Supervisory Management And Diversity

Supervisory Management and Diversity

In today's current workforce the demographics in an organization brings diversity that consist of a variety of dimensions such as age, gender, race, disability and cultural differences, all in which a supervisor must possess the much needed interpersonal skills that allow the ability to operate and function within an organization. Differences in the age gap among the young and elderly with the elderly population in an elevated level however, the older workforce will likely be more experienced, reliable, and stable, but possibly less adaptable to change and retraining (Foundations of Supervision, 2004), the ratio of women over men in positions of increased responsibilities and duties, the rise of African Americans and Hispanics affecting historical workforce numbers significantly.

Managing a racially and culturally diverse workforce is complex and challenging task for managers with no ready-made tools to show them how to do so. Achieving effective management of a culturally diverse workforce comes from an intrinsic motivation to develop the cultural competence to engage with them (Hunt, 2007, 3). Cultural differences of an organization are one of the biggest challenges that diversity conveys.

Diversity management is defined as "the process by which a company (or manager, human resource department, or any individual) incorporates the dissimilarities of its workforce into the decision-making process in order to motivate, direct, lead, organize, plan, and staff more efficiently (Foundations of Supervision, 2004). The success of supervisors in a diverse workforce lies within the ability of understanding each individual employee through actual observational behaviors and open lines of communication. Providing feedback allows the process of two way communication.

Understanding how diversity functions within an organization promotes and fosters a healthy working environment