Managing Workforce Diversity Principles of Management

Managing workforce diversity: Principles of management Workforce diversity can be an organizations greatest strength provided it is managed correctly. Diversity can generate organizational value. Workers of diverse backgrounds can provide input to management about how to cope with the challenges of the global marketplace. A Japanese-American employee can provide advice about to deal with a client from the Far East; a female employee can offer her input about how to market a new product to spark womens interest; an employee with a different educational or vocational background than the majority of participants of a work team can provide an out of the box perspective. Diversity refers to: the variety of experiences and perspective which arise from differences in race, culture, religion, mental or physical abilities, heritage, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and other characteristics (Chapter 12: Managing Diversity in the Workplace, 2012, UCF). These various experiences in both large and small organizations can foster creativity and healthy dialogue, enabling the organization to grow and to avoid the traps of groupthink. However, as positive as diversity may be, by and large, it can also have some downsides, if not managed correctly. A diverse workplace may initially lack the unspoken connections and subtext that enable people to communicate quickly. Appropriate orientation is required for all members of the workplace, so they can learn to see theShow MoreRelatedManagement : Management Careers And Diversity Essay1744 Words   |  7 PagesManagement Careers and Diversity Introduction Ongori and Agolla (2007) state that managing workforce diversity in an organization is a complex phenomenon. They suggest that with the current organizational transformations being implemented across the globe, management of workforce diversity cannot be downplayed. Diversity in the workforce is based on the acknowledgement of the reality that people are different in more than one way, mainly in terms of culture and ethnicity, personality, religionRead MoreManaging Diversity Within An Organization1674 Words   |  7 PagesManaging Diversity is often defined as a â€Å"management philosophy of recognising and valuing heterogeneity in organisations with a view to improve organisational performance† (Ozbilgin and Tatli, 2011). Hence recognising the wide variety of qualities possessed by people within an organisation and creating an environment that understands, values and utilises the differences within people. Due to the rapidly growing trends of a more diverse workforce, dive rse market and globalisations of businesses,Read MoreManaging Diversity Through Human Resource Management1056 Words   |  5 PagesAmerican University of Science amp; Technology Assignment 2 Managing diversity through human resource management An international perspective and conceptual framework Prepared By: Samih El Kahtib Instructor: Dr. Hasan Saleh Managing diversity through human resource management An international perspective and conceptual framework Introduction Managing diversity reflects the reality that people differ in many visible amp; invisible ways; such as: * Age * Gender * MaritalRead MoreThe Global Economy Has Changed The Way The Corporations Do Business Today1622 Words   |  7 Pages Consumers also have better access to a greater variety of goods and services; and the competition to reach to the new markets with the right product is getting stronger among businesses. Globalization gives businesses better access to a global workforce, enables them to tap into international raw materials and financial resources. As the world economy is fast becoming a single interdependent system, businesses have competitors, customers, employees from anywhere in the world. As indicated in theRead MoreAchieving a Competitive Advantage: Managing Diversity1249 Words   |  5 PagesManaging Diversity can help an organisation achieve a competitive advantage Rapidly changing demographics in particular western countries place more importance than ever on the need to manage diversity in the workplace. XYZ is a relatively new diversity strategy that has emerged from earlier concepts of Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action. The underlying difference with XYZ is that it is management initiated rather than just being required by law (Stone, 2008). This essay willRead MoreThe Value Of Ethical Conduct And Managing Diversity Essay1482 Words   |  6 PagesGlobal Issue: The Value of Ethical Conduct and Managing Diversity Review of Subject This essay explores what Organizational Behavior (OB) is and the value of ethical conduct, and discusses the methods of managing diversity taking into consideration socializing and organization culture. OB is a study of the people in organization, about how they work, and how they produce results. Organizational ethical conducts are those morally accepted by the employees, the customers, and the public. It couldRead MoreGlobalization Has Become The Root Of Changing The Demographic Diversity Of The Workforce857 Words   |  4 PagesGlobalization has become the root of changing the demographic diversity of the workforce in an organization throughout the world. Diversity does not only imply race and gender, but it shows that every person is different and that their culture is characterized as individual. Individuals in an organization have their own different customs, values, and perspectives; employers must be mindful of all of these differences. Successfully managing cultural diffe rences would allow organizations to be more competitiveRead MoreThe Emerging Challenges in Human Resource Management Essay923 Words   |  4 PagesThe main purpose of this article is In the past human resources management played more of an administrative role which were consist of processing payrolls, sending birthday gifts to employees, rearranging company outings, and making sure forms were filled out correctly. Human resource management has experienced several changes over the last twenty years such as staffing, development of Workplace policies, compensation and benefits administration, retention, and training and development. TheseRead MoreXerox Co. Diversity1501 Words   |  7 PagesXerox define diversity? How has its definition changed over the years? In business , diversity has seen action in the managing of human resource as essential capital in fostering businesses at a global scale . Diversity is also seen as a concept where differences can be a powerful resource . Based on the Case facts, Xerox value diversity as the most priceless resource to drive the company towards achieving its goals. According to Xerox Chairman amp; former CEO, Anne M. Mulcahy, diversity is not justRead MoreThe Benefits And Challenges Of Diversity869 Words   |  4 Pagesbenefits and challenges of diversity in the workplace. Research Questions The literature review will answer four research questions: 1. What is diversity and what positive affects does it has in the workplace? 2. How should leaders manage the diversity in the workplace? 3. What are the challenges for leaders managing the workplace? 4. What are the benefits of the younger and older generation in the workplace? Literature Review Outline I. Need for This Research A. Diversity in the workplace is an ongoing

Displacement in Language Definition and Examples

In linguistics, a characteristic of language that allows users to talk about things and events other than those occurring in the here and now. Displacement is one of the distinct properties of human language.  Its significance as one of the 13 (later 16) design features of language was noted by American linguist Charles Hockett in 1960. Pronunciation   dis-PLAS-ment Examples and Observations When your pet cat comes home and stands at your feet calling meow, you are likely to understand this message as relating to that immediate time and place. If you ask your cat where it has been and what it has been up to, youll probably get the same meow response. Animal communication seems to be designed exclusively for this moment, here and now. It cannot effectively be used to relate events that are far removed in time and place. When your dog says GRRR, it means GRRR, right now, because dogs dont seem to be capable of communicating GRRR, last night, over in the park. In contrast, human language users are normally capable of producing messages equivalent to GRRR, last night, over in the park, and then going on to say, In fact, Ill be going back tomorrow for some more. Humans can refer to past and future time. This property of human language is called displacement. . . . Indeed, displacement allows us to talk about things and places (e.g. angels, fairies, Santa Claus, Superman, heav en, hell) whose existence we cannot even be sure of.(George Yule, The Study of Language, 4th ed. Cambridge University Press, 2010) A Characteristic of All Human Languages Consider the range of things that you can say, such as a sentence like this: Hey, kids, your mother left last night, but dont worry, shell be back when shes come to terms with the whole notion of mortality. (This was said tongue in cheek by a friend, but its a useful example.) By uttering certain sounds in a given order, the speaker of this sentence is addressing particular individuals (the kids), referring to a particular individual who isnt there (their mother), referring to times that are not the present (last night and whenever the mother comes to terms), and referring to abstract ideas (worry and mortality). Let me point out in particular that the ability to refer to things that are not physically present (objects here, and times) is known as displacement. Both displacement and the ability to refer to abstractions are common to all human languages.(Donna Jo Napoli, Language Matters: A Guide to Everyday Questions About Language. Oxford University Press, 2003) Achieving Displacement Different languages accomplish displacement in different ways. English has a system of auxiliary verbs (e.g., will, was, were, had) and affixes (e.g., pre- in predates; -ed in dated) to signal when an event occurred relative to the moment of speaking or relative to other events.(Matthew J. Traxler, Introduction to Psycholinguistics: Understanding Language Science. Wiley, 2012) Displacement and the Origins of Language Compare these: Theres a mosquito buzzing in my ear.Nothing is more irritating than a buzzing sound. In the first, theres a particular buzzing in the here and now. In the second, there may be, but there neednt be--I could say this in reacting to a story about something that happened years ago. In talking about symbolism and words, people often make far too much of arbitrariness--the absence of any relationship between a words form and its meaning. . . . [W]hen it comes to how language began, displacement is a factor far more important than arbitrariness.(Derek Bickerton, Adams Tongue: How Humans Made Language, How Language Made Humans. Hill and Wang, 2009)[M]ental time travel is critical to language. . . . Language . . . may have evolved primarily to enable humans to share their memories, plans, and stories, enhancing social cohension and creating a common culture.(Michael C. Corballis, The Recursive Mind: The Origins of Human Language, Thought, and Civilization. Princeton University Press, 2011) One Exception: The Dance of the Honeybee This displacement, which we take utterly for granted, is one of the most momentous differences between human languages and the signaling systems of all other species. . . .There is just one striking exception. A honeybee scout which has discovered a source of nectar returns to its hive and performs a dance, watched by other bees. This bee dance tells the watching bees what direction the nectar lies in, how far away it is, and how much nectar there is. And this is displacement: the dancing bee is passing on information about a site which it visited some time ago and which it now cannot see, and the watching bees respond by flying off to locate the nectar. Startling though it is, the bee dance is, so far at least, absolutely unique in the non-human world: no other creatures, not even apes, can communicate anything of the sort, and even the bee dance is severely limited in its expressive powers: it cannot cope with the slightest novelty.(Robert Lawrence Trask and Peter Stockwell, Langua ge and Linguistics: The Key Concepts. Routledge, 2007)

Youth Justice Policy in Britain (1945-1981) †from Punishment to Welfare Free Essays

Introduction The discussion of the youth justice policy in Britain has re-gained importance in the aftermath of the August 2011 riots, which spread across London and other major cities in the country. Think tank analysts and policy experts argued, that the youths which allegedly took part in the riots, were disillusioned and de-motivated young people from broken homes (Politics UK, 2011). The deep societal problem behind youth engagement in the London riots raised the question about the efficacy of the youth justice system in Britain, and debates about its institutional reform permeated the political discourse. We will write a custom essay sample on Youth Justice Policy in Britain (1945-1981) – from Punishment to Welfare or any similar topic only for you Order Now After the gruesome murder of James Bulger in 1993 by two ten-year old boys the public and policy-makers became convinced, that only a general policy reform of the youth justice system is not sufficient. Rather a reform of specific sectors such as the ones dealing with anti-social behaviour and gang crime was much more urgent (Guardian, 2011). The purpose of this short essay is to critically review the different phases in the development of the youth justice system from the 1940s to 1981. Based on the conclusions, in the final section recommendations for policy reform will be made. Research question The purpose of this essay is to critically approach the different stages in the evolution of the youth justice policy in Britain. Based on this observation, the paper will provide an assessment of how the system has evolved and what the main trends in its transformation are. For clarity the author has decided to separate the observations in the following stages – from punishment to welfare, young offenders enter the community, and the strengthening of the Intermediate Treatment. Each one of them will be critically analysed in the following sections. The youth justice system in Britain: a review Before we proceed with the examination of the main developments in the youth justice system in the set period, it is important to provide a brief overview of the main components and structures of this system. Similarly to other types of youth justice systems, the British one inclines towards prevention, rather then retribution (Bottoms Dignan, 2004). Bottoms and Dignan (2004) refer to the British youth justice system as a correctionalist and committed to the prevention of committing offences. The idea of the correctionalist system implies stronger intervention on behalf of the state, as opposed to earlier views such as letting young offenders grow out of the crime. This characteristic trend, experts argue, reflects a much more complex and multi-level approach to dealing with youth crime, involving different elements such as parents and agency teams. The trend has been accompanied with an intensive institutional reform, such as the introduction of the semi-independent body of the Youth Justice Board with the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act (Community Care, 2010). In the years to follow, there has been a trend for the unification of all activities related with youth justice under the umbrella of a single department – the Ministry of Justice, in order to create accountability and higher levels of responsibility in one of the most important and problematic policy areas in Britain. The 1940s – from punishment to welfare It is now clear that society’s views on crime change over time and are susceptible to historical and social conditions. The youth justice system in Britain is an example of the transformation of the concepts of crime and offender in social and political terms. Therefore the way young criminals have been treated by the criminal justice system has been a subject of reform throughout the years. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, perhaps one of the most important developments in the youth justice system is that a line between children and adult offenders was finally drawn. For the first time in the early 30s and 40s, the courts were obliged to consider the welfare of the child (Thorpe et. al, 1980). This marked a significant transformation of the whole justice system, because it determined a different role of the courts, related not only with taking punitive action, but also correction and care for the young offenders. It is now clear that the transformation from punishment to welfare has been later underpinned in another important document – the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (Youth Justice Board, 2008). As the later stages of the British youth justice system demonstrate, the latter has always been responsive to the developments, taking place in the field of human rights at any particular time. The 1960s – young offenders and the community The trend towards welferism which started in the early 1930s continued in the next several decades, and had its peak in the 1960s, when a special legislation, concerned with the social integration and correction of the young offenders was passed (Youth Justice Board, 2008: Thorpe et. al, 1980). In 1969 the Labour government passed a legislation to introduce a revised youth justice system, based on welfare principles and reformation of criminals (Thorpe et. al, 1980). The 1969 Children and Young Persons Act emphasized the role of the community as the environment, which would play a major role in the social integration of those who committed offences. The act also established the so-called â€Å"halfway house† which was the middle way between being subject to a Supervision Order (which requires minimum contact between supervisor and young person) and being taken into care (Youth Justice Board, 2008; Children and Young Persons Act, 1969). This new establishment came to be defined as Intermediate Treatment (IT) and according to some observers was the foundation of the modern youth justice system. Another intended development of this period, which however, did not come to fruition, was the attempt to increase the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 years. Prior to the 1969 Act, the criminal responsibility age was only 8 years (Thorpe, et.al, 1980). The developments which took place between the 1940s and the late 1960s are a result of the rise of the welfare state in Britain and the rest of Europe. A major historical and sociological trend, the rise of the welfare state, which affected almost all policy sectors, was provoked by the advent of capitalism and consumerism, which according to social historians, exacerbated the class divisions in British society (Greenaway et. al, 1992). The youth justice system was no exception of this trend, and the establishments of the 1969 Act were a signifier of the fusion between community and policy. Youth crime was no longer a detached criminal activity for which only courts had responsibility – in the late 1960s it became a priority for the whole of the British society. The 1970s and 1980s – the strengthening of the Intermediate Treatment This decade was marked by persistence in the community-based treatment of young offenders. The role of community remained strong, and some judicial changes, such as the inclusion of â€Å"specified activities† in the Intermediate Treatment occurred. These were used to persuade magistrates to use communal sentences, instead of custodial sentences (Youth Justice Board, 2008). In this sense, the young offenders were made to participate in the welfare of the community as part of their correction process. In the light of these developments, it is interesting to notice that the connection between the community and young offenders remained twofold – young offenders were still treated as part of society, despite their violations. At the same time they were expected to contribute to its development. In its turn, society was to participate in their rehabilitation and integration in the post-offence stage. This is an important characteristics of the British youth justice system, because it reveals two things – that there is no positive connection between decreased custody and the level of youth offences, and that the British society took a middle stance between two types of justice – restorative justice, focusing on repairing the harms, resulting from the offence, and retributive justice, which relates to facing the consequences of the punishm ent imposed. This middle stance was about to change in the 1990s, when the cruel murder of two-year old James Bulger by two ten-year old boys was to push back the youth justice system towards punitive actions. Conclusion and recommendations This essay has attempted to critically examine the main stages in the development of the British youth system between 1945 and 1981. Two major developments have been discussed – the transition towards welferism and the steps towards correction, rather than punishment and custodial action. The role of the society has remained significant, and despite the developments of the early 1990s, the re-integration of young offenders has remained on the agenda. After the murder of James Bulger in 1993, public attention was once more shifted towards the reform of the youth justice system, and more specifically against the prevention of offending and re-offending, rather than mending the consequences of it. Therefore it is important that government efforts targeted towards bringing all the institutions involved in the British youth system under a coordinated scheme of action. Different units such as social workers, community volunteers, the police and those involved in education are to work together through enhanced dialogue. This means that the sectoralism in the criminal justice system needs to be reduced, and replaced with harmonization of efforts of different actors on all levels. This would ensure a holistic, rather than sectionalized approach to solving issues, related with youth crime in Britain. Bibliography: Bottoms, A. Dignan, J. (2004) â€Å"Youth Justice in Great Britain†, Crime and Justice, Vol. 31 Children and Young Persons Act (1969), 22 October, The National Archives, Available at: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1969/54 Retrieved 03.03.2012 Community Care (2010) â€Å"Ministry of Justice to take control of Youth Justice Board†, 20th May, Thursday, Available at: http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/20/05/2010/114543/ministry-of-justice-to-take-control-of-youth-justice-board.htm Retrieved 03.03.2012 Greenaway, J.R., Smith, S. Street, J. (1992) Deciding Factors in British Politics, London: Routledge ch. 2 pp. 29-39, ch 3. Guardian (2011) â€Å"What next for youth policy†?, August, 25, Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/public-leaders-network/blog/2011/aug/25/tony-blair-youth-policy-intervention-reform Retrieved 03.03.2012 Politics UK (2011) â€Å"Comment: What is causing the riots in London?, Nick Cowen, Monday, 8th of August, Available at: http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2011/08/08/comment-what-is-causing-the-riots-in-london Retrieved 03.03.2012 Thorpe, D.H, Smith, D., Green, C.J, Paley, J.H (1980) Out of Care: The Community Support of Juvenile Offenders Allen and Unwin Youth Justice Board (2008) â€Å"A Brief History of the Youth Justice System†, Available at: http://labspace.open.ac.uk/file.php/5193/YJ_k523_1/sco.htm Retrieved 03.03.2012 How to cite Youth Justice Policy in Britain (1945-1981) – from Punishment to Welfare, Essay examples