Nevertheless, there is also the argument that employers should not necessarily provide childcare. The reasons for this stand are as follows:
- The employers have already providing medical and other benefits for the employees and their families. Additional cost need to be incurred to hire staff to manage the nurseries.
- There are various rules and regulations relating to childcare in terms of setting the nurseries that need to be observed and it can be cumbersome. Non compliance would expose the employer to possible fine by the authority and litigation by the employees themselves.
- There is also the practical problem such as the availability of space to cater for all the employees’ children.
It is quite obvious that the whole process of child care involve additional cost and cumbersome to the employers. This would place unnecessary burden on employers in providing child care.
Conclusion
Though providing child care would incur additional cost and is cumbersome, employers should view it as a business investment. Support of workplace friendly policies such as childcare is an investment that clearly affects the bottom line of all businesses. Employee absenteeism, low morale, indifference and turnover carry significant costs to employers. In contrast, employee commitment, high morale, enthusiasm and personal investment in their work translate into significant benefits for employers. Based on the facts provided above, I conclude that employers should provide childcare.
DIVERSITY
The Importance of Managing Diversity
The world's increasing globalization requires more interaction among people from diverse cultures, beliefs, and backgrounds than ever before. The impact of the changing global workforce has implications for aspects of business operations and management. The opportunity for performance enhancement through diversity lies in understanding its influence on the workplace, and integrating diversity into everything that a company does.
Define Diversity
Diversity is generally defined as acknowledging, understanding, accepting, valuing, and celebrating differences among people with respect to age, class, ethnicity, gender, physical and mental ability, race, sexual orientation, spiritual practice, and public assistance status. A broad definition of diversity ranges from personality and work style to all of the visible dimensions of diversity, to secondary influences such as religion, socioeconomics and education, to work diversities such as management and union, functional level and classification or proximity/distance to headquarters
Types of diversity in the workforce
Workforce diversity in organisations is becoming more heterogeneous in terms of gender of gender, race and ethnicity. One of it is the demographic change in the composite of gender in the workforce. Today’s workforce has the highest levels of employment participation ever by women. This is largely due to the availability of education and the change of mindset of parents on their perception of women furthering studies. This has sort of created the problem of men having problem accepting the idea of women going up the corporate ladder which created the ‘glass ceiling’ syndrome.
Apart from gender, age is also another type of diversity. The age difference is much greater in the current business environment. Age diversity has created new problems for organisations that have typically moved employees through the organisations. Not only are employees not retiring but they are those that are returning from retirement. This sometimes creates odd age inversions in which an older employee is managed by a much younger employee. This creates an uncomfortable role reversal akin to “telling your grandpa to clean the table”.
In trying to understand just exactly what "diversity management" is, consider the following set of assumptions and belief systems about diversity that have more to do with human behavior than they do race, gender or age. These underlying principles are inherent to diversity work:
1) Diversity is about each person coming to terms with his or her attitudes, beliefs, and expectations about others and gaining comfort with differences.
2) Diversity is big enough to include everyone…young and old, homeless and affluent, immigrant and native, white and black….and goes beyond race and gender.
3) No one is or should be the target for blame for current or past inequities. All human beings have been socialized to behave in certain ways, and all of us are at times both perpetrators and victims of discrimination and stereotypes.
4) Human beings are ethnocentric - they see the world through their own narrow view and judge the world by what is familiar to them.
5) The human species resists change, continually striving for a state of homeostasis. This makes the constant adaptation required for diversity difficult for people already overwhelmed by staggering transitions in today's organizations
6) Human beings find comfort and trust in likeness. There is a tendency to seek the company of those most similar to ourselves.
7) It is difficult for people to share power; history shows that it is rarely done voluntarily and without a reason that will somehow benefit those dominating the pool of wealth
Diversity is a reality in labor markets and customer markets today. To be successful in working with and gaining value from this diversity requires a sustained, systemic approach and long-term commitment. Success is facilitated by a perspective that considers diversity to be an opportunity for everyone in an organization to learn from each other how better to accomplish their work and an occasion that requires a supportive and cooperative organizational culture as well as group leadership and process skills that can facilitate effective group functioning. Organizations that invest their resources in taking advantage of the opportunities that diversity offers should outperform those that fail to make such investments.
Tips for managing diversity:
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Foster a culture that views diversity as a resource for learning, change, and renewal.
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Train for group process skills. Training programs must help managers to develop the leadership and group process skills needed to facilitate constructive conflict and effective communication.
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Adopt a more analytical approach. Despite the use of HRIS systems, basic HR data about individuals and groups is often difficult to link to business-level performance data. Better metrics are needed to monitor an organization's progress in managing diversity.
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Support experimentation and evaluation. Be open to exploring and learning about the effects of diversity in your own organization.
Why is it important for an organization to be able to manage diversity ?
In an era when flexibility and creativity are keys to competitiveness, diversity is critical for an organisation’s success. Effective management of diversity is beneficial to organization. The benefits of diversity to an organization are as follows:
- Diversity initiatives can improve the quality of the organization’s workforce and can be the catalyst for a better return on its investment in human capital. Higher return is derived by creating an environment where all employees feel included and valued, which yields greater commitment and motivation. It also means fewer resources spent on training, turnover and grievances.
- Capitalise on new market; customers based are becoming even more diverse than the workforce. Just as the workforce is becoming diverse, so is the market place. Without a doubt, those employees who mirror the customers can serve literally and figuratively speak their language, which benefits the organisation. Diverse employee can understand its customers, identify their needs and suggest potential new markets.
- Recognised diversity initiatives and diversity results will attract the best and brightest employees to an organisation. Managing diversity well aids the organisation’s recruitment process. Because it is often a precursor to what kind of career opportunities and situations await them, recruits now commonly ask about the organisation’s initiative and factor that into their employment decision. Also, successful diversity initiatives help companies against employment related lawsuits.
- Increased creativity. One byproduct of capitalising on differences is creativity. Historically, some of the most creative periods in civilisation have emerged when people from different background had contact. It is the same in an organisation, employees from varied backgrounds can bring different perspectives, ideas and solutions, as well as devise new products and services, challenge accepted views and generate a dynamic synergy that may yield new niches for business.
- Flexibility ensures survival. Diversity is a training ground that requires hard work, commitment to business ideals, and an ability to learn to handle change by adapting to new situations and learn from people who are different from us. Because change is the only certainty ahead, making adaptations required by diversity keeps an organisation flexible and well-developed. Strengthening the ability to respond to changing environments and demands is a strategic business imperative that is critical to ensuring organisational viability.
Conclusion
In conclusion, well managed workforce diversity can allow organisations to gain a competitive advantage, through low staff turnover, more job satisfaction, high motivation and less internal conflicts. Apart from it, diverse workforce bring new ideas to the organisations that aid in creative problem solving and provides organisation a competitive advantage by enabling them to better meet the needs of their customers.
