Diversity Management

Diversity Management

Today international companies are acting all over the world. They are looking for talented employees and the best managers without paying too much attention on their heritage. Therefore the workforce of big companies has become very divers and that is the reason why diversity management has become an important topic. It is not only a legal issue because of anti-discrimination laws, it is most of all a market issue.

The different groups that need to be considered in a companie's workforce and as customers as well, are: blacks, asien, hispanics, immigrants, homosexuals, older people, people with disabilities, white men and women. By understanding the differences among the groups one can find ways to appeal to a broader set of employees and customers. Managing these differences is today an important task in Human Ressource Management (HRM) and the direction boards of greater companies.

For that reason, for example, IBM decided to view the issues surrounding diversity on a global scale -- from the workplace to the marketplace.That is why IBM has created an innovative global strategic framework for this new era of diversity, which should help IBM to address the emerging issues taking shape in the countries where they do business.

In 1995, IBM has considered workforce diversity as fundamental to its business success. The IBM Chairmen have acknowledged the importance of workforce diversity to their business, culture and as a cornerstone of their values. They declared workforce diversity to be a strategic goal. They set up task forces which comprised 15 to 20 senior mangers from the different demographic constituencies described above. On this they want to uncover and understand the differences among these groups. They do not only want to expand their talent pool, but furthermore they want to understand their markets by calling attention to differences and learning from them.

For a successful implementation of diversity management into the overall company strategy it is neccesare to work on four questions:

The first question is: "what is necessary for a constituency to feel valued at the company"? This question leads directly to the second question: "what can the corporation do to maximise the constituency's productivity"? The reason for these questions are obvious, if the member of a constituency feels welcome at the company and if he sees that his specific differences are accepted and seen as an important input for the company, he will become more motivated. He will be glad to bring in his own experiences and thus helping the company to get access to its constitueny as a target group on the market. This is tached to the third question, how to influence the constitueny's buying decision. If you understand exactly the needs of a target group it might be easy to find a way to convince this group that you have the right solution for them.The last question is which