Introduction
Maintaining a diverse workforce is an essential approach to excellent performance in any organization. Essentially, diversity is able to focus more on the talent of the workforce rather than getting people with the similar skills. Significantly, the role of human resource managers is to ensure a vibrant workforce. The aim is to ensure that the employees are productive and that the organization gains more profit by ensuring that employees have the necessary skills. Further, one of the strategies in HRM is to ensure diversity and inclusion of the employees (Zaki et al., 2019). This diversity and inclusion refer to the contribution of workers despite their departments or skills.
Diversity and Inclusion
In most organizations, difference involves the recruitment of people despite their ages or gender. For instance, most organizations ensure that their workforce includes as many women as possible. Mainly, this fact motivates more women to work in higher positions. On the other hand, organizations have been ensuring that there is an emphasis on avoiding discrimination in terms of skin color. In this sense, diversity allows organizations to employ the best people for each position. In essence, the focus is on the ability rather than on the skills or the certificates that are specific to an individual line of knowledge (Zaki et al., 2019). Essentially, there is a need to ensure that recruitment analyzes not only academic abilities but also the personalities to ensure that there is incorporation of innate abilities. In most instances, organizations train their workers about the specific values of the organization to ensure that the organization gains competitive advantage over the rest Zaki et al., 2019).
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Significantly, the management of organizations needs to ensure that there is a collaboration between the leadership of the organization and the workers to ensure that the operations are smooth and successful. Significantly, there is a need to involve everyone in the organization in the decision-making process (Zaki et al., 2019). For instance, when altering the mission statement or renaming the organization, most groups may need the top leadership, which is the board (Hughes, 2019). However, involving the workers through their representatives could forge a more inclusive decision for the company. Additionally, diversity of knowledge is significant as there is the ability of the organization to make appropriate strategies. Essentially, the various specializations help the leadership to steer the organization in the right direction. Significantly, the organization can perform better through the management of diverse skills. Additionally, the goal of the employees and management being the same, diversity is significant to ensure that all departments of the organization are functioning as should be to improve the general performance of the organization.
Case Study
Significantly, the Barclays bank has been in existence for many years and has been in the United States since 1965. The bank by 2018 had a worker population of 79900 people (Kyeremeh, 2019). Significantly, this population includes people of different backgrounds and hence, this diversity is in terms of race, gender, and talents as well. Primarily, this diversity has been aimed at ensuring the growth of the bank as well as its development. Significantly, Barclay's bank was the first to promote a female employee to the status of a manager in 1958. Primarily, this period was marked with the predominantly high number of women in most top positions and hence this move makes the bank different from its competitors. As a result of this appointment, the bank was able to develop a grip on the women population in the United Kingdom as well as other affiliate branches (Kyeremeh et al., 2019). Over time the bank has been on the forefront to ensure that there is a woman in every level of the organization, including the topmost leadership level.
In essence, with the rise of various other banks, the competition continues to stiffen, especially in America and in countries where affiliate branches exit. For instance, the leading bank in America is the JP Morgan chase bank, which has recorded a net income of $9.7 billion (Kyeremeh et al., 2019). Essentially, this performance is as opposed to the Barclays bank, which has registered losses in years such as 2018. However, with its renewed strategies, the bank has now emerged as the best performer by outshining its Wall Street peers in 2019. Arguably, Barclay's trading revenue is performing considerably well (Kyeremeh et al., 2019). Some of the significant critical approaches include the emphasis on diversifying the workforce. This emphasis may include the gender of workers and top leadership. Also, the bank has ensured that there is an emphasis on incorporating new and younger employees both in the workforce and leadership. The bank is also people-centered, with the focus being on providing efficient service to the clients (Kyeremeh et al., 2019). To ensure focus on the clients, the bank trains the employees on how to handle clients efficiently and in the list –time possible. This strategy gives an outlook of value for time. It is essential to notice that, being in existence for a long time, is both an advantage and a disadvantage to the organization. For instance, there is a likelihood of fast-changing times and the market being outgrown by the bank's strategies. There is, therefore, a need for the use of the new approach, which is enhanced by use of a diverse workforce.
Accomplishments of Managing a Diverse Workforce
Essentially, the main accomplishment of a diverse workforce is the increase in the level of productivity. Productivity is increased through the bringing on board of different skills from different cultures which makes room for incorporation of different approaches. Importantly, the inclusion of skills such as customer care and improvement of relationships with the customers ensures more customers are attracted to the bank. Fundamentally, contact with the clients is enhanced through improving service delivery by removing long ques in the bank and providing that the systems work round the clock. In this case, the focus primarily on the customer. Significantly, retaining customers is a crucial part of ensuring the development of an organization. This accomplishment refers to ensuring loyalty is developed by making sure that the clients see an organization as the place of choice and are likely to come back (Hughes, 2019). This achievement is a result of managing a workforce that is well trained and from various backgrounds. There are multiple departments, for instance, in Barclays, which means that workers have to have different specializations which they use together with their understanding of clients’ cultures to serve the customers in numerous ways. On the other hand, the efficiency in customer service and response ensures that the clients prefer the organization over the competitors that are in the same business.
Importantly, managing diversity and the focus of the organization ensures that the workforce is creative. As a result of the availability of various talents that are in the organization and difference in age, there is more creativity (Hughes, 2019). For instance, due to changes in technology, the younger employees are, in most situations, more technology-savvy as compared to the older ones. Therefore, in the case of customer needs that are outside the scope of the organization but that are equally important, the creativity of the younger generation of workers may ensure that there the service is delivered. For instance, in situations where the clients in the Barclays bank may require to use a banking app on their phone, the creativity of the workforce may help to ensure that service delivery is eased by assisting in the use of the app. Primarily, the management of a diverse workforce ensures creativity in different aspects of service delivery.
Challenges in Managing Diversity
Significantly, it is worth noting that the United States of America consists of people of various cultural backgrounds. There are 61.3 % of people who identify as American and white while the rest are seen as either Hispanic, Latin, or black (Zaki et al., 2019). With this kind of diversity, it may become challenging to achieve productivity for an organization if the difference is not well managed. For example, there is a likelihood of prejudices among different workers in the Barclays Bank of the United States. These prejudices are a result of the difference in cultures and the role of stereotypes. This challenge might also affect the clients where some do not want to be served by a worker from a specific cultural background (Zaki et al., 2019). For instance, a client may fear being served by a black teller.
On the other side, the difference in the ages of workers may mean differing perceptions. The millennials, for instance, are more likely to be more educated than the baby boomers. Additionally, the millennials are more prone to have grown in metropolitans and hence more exposure and a higher level of creativity. The inability to manage this diversity may mean conflicts between the two groups as a result of differing perceptions (Zaki et al., 2019). This diversity may also pose a challenge in terms of the commitment of the rules of the organization. Some may see such regulations as subjective and old fashioned hence the need to involve all in decision making.
Recommendations
Even with the diversification of the workforce, there is a critical need to ensure more automation of services. The incorporation of both the technology and employees is crucial in making sure that there is the avoidance of delays (Zaki et al., 2019). The focus on customer service demands that there should fast and easier access to assistance. Additionally, there is a need to lay more emphasis on professional and ethical engagement between the workers. The organizations such as Barclays should put more effort in training recruits and existing employees. This training will be useful in emphasizing the standards of the organization. This way, the management will avoid conflict as a result of prejudice based on color, culture, language, or age (Hughes, 2019). Mostly, the organization should be able to ensure a professional relationship between employees and also with customers.
In conclusion, managing diversity of workforce and relationship with the people is critical to the performance of an organization. The improvement indicates the importance of a diverse workforce by the Barclays bank, which has been faced with stronger competitors. Considerably, the diverse workforce and inclusion result in both the success of the organization and challenges. On the other hand, proper management of a diverse workforce ensures that there is an improvement in productivity. Significantly, to ensure a good relationship between the employees, there is a need to focus on strengthening professional relationships even with the clients.
References
Hughes, C. (2019). Using Workforce Inter-Personnel Diversity to Alleviate Generational Differences. In Workforce Inter-Personnel Diversity (pp. 107-124). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Kyeremeh, K., Prempeh, K. B., & Afful Forson, M. (2019). Effect of Information Communication and Technology (ICT) on the Performance of Financial Institutions (A Case Study of Barclays Bank, Sunyani Branch).
Zaki, A. R., Karim, A. S., & Khan, H. (2019 ). Managing Workforce Diversity in Multicultural Organizations: Some Observations. Journal of European Studies , 35 (1), 79-91.
