Managing Diversity

ABSTRACT MANAGING DIVERSITY— the Challenges for India Inc. By Gia D’Cunha Deepak Agarwal Diversification of the Economic scenario has taken the world by storm. The diversity of people, skills and products among other things is accompanied by a mixed bag of brand new opportunities and challenges. When Mr.Shrikanth Lonikar, Global Director Organisational Development and Human Resources, Honeywell Technologies, was quizzed about managing diversity, he dispensed a priceless nugget of wisdom, “We treat our employees as Global Citizens”. From the marketing point of view, competition for goods and services has diversified and gone far beyond the national boundaries and the world has become a “Global village”. Analysing Diversity: a. The workforce: Foreign nationals pouring into the workforce of a nation and competing with the local populace. b. The market: Globalisation has introduced a diversity of suppliers and buyers in every market. c. The stakeholders: Foreign investors flooding the country with capital to start new organizations. The RBI now permits 100 per cent foreign investment in construction of road and bridges. Managing Diversity-- An area of concern Indian companies now conduct their businesses on a global scale. This globalization of the economy and the related shift from domestic to global business requires them to adopt new financial and marketing strategies as well as managerial skills. If India Inc has to succeed, the business leaders of today and tomorrow will have to be able to operate effectively and efficiently in a global, multicultural, multilingual and geocentric environment. Managing diversity -- Techniques At the workplace: There is no perfect way of managing diversity. However, managers must be very flexible, multi-skilled, cross-cultural and multidisciplinary to tackle diversity. Let us take a look at some of the methods: • Proactive cross cultural training: The rapidly diversifying workforce and market requires continuous training of the executives throughout their career. (IBM- Three types of Executive training program). • Equitable treatment of the employees: Performance based incentives and merit based appraisal always works in managing diversity. • Informal interactions: Meeting peers over lunch and parties always helps to create the understanding and reduce the differences. (TCS-Maitree Initiative). • Developing a responsive work culture: A culture conducive to achieving goals and facilitating sustainable improved performance and productivity has to be developed in the organisation. This helps to generate commitment among its members to its vision and values.

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Attitude changes:  Sensitivity: A sensitive attitude helps the members of the workforce to understand differences in culture and background, and see things from others perspective.  Team Spirit: Productivity in a company is greatly dependent on the level of bonding among its employees. Team spirit among the diverse workforce can be a major driving factor in the success of the company.  Self awareness: If one is truly aware of oneself, can you possibly accept others as they are.  The Desire to learn: Growth in an individual or an organisation stems from the desire to learn new things from new people. A desire to learn enables members of an organisation to pick up new skills from their colleagues who may have a different background than them.

Among Stakeholders: India is making every effort to manage the influx of foreign investments without adversely affecting the growth of industry. With this in mind various policies like Industrial Licensing, Location Policy, Environmental Clearances have been put into place. Leveraging diversity Synergy and balance are the two important factors when it comes to leveraging diversity. Synergy pertains to benefits that can be shared among the different operations within a company’s diversified network. For instance, in their book about the Honda experience, Bateman and Zeithaml discuss the synergies between the plant in Ohio and in Japan. Equipment is designed only once for both plants, which saves design costs. Same installation and operating techniques are used in both the places. Workers at the Ohio plant went to Japan to gain technical skills. Because of these synergies, the Ohio plant had lower equipment costs and higher operating efficiency during its first year. Diversity and India Inc India has always been a country that quickly absorbs new cultures and integrates them into its own. In recent years the integration of foreign culture into our own is very apparent. A prime example is the wave of westernisation sweeping across India. The Indian government and industry in India as a whole is now faced with tremendous opportunities and challenges. We study diversity in the Indian context, with respect to traditions, language, education, government policy and influx of western ideals. In this day and age of “The Global Village” India Inc. is set to emerge as an Economic superpower with Diversity as its major asset.