Cultural Diversity in the Workplace
The American workforce is an increasingly multicultural and culturally diverse environment in which people from often significantly different social, racial/ethnic, sociocultural, national, and even linguistic background meet, interact, and work together to achieve personal and organizational goals and objectives. Because this is the case, it has become important in recent years to examine how cultural diversity impacts upon the workplace and to develop strategic practices that will minimize any possible tensions emerging from cross-cultural interaction (Managing a multicultural workforce, 2001). It is the purpose of this report to examine the importance and sources of cultural diversity in the workplace, the negative effects that will be felt throughout society if diversity is not encouraged and practiced, and the practices that facilitate creation and maintenance of a proactive diverse corporate and organizational environment. The report is written in response to real life situations in which minority group employees (including women, the disabled, and individuals from racial or ethnic minority groups) have found that they are often not allowed to advance up a career ladder and in which it has become increasingly necessary for businesses to undertake affirmative action programs.
Diversity in the American workplace is an artifact of the population shifts that have occurred in the past several decades. Data contained in the 2000 U.S. Census identified the following population elements for the 275.6 million individuals reporting only one race or ethnicity: Whites, 75.1 percent; African-Americans, 12.3 percent; American Indian and Alaskan Natives, 0.9 percent; Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders, 5.5 percent; Asians of various ethnic or national origins, 5.5 percent. Of that total, Hispanics were grouped into the general category of ôWhitesö; Hispanics totaled 35.3 million or abo...