Diversity

Organization and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Public personnel management needs to develop ways to understand global culture. Public sector personnel management must develop training so that all the personnel are able to deal with people of different cultures and races. “Culture is a set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual, and emotional features shared by society or a social group. Culture encompasses language, communication patterns, lifestyles, practices, customs, a body of learned behaviors, value systems, traditions, shared beliefs, and views on roles and relationships” (Betancourt 2004, p. 53). Cultural competency involves the knowledge, awareness, sensitivity, attitudes, skills, and encounters by individuals in organizations and the respect for the cultural traditions of the clients and their communities (Farr 2005). In essence, cultural competency reflects the role culture plays in shaping an individual or group’s attitudes, values, and beliefs, which evolve through a long-time process of development (Cross et al. 1989). Cultural competency has been defined as a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that enable an agency, or the professionals within an agency, to work effectively in cross-cultural situations (Cross et al. 1989; Isaacs and Benjamin 1991). Cultural competency is the integration and transformation of knowledge about individuals and groups of people into specific standards, policies, practices, and attitudes used in appropriate cultural settings to increase the equality of services, thereby producing better outcomes (Davis 1997). Lindsey et al. (2003) have developed a “cultural proficiency continuum” to depict how public agencies respond to and react to “difference.” This continuum ranges from cultural distinctiveness to cultural proficiency:

Cultural destructiveness: negating, disparaging, or purging cultures that are different. Cultural incapacity: emphasizing the superiority of one’s cultural values and beliefs and suppressing cultures that are different. Cultural blindness: ignoring differences among cultures and refusing to recognize any differences. Cultural pre-competence: recognizing the lack of knowledge, experience, and understanding of other cultures limiting the ability to interact with people from different background. Cultural competence: the ability to interact effectively with people from diverse background. Cultural proficiency: respecting the differences among cultures and recognizing the benefits of different cultures. (Roberts and Jones 2005).

Kim (1999) suggested that the organizations must possess a global mind and global skills to manage in the present world. Human resource management can and should make a contribution to the competitive strategy of a global village. Gertsen (1990) speaks of intercultural competence as consisting of three dimensions: affective, behavior or communicative, and cognitive competence. Affective competence refers to the identification of the people in common language. Cognitive competence refers to the ability of not using stereotypes or narrow categorization. Communication competence involves the ability to connect with people of different backgrounds. HRM has to undertake the responsibility to ensure the cultural competence of the employees, especially the supervisors so that they can interact with people of diverse background.

DiveRsity One of the major challenges of human resource management in the public sector is to maintain diversity in a globalized world. The changing nature of the workforce poses a serious challenge to the public personnel managers. Kouzmin and Korac-Kakabadse (1999) remarked that the demographic, organizational, social, and technological factors would cause radical changes in the coming decade which would influence the interrelationships between different actors. There will be a dramatic change in the number of women in the workplace. In 2010, at least 60 percent of the workforce were women (Johnston 2000). Women are projected to account for 51 percent of the increase in total labor force growth between 2008 and 2018 (U. S. Department of Labor, https://www.dol.gov/ Retrieved Novemeber 26, 2017. In addition, the workforce will include a higher proportion of older people. Gradually, the companies are adopting structures targeting international co-ordination to support the global markets (Metcalfe and Rees 2010). The United Nations declared improvement of the position of women as one of the goals under the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Pyles and Ward (2003) argue that the demands of the women are usually ignored because migration of women brings much-needed remittances to the countries of origin. There are several advantages of having a diverse workforce. The advantages of diversity are a contribution to improved service delivery, fresh thinking, innovative approaches, new ideas, morale, job satisfaction, and increased productivity.

So, the “organizations should, therefore, continue to pursue prodiversity policies, but those policies should reflect the potential for diversity to improve outcomes. Diversity matters not just because it is the right