In the following part of this report, a case study of OmniBank’s Diversity Efforts (Barrett, 2010, p.274) would be examined to clarify basic idea about the importance in launching a comprehensive diversity committee to improve both the diversity of the employees at the bank and the diversity with which it interacts with its constituents. This diversity committee of OmniBank would perform specific action plans based on the provisions of specific charter, which are demonstrated in detail as below.
II. WORKING PLACE DIVERSITY STRATEGIES
The first and foremost effort in constructing a diversity strategies program is to form a diversity committee at OmniBank to work towards the value of diversity in improving hiring processes and variety networking. Technically, the OmniBank diversity committee would comprise key employees from various backgrounds and levels to facilitate the organizational culture revamping so as to widen employee base in the workplace as well as encourage social networks that will benefit the bank’s constituencies.
1. Form a diversity committee
OmniBank may consider applying those basic steps below in forming a diversity committee of its own.
Step 1: Preparation before undertaking diversity initiative
This step serves as an initial way before launching the diversity efforts widely in the organization in which the board of directors and senior staff should become proficient in conducting a diversity process as well as review and take the existing internal and external resources needed for future subsidization into consideration.
Step 2: Identify key participants
Along with the bank’s CEO or the board of directors as in the principal responsibilities of leadership speaking for obtaining diversity, the committee should be established with representatives from as various backgrounds and as many levels of organizational structure as possible in order to be able to reflect the bank’s current diversity context. The diversity committee would also be offered the clear mandate for its work with top management to keep them inform about the future plans and implementation of the committee.
Step 3: Recruitment of committee members
In this stage, a survey can be conducted to comprehend employees’ interests in the diversity committee and interested individuals will be contacted. The board can then hold an election to vote for the permanent committee.
Step 4: Establishment of objectives and strategies in form of charter
The diversity committee members and Omnibank’s board of directors will discuss to unanimously approve specific objectives based on the company’s overall goals that determine the importance of such committee in terms of improving both the diversity of the bank’s employees as well as the diversity in interacting with its constituencies in form of charter. Overall strategies would be clearly developed in specific context and stated clearly how to achieve them to ensure the engagement of all related members and departments in the company.
2. OmniBank’s Charter for Diversity Committee
Established upon the cognizance of diversity’s critical effect on the ever-changing demographic and business context nowadays, the charter aims at grasping, fostering and strengthening the diversity of OmniBank’s workforces in order to fulfill the needs of diverse customers from different races, ethnicities and profiles. The company strives for creating unprejudiced working environment in which every incumbent is offered chances to attain the diverse capabilities regardless of nationality, gender, age, race, religion or politics perspective, disability and sexual preference for advanced and productive recognition and promotion.
OmniBank is making every effort for maintaining and fostering the sense of respect and mutual trust in the workplace. This will not only create harmony among diverse constituencies but also promise auspicious outcomes regarding the economic benefits as well as the bank’s reputation and prestige with its customers and business partners.
In the light of this charter, OmniBank diversity committee pledges to:
1. Coaching an organizational culture operating relies on mutual respect and recognition of each and every single individual. With the definite support from the bank superiors, the committee endeavors to offer possible opportunities and favorable atmosphere for everyone, from the top management to employees to treasure, appreciate and put into effect.
2. Managing and ensuring the bank’s current human resource system will be accordant with the capabilities of the employees as well as with the whole organization’s capacity level.
3. Identifying the existing and forthcoming diversity within and beyond the organization border in order to impart to the bank’s constituencies to compatibly and profitably employ for the bank’s prosperity.
4. Assuring that the proclamation and application of the Charter will be widely acknowledged and be a subject matter for internal and external communication.
5. Publicly announcing on a regular basis regarding the committee’s efforts and accomplishments for the encouraging and promoting purpose in terms of fostering diversity.
6. Communicating and keeping the bank’s constituencies posted as well as zealously be a part of the Charter’s implementation.
The OmniBank’s Diversity Committee positively reassures that the acknowledgment and application toward the goal of greater diversity initiative will result in positive effects on both at the bank and in community outreach.
3. Implementation action plans
After forming a permanent diverse committee and establishing a comprehending charter to provide guidelines and clarify the goals, the committee is now ready to take necessary steps in developing and implementing action plans so as to ensure the accomplishments towards the goal of greater diversity.
The OmniBank Diversity Committee may take those steps in which the main objectives are to raise employees’ awareness, provide essential information and train the bank’s incumbents on diversity issues into consideration.
Step 1: General analysis
The committee should be able to identify the bank’s strengths, weaknesses, issues and needs through day-to-day activities basis before initiating the diversity policies. Thus, there are several questions that the committee might want to take into consideration such as:
- Which factors are the strength points and weak points of the company?
- What have been the current issues within the company?
- Does the company possess the diverse mix of managers and staff in terms of competencies and k\nowledge to satisfy the operational and market demand?
- How diverse is the company market segment? How diverse is the company’s workforce to direct the current issue concerning diversity?
- What are the top management perspectives in equality? Is there any opportunity for the changing in the organizational culture?
Step 2: Recruitment
Staffing process should base on the equivalence among the bank needs as well as specific tasks of the job and employees’ profiles rather than rely on the mere ordinary personal standards or belief of the bank’s owner. The misuse of imposing personal values may cause pricey mistake in recruitment process which may lead to indeliberate discrimination and effect the business badly in the end. An impartial staffing process would result in better staff retention and transformation.
Step 3: Examine potential markets
OmniBank should not restrain itself on the existing market base but also explore the diverse customers regarding their changes in terms of age, lifestyles, abilities, motivations and all other forms in the current market place. This along with the diverse staff would promise a wider door to access new market opportunities for the new establishing of product and service development.
Step 4: Direct customer needs
The committee should orient the employees on how to respond to customer needs based on the employee profile, ingenuity, attitudes towards the changing in the needs of customers.
Step 5: Develop internal communication system
Effective internal communication system between top management and staff concerning diversity issues would enable two sides involvement and commitment as well as encourage new information, ideas, knowledge on various perspectives that may lead to positive outcomes.
Step 6: Develop external communication system
Parallel to working on the diversity issues, the committee needs to publicly present the latest facts and figures regarding its diversity and equality policies within the organization through various public relation tools in order to enlarge the bank’s image and reputation. Thence, more business opportunities, winning contracts as well as the increase in local and international supply chains connections would probably be resulted.
Also, proper communication can be made to seek for external support that may aid the committee in diversity processes and modeling Human Resources. Those backing authority might be the bank’s solicitors, other professional financial institutions, public subsidize services, etc.
Step 7: Evaluation and feedback
The committee might want to assess the would-be costs including the time and essential resources as well as the benefits of employing diversity policies. The process should include the interaction of top management and staff to clarify the purposes of implementing those steps, achievements throughout the performance and gathering constituencies’ feedbacks. Thus, the diversity committee might either collect and classify measurements to sustain the effective existing policies or take corrective actions for the future development of those policies.
III. CONCLUSION
Since OmniBank has a rather mono-culture background (mostly male and predominantly Caucasian), there may not be high accuracy in the environment analysis in terms of behaviors and manners among each employee to one another as well as among employees and diverse customers in various circumstances. The provisions for changes may encounter several difficulties due to those narrow perspectives. Thus, the establishing of new diverse committee with people from diverse backgrounds formed by top management may serve as a solution to overcome the bank’s shortcoming. Together with the top management, key participants in the committee can work towards the objectives stated in the charter to solve the company’s diversity issues while implementing suggested action plans to ensure the accomplishments of greater diversity internally and externally. That way, the opportunity to sustain and develop current business of OmniBank would ascend in better tendency.
IV. RECOMMENDATION
As mention above, one of the key steps that OmniBank Diversity Committee need to take after establishing its own charter including the goals, objectives is to develop and implement specific action plans. The bank may want to focus on just the two or three prime plans to make the most out of them. There are several effective action plans concerning the diversity issues that the bank may employ as stated below:
Instead of relying on the conventional personal values, the bank should make the staffing decision based on skills, knowledge, experience and personal characteristics that the bank needs to fulfill certain tasks or role. It is vital that the job description includes opportunities for all sections of the community to apply regardless of their races, religion beliefs, sexual orientation, gender or disability. In fact, OmniBank should consider hiring more employees from different cultures to be able to assign proper personnel to deal with customers from similar cultures. Thus, there would be less unexpected encounters between contradictory customs and the transactions would put to rights easier. A wide range of advertising methods can be placed such as colleges or universities, job centers, recruitment agencies, websites, etc.
- Conducting Diversity Affairs Forum
Diversity concerns seminars, conferences should be conducting on a regular basis where employees might be introduced and might get familiar with the diversity backgrounds, cultures, situations may occur in the workplace among employees and among employees and customers. The moderators leading the forum must have knowledge and experience in specific topics who can coach in critical information, trigger open discussions among the members and put substantial efforts to embrace the participation of the diverse individuals. Thus, the diversity barriers would be likely to put down.
- Customizing product/service for potential target market
OmniBank need to attach special importance and efforts in creating more functions in terms of e-statement, mobile banking and internet banking with special offers such as no minimum balance account, self-service banking as an example of cash deposit, shopping online payment, quick check deposit, etc. for young adults, especially students when they reach college and expect more convenient ways of making transactions. As college/universities might make up a considerable proportion in the potential target market, it is more than an urge to retain them with the bank as long as possible.
V. REFERENCE
Iris Varner & Linda Beamer (2011). Intercultural Communication in the Global Workplace. Singapore, PA: The McGraw-Hill Companies.
Deborah J. Barrett (2010). Leadership Communication. Singapore, PA: The McGraw-Hill Companies.
Church, A.H. (1995). Diversity in workgroup settings: a case study. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 16, pp. 3-9. Retrieved from ProQuest database.
American Water Works Association. (n.d.). How to Establish and Operate a Diversity Program. Retrieved from .
Marion Keil, Badrudin Amershi, Stephen Holmes, Hans Jablonski, Erika Luthi, Kazuma Matoba, Angelika Plett & Kailash von Unruh (2007). Training Manual for Diversity Management. Retrieved from ec.europa.eu/social/BlobServlet?docId=1474...en.
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