Diversity Management

What Is Diversity Management?

Diversity management is the action taken by an organization to ensure the inclusion of employees from a range of backgrounds. It is there to create a workplace that is diverse and inclusive. (minthr.com, 2023)

One more elaborated view of diversity management found at hibob.com, Diversity management is an organizational process used to promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace. This process involves implementing policies and strategies in hiring, management, training, and more. The goals of diversity management are to promote fairness and equality and leverage the advantages diverse organizations offer. (hibob.com, 2023)

How Has Diversity Management Evolved?

Originally, diversity management was primarily about avoiding discrimination in recruitment and promoting tolerance within the company. But, over time and with multiple factors, things have evolved to where companies recognise the importance of diversity in the workplace as a key competitive advantage. (personio.com, 2023)

Why should diversity management be a part of modern HR strategy?

In today’s climate, a diverse and inclusive workplace is no longer only a nice-to-have. It’s a must. Authentic diversity management is about understanding that diversity is beyond a buzzword. To achieve real diversity and inclusion, you must be proactive, not reactive. That’s where diversity management initiatives come in. (Hibob.com, 2023)

Challenges In Managing Diversity At Work?

Although companies benefit from a diverse corporate culture, a very diverse range of employees working together also holds the potential for conflict. They are as follows:

Team-internal conflicts: When completely different perspectives and life experiences come together, a lot of tolerance, acceptance, and empathy are required.

Cooperation conflicts: In India, work processes may well be very different than in Norway. And a 55-year-old will approach their duties differently than a 25-year-old. This can lead to communication problems in everyday interactions. HRM should therefore ensure that employees share some common ground.

The tokenism problem: Candidates recruited as part of diversity programs are sometimes perceived as underperforming or over-advantaged “token minorities.” This can lead to a focus on their gender, skin colour, or age rather than their abilities.

(personio.com, 2023)

How Do You Manage Diversity At Work?

Top to bottom all the employees must be aware and acknowledged about diversity.

Educate the employees about the positive side of diversity at the time of recruitment and through periodic workshops.

Make all the employees aware how diversity supports for the business growth.

Facilitate communication to help promote diversity and how it can lead to inspiring work environments.

Take time to focus on your culture and monitor results to make sure diversity is always in focus.

(personio.com, 2023)

My opinion
It is obvious that all the employees must celebrate the diversity more than tolerating the diversity to make the work environment pleasant and to support the growth of the company.

List of References

hibob.com, (2023). Diversity management. [Online]. Available from https://www.hibob.com/hr-glossary/diversity-management. [Accessed on 23^rd July 2023].

minthr.com, (2023). Diversity management. [Online]. Available from https://minthr.com/glossary/diversity-management. [Accessed on 23^rd July 2023].

personio.com, (2023). Diversity Management: How Can It Help Grow Your Business?. [Online]. Available from https://www.personio.com/hr-lexicon/diversity-management/. [Accessed on 23^rd July 2023].

 

Employee Relations

Introduction
“Employee relations, which can also be known as industrial relations, is concerned with the contractual, emotional, physical and practical relationship between employer and employee. Employee relations has grown massively in business as HR has evolved from personnel. When businesses had personnel departments instead of HR, employee relations wasn’t considered as important as it is now. Nowadays employee relations is a specialist field which has a key impact on the success of a business”. (sites.google.com, 2013). Though it has evolved from personal to HR, most of the companies don’t maintain the relationship professionally due to various reasons, which will be discussed further.

The basis of the employment relationship

The starting point of the employment relationship is an undertaking by an employee to provide skill and effort to the employer, in return for which the employer provides the employee with  a salary or a wage (the pay–work bargain). Initially the relationship is founded on a legal  contract. This may be a written contract but the absence of such a contract does not mean that there is no contractual relationship.
(nscpolteksby.ac.id, ND).


Why Is Employee Relations Management Important?

Employees can’t work well together without positive relationships with their colleagues and leadership team. Proper relationship management helps build effective teams where everyone respects each other, collaborates, listens to new ideas, and works together seamlessly.
(bamboohr.com, 2023)

Examples of Employee Relations

Create an Employee Relations Strategy
An employee relations strategy is a way to maintain a balance between employers and employees relationship.

Listen to Employee Feedback
Always employers must be approachable and listen to employees complaints before rushing for any actions.

Educate and Communicate
Make sure to educate and communicate with employees to maintain positive employee relations. 

Ensure Compliance
Finally, document everything. Keeping accurate legal and employee records is vital for employee relations issues.
(bamboohr.com, 2023)

Conclusion
HRM and all HODs ensure all the employees within respective departments and inter-departments employees relationship is maintained and resolve disputes then and there to retain the relationship in the long run.

List of References

bamboohr.com, (2023). Glossary of Human Resources Management and Employee Benefit Terms. [Online]. 2023. Available from https://www.bamboohr.com/resources/hrglossary/employee-relations [Accessed 22^nd July 2023]

nscpolteksby.ac.id, (ND). Employee Relations.pdf. [Online] ND. Available from https://nscpolteksby.ac.id/ebook/files/Ebook/Business%20Administration/Armstrongs%20Essential%20Human%20Resource%20Management%20Practice%20A%20Guide%20to%20People%20Management(2010)/16%20-%20Employee%20Relations.pdf. [Accessed 22^nd July 2023]

sites.google.com, (2013). Specialist HR Careers‎ Employee Relations. [Blog entry] 2013. Available from https://sites.google.com/a/my.shu.ac.uk/hr-group-8/specialist-hr-careers/employee-relations. [Accessed 22^nd July 2023].

Major Challenges in HRM
        
    Evaluating Employee productiveness.

Figure 1: Employee productiveness

    

Definition

“Employee productivity, sometimes referred to as workforce productivity, is an assessment of the efficiency of a worker or group of workers”. (Kirvan, 2023). However, according to Singh, Solkhe and Gautam (2022, P183) “productivity has been defined as a measure of efficiency and effectiveness. As a result, it’s critical to recognize who the productive employees are. Employee Productivity can be defined as time spent actively by employees on tasks that require execution and production”.

Few benchmarks used in HRM to evaluate an employee.

Work quality
Examine the employee’s work over the evaluation period. Was it well done? Was it thorough? Etc.

Execution
Evaluate how well your employee organizes, schedules and completes tasks, how they manage their time, how creative they are.

Progress
Look at the employee’s performance in the evaluation period. Have they met their goals from their previous evaluation?

Adaptability
Does the employee handle change positively? Are they receptive to new ideas or adjustments? Do they demonstrate an ability to modify their working style or processes?

Communication
Does the employee share their thoughts and ideas effectively? Do they listen to others well? How well do they take direction and feedback? Can they clearly convey their thoughts verbally and in writing?

Job knowledge
Does the employee display an acceptable level of knowledge regarding their specific role?

Problem-solving and decision-making
Can the employee effectively identify problems and appropriate solutions

Teamwork
Is the employee pleasant and polite to other employees? Do they work well in team settings? Do they display a professional and positive attitude?
(Hamingson, 2023)

Why it is an important task to evaluate the employees.

When managing a workplace, you need to know how your employees are performing, what they are struggling with, what they’re doing well, and how they’re growing in their roles. That way, you can properly reward good work and provide help and resources to those who might be struggling.

If you don’t take the time to track employee performance, you might not realize that some of your workers are struggling with key tasks or leaving the company because they are not being fairly compensated for their work.
(Hamingson, 2023)

How employee evaluation can be managed effectively

Ensure job descriptions are updated - An up-to-date job description helps you provide an accurate evaluation based on the employee’s current responsibilities.

One-to-one meetings – By arranging one-to-one meetings quarterly between Managers and subordinates to see the progress.

Having sophisticated software in place to enable both the parties, managers and subordinates, to keep updating their progress and feedback.
(Hamingson, 2023)

My personal opinion
There are certain type of employees working hard and honest, but they are struggling to exhibit their good and hard work during the formal evaluation process, when there is no proper system in place. There must be a mechanism in HRM to bring them forward to show their efforts taken towards betterment of the company. For example, they will not come forward to explain everything due to their nature or lack of language fluency.

  

List of References

Hamingson, N. (2023) how to evaluate and Track Employee Performance. [online]. Available from: https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15967-how-to-evaluate-employee-performance-.html. [Accessed 22^nd of July 2023].

Kirvan, P. (2023) what is employee productivity?. [Online]. Available from: https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/employee-productivity. [Accessed 21^st of July 2023].

Singh, S., Solkhe, A. and Gautam, P. (2022) What do we know about Employee Productivity?: Insights from Bibliometric Analysis. Journal of Scientometric Res. 11 (2). P183.