. For example, an organisation accommodates people living with disabilities to work with them as a team. People professionals ensure every employee and stakeholders are respected regardless of their differences. Respecting and involving people with differences in an organisation enhances a sense of belonging. According to Gifford and Young (2021), engaged employee tend to be happy, healthy and fulfilled, hence increased commitment and motivation in an organisation.

Creating a diverse and inclusive working environment is crucial for an organisation to enhance its productivity. This is because different employees have different capabilities, which enhances innovation. For example, having parent with small babies as employee can lead to an innovation of baby care centre within the organisation. People professionals should not fear to recruit employees from diverse backgrounds. Employees and customer value organisation’s that celebrate and engender diversity and inclusion. Therefore, for an organisation to achieve a competitive advantage in the labour market and enhance growth, it should focus on applying the various approaches, which can be used to celebrate differences and engender diversity and inclusion.

Recommend two approaches to measure and monitor the impact of a diverse and inclusive organisational culture. (AC 3.3)

It is very important for people professionals to monitor the impact of a diverse and inclusive culture within an organisation. Once an organisation has promoted diversity and inclusivity, there needs to be a way and plan to measure the organisation’s performance and evaluate which areas need improvement and strengthening as the organisation is progressing and make recommendations where necessary, adopt new tactics or let down the ones that are not working. In our organisation we have put in place various measures to monitor our growth.

Some of the measures include frequent audits. We audit the measures put in place by checking our performance against the goals our organisation has set (Wilkinson, 2022). The audits done are either departmental or individual depending on the goals set. Regular audits are beneficial as they help realize faults early enough which makes us come up with efficient solutions in a timely manner minimizing time wastage and ensuring high performance and actualizing the goal set by the organisation. Also, the knowledge of the frequency of audits in the organisation makes the employees more alert (Mohdzaini, 2022).  It enables them identify working goals and those that are dormant, hence fixing them at an early stage. For example, during employee induction stage, people professionals collect data both personal and general, which is realizing diverse and inclusive culture in an organisation. Therefore, people professionals can tell and regulate inclusivity and diversity of the community introduced to the organisation, which is the best point to start this culture.

We have embraced the use of staff surveys as another approach. We encourage employees in our organisation to participate honestly in the surveys to determine the level of satisfaction.  Survey help people professionals understand how favourable they are to every employee and their different requirements. It also determines how inclusive they are to each and every staff member. Surveys help organisations have a big picture of what is on the ground as stated by Smith and Mitchell (2022). These surveys can be shallow tackling general matters of the organisation. They can also be thorough tackling personal information or a targeted group. In order for the organisation to have a clear picture of how and what is happening depending on their target intention, it is important to consider specific demographics such as age, nationalities, race, gender and disability status. These demographics inspire questions that are more personal making the employee feel that the organisation values their comfortability, hence employee satisfaction. Surveys set with distinct demographics gives all employees the capability to express their honest feeling about how the set goals are affecting them and their impact on organisational growth. 

References

AFSAR, B., AL-GHAZALI, M., CHEEMA, S., AND JAVED, F. (2020). Cultural intelligence and innovative work behavior: the role of work engagement and interpersonal trust. European Journal of Innovation Management.

ALI, L. (2022) Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in the workplace Available in https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/fundamentals/relations/diversity/factsheet [Accessed 2nd Jan, 2023]

DENNISSEN, M., BENSCHOP, Y. and VAN DEN BRINK, M. (2020) Rethinking diversity management: An intersectional analysis of diversity networks. Organization Studies, 41(2), 219-240.

GIFFORD, J. AND YOUNG, J. (2021) Employee engagement and motivation Available in https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/fundamentals/relations/engagement/factsheet [Accessed 3rd, Jan, 2023]

ISHAQ, M. and HUSSAIN, A.M. (2022) BAME employees’ work experience in the UK public sector: an empirical study of academic and research libraries. International Journal of Public Sector Management.

KINMAN, G. (2021). Supporting your approach to workplace diversity and inclusion.

MOHDZAINI, H. (2022) People analytics Available in https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/strategy/analytics/factsheet [Accessed 6th Jan, 2023]

QUILLIAM, G. (2022) Leadership in the workplace Available in https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/strategy/leadership/factsheet [Accessed 2nd Jan, 2023]

SACHDEV, A. and DUTT, C. (2021) Impact of Diversity and Inclusion on the Future of Work. NHRD Network Journal, 14(3), 303-313.

SMITH, J., AND MITCHELL, J. (2022). Shaping people practice to benefit your organisation. Studying Human Resource Management: A Guide to the Study, Context and Practice of HR, 89.

SWARTZ, T.H., PALERMO, A.S., MASUR, S.K. and ABERG, J.A. (2019) The science and value of diversity: closing the gaps in our understanding of inclusion and diversity. The Journal of infectious diseases, 220(Supplement_2), S33-S41.

WILKINSON, K. (2022). Wellbeing at work. Human Resource Management: People and Organisations, 225.