Managing ethnic diversity in British workplace Essay

Managing ethnic diversity in British workplace - Essay Example In their standards of recruitment, training, and promotion, government agencies and human services organizations have been more effective as equal opportunity employers than the private business sector. But even in government and human services agencies there is room for improvement. Many equal opportunity employers are merely paper compilers; their behavior is anything but exemplary of equality in action. If the policy of equal employment opportunity (EEO) is to apply without regard to sex, race, creed, color, or national origin, an important first step is to ascertain whether influential members of an organization harbor prejudices. Following Allison (1999) "Unlike the instrumental focus on corporate culture and productivity that characterize the functionalist perspective, critical analyses provide reflection on different types of management issues including, "epistemological issues, notions of rationality and progress, technocracy and social engineering, autonomy and control, comm unicative action, power and ideology" (78). Numerous studies conclude that a large number of minority workers receive insufficient information about their present job conditions and future opportunities. Specifically, many minority workers quit or retire from organizations without ever having understood what their supervisors diagnosed as their needs, why certain procedures were followed and, if failure resulted, what their failures consisted of and the reasons for them. The minority workers' rights include the right to courteous, prompt, and the best supervision. They have the right to know what is wrong, why, and what can be done about skill deficiencies (Konrad et al 2006). The managers could build a case of minority workers' ignorance as... Traditionally, British workplace represents a homogeneous unity consisting of British employees. Thus, globalization and immigration processes create new problems for managers. Managing ethnic diversity is one of the main problems required effective solutions and strategies to be introduced. Ethnicity and race are often confused in the United States. Equality of treatment and opportunity has been the official policy of some organizations for many years. In their standards of recruitment, training, and promotion, government agencies and human services organizations have been more effective as equal opportunity employers than the private business sector. There are two main approaches to diversity-related attitude change. Both approaches center on communication. The formal attitude-change approach is based on learning theories and assumes that people are rational, information-processing beings who can be motivated to listen to a message, hear its content, and incorporate the learnings w hen it is advantageous to do so. The means of change is formal, structured communication, and the reason for change is either actual or expected reward for embracing diversity (Konrad et al 2006). The amount of attitude change depends on employees' initial position regarding diversity, their attention to the message and to the communicator, their understanding of the message, and their acceptance of the message.