When I lived in the UAE I went to an international school, so my classmates were from all around the world. I had an amazing time interacting with wonderful people from different backgrounds, and I learnt a lot about communications in the process. So this made me wonder whether or not it is the same with organizations.

Diversity in the workplace has many benefits, and according to the Harvard business review article it increases innovation and creativity which is stimulated by a pool of different ideas and perspectives. This is because different cultures have different ways of working due to dissimilar values and beliefs, and a research conducted by McKenzie has found that if diversity is accepted it is supposed to increase productivity by 35%.  A blog written by fellow first year Sauder student Alana Rae talks about how different values and beliefs improves an individual’s cultural intelligence overtime, and I completely agree with her. So what is cultural intelligence? In my opinion it is understanding someone’s unfamiliar gesture in the same way as would people from that culture. This increases appreciative and trustworthiness, which in turn improves communication between workers and further increases productivity.

On the other hand if the employees do not accept cultural diversity, it can lead to the downfall of an organization. For example, the company Tyson and Food has been accused of racism against African American workers. This situation usually creates high tension between workers which leads to a negative work environment, and in the long run decreases employee motivation and increases labor turnover. In addition to that an organizations cost would increase in terms of lawsuit and diversity trainings provided to counteract the issue.

An organization can counteract the negative impacts by implementing diversity trainings and support groups, which will help spread awareness and establish a clear line of communication for whoever that feels violated. These are the few steps that can be implemented to create a positive work environment.

In conclusion I believe that positive aspects outweigh the negative aspects of diversity, because personally I have immensely grown as a person from a multicultural environment.

works cited

http://blackmen.tribe.net/thread/3ff77f11-3749-46f0-9787-128f67219932