It's All About Teamwork!

We have become not a melting pot but a beautiful music. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.
                      
    -Jimmy Carter

We all live with the objective of being happy, our lives are all different and yet the same. 

- Anne Frank

 

 

The only disability in life is a bad attitude

- Scott Hamilton

Famous Sayings. . .

Hi all! If you read all of my post from the beginning, I hope it helped you understand more about diversity and how important diversity is in workplaces. Implementing diversity in your work group or your business is a little bit stressful. So for my 10th post, I'll share with you guys some famous quotes about diversity in order to give you some inspiration. Good luck! :)

"Diversity may be the hardest thing for a society to live with, and perhaps the most dangerous thing for a society to be without."

-William Sloane Coffin, Jr.

"Difference is of the essence of humanity. Difference is an accident of birth and it should therefore never be the source of hatred or conflict. The answer to difference is to respect it. Therein lies a most fundamental principle of peace: respect for diversity."

-John Hume

"At bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time."

-Friedrich Nietzsche

“The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.”

-Dave Barry

"Diversity is not about how we differ. Diversity is about embracing one another's uniqueness."

-Ola Joseph

"We have become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams." 

- Jimmy Carter

"It is not the strongest of the species nor the most intelligent, but the most responsive to change that survives."  

- Charles Darwin

"Ultimately, America's answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired." 

- Robert F. Kennedy

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them."  

 - Mother Teresa

"I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies another this right makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it." 

- Thomas Paine

"Diversity without unity makes about as much sense as dishing up flour, sugar, water, eggs, shortening, and baking powder on a plate and calling it a cake." 

- C. William Pollard

Canada's Best Diversity Employers

Hello everyone! For my 9th post in this blog, I'm going to share with you the list of Canadian businesses that were awarded this year for implementing diversity. Follow these steps for the whole list of employers and why each employer was selected as one of Canada's best employers.

Step 1: Type-in "Canada's Top 100 Employers" in your Chrome/IE/Firefox search bar and press Enter.

Step 2: Click on the first link, "Canada's Top 100 Employers". Make sure you have the right link address, "www.canadastop100.com"

Step 3: Once you open the link, it would lead you to their homepage. On the top left corner next to the home tab, click "Competitions".

Step 4: Under the "Competitions" tab, click the "Diversity" section.

Step 5: On the right side of the "Diversity" section page, you will see the list of employers that were selected and awarded as Canada's Best Diversity Employers.

Step 6: Click on any businesses from the list (E.g. Hewlett-Packard Canada Co.) and see the details on how they won. Once you click on it, it should look like this...

Step 7: Enjoy! :)

Emotional Intelligence Skills

Based on the book “Emotional Intelligence for Managing Results in a Diverse World” by Lee Gardenswartz, Jorge Cherbosque, and Anita Rowe 

To help enhance teamwork, improve group dynamics and ultimately increase performance in the workplace – teams as well as individuals should develop Emotional Intelligence (EQ) skills. This means that members of the group will focus on their ability and capacity to assess and manage the emotions of oneself and of others. Following these tips below could help you stimulate this development among your diverse teams. 

1. Help the team be more comfortable in its own skin 

- Teams become more synergistic and effective when trust among the members allows for risk taking and creativity. 

2. Help the team be aware of its own biases and hot buttons 

- The more diverse the teams are, the more susceptible the members are to biases and hot buttons. 

3. Help the team make ambiguity an ally 

- Sometimes groups are being prevented from using the ambiguity of the situation to allow for synergistic, creative solutions. You can help your team be more effective if you coach team members to tolerate ambiguity. 

4. Help the team become a change master 

- Encourage the team to be open to the changes that leaders need to implement. 

5. Help the team get in charge of its self-talk 

- Ask your group to develop more positive self-talk and challenge their pessimistic, unrealistic self-talk. 

6. Help the team understand the cultural whys behind behaviour 

- Team members can work more effectively with one another and with those they serve if they correctly decode and do not misinterpret behaviours. 

7. Help the team see the upsides and downsides of all cultural norms 

- Team performance is enhanced and relationships are strengthened when team members increase their sensitivity to the impact of their behaviour on others in the group. 

8. Help the team transcend its own perspective and show empathy 

- Teams are hindered when they take a judgemental and adversarial stance in dealing with other work groups. 

9. Help the team serve as a cultural interpreter 

- Interpersonal understanding is essential on a team. It engenders commitment, support, and loyalty. This understanding may not happen by itself but requires building bridges with others. 

10. Help the team communicate effectively and resolve conflicts in diverse settings 

- A primary criterion for an effective team is how it deals with the inevitable conflicts that arise.

Law's Affecting Workforce Diversity

On my past blogs I talked about issues like managing workforce diversity, its advantages and disadvantages, its definition and how to improve diversity in a workplace. This time I will discuss some Laws that affect Workforce Diversity. In Canada, there’s this Law called “Employment Equity Act” which requires employers to engage in proactive employment practices to increase the representation of four designated groups: women, people with disabilities, Aboriginal peoples, and visible minorities. Under the Employment Equity Act, the Canadian Human Rights Commission is responsible for ensuring compliance with the Act. To this end, the Commission conducts audits to determine whether employers meet the statutory requirements of the Act. (http://www.chrc-ccdp.ca/employment_equity/default-eng.aspx) The Act denotes that each employee should be treated equally and respects the differences of one culture to another.

This requires that employers remove barriers when they are hiring a new employee. Examples of employment barriers are wheelchair inaccessible buildings that create a physical barrier to people with disabilities. The term Reasonable Accommodation is often used for the removal of such barriers to employment. Employers are also required to institute positive policies and practices for the hiring, training, retention and promotion of members of the designated groups. Positive policies include good hiring practices, for example, asking all job candidates the same interview questions, or advertising a job widely and in places where it is likely to reach female or minority applicants. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_equity_%28Canada%29)

The purpose of this Act is to give equal opportunity in the workplace. In that case, no individual may be turn down in employment opportunities or benefits for reasons unrelated to ability. Don’t be confused between Employment Equity Act and Canadian Human Rights Act because Employment Equity act solely focus on four designated groups: women, people with disabilities, Aboriginal peoples, and visible minorities while Canadian Human Rights merely prohibits discrimination. Below is a short video that talks more about Employment Equity Act.

Diversity is. . .

Check out this cool video made by Johnathan Hang! :)

How To Manage Workplace Diversity (Part 2)

Managing diversity means accepting people’s differences and recognizing these differences as a valuable input to the company. These management practices prevent discrimination and it promotes inclusiveness.

It is important for businesses to apply policies and practices into the workforce to create solid diverse teams. Research has shown that well-managed diverse teams are more creative, and effective at problem solving than homogeneous teams. However, if these diverse teams are poorly managed it can result in a lower performance scale because of its miscommunication and lack of trust among its members.

Each employee should feel included, valued and rewarded to improve his productivity and to lessen the company’s employee turnover. A commitment from the top management and both employees and managers can result in an inclusive and harmonious workplace.

For more tips on how to manage workplace diversity, please refer to the video below.

How To Manage Workplace Diversity (Part 1)

Finally you've understand how diversity could help your business. You started accommodating disabled people, people with different cultures, gender and/or religion. Teaching your employees to treat someone who is a little different from others is the first step on building a cohesive unit. As a manager, you should be aware about the diversity issues that are happening between your employees. Looking at cultural factors such as: Behavior practices, body/sign languages, dress code, etc. can help you address the problem accordingly towards your people.

At times, one of your employees is being singled out by the other colleagues. It often happens that this employee wouldn’t report the problem which could probably affect his working habits. It is best that the manager should sit down with every employee and discuss any problems that could be affecting their work. Below is a sample video where it shows some realistic issues that can happen between your employees. The video is not that perfect but it proves my point.

How to Increase Diversity in Workforce?

        Workforce Diversity has been a hot topic nowadays. This issue talks about race, gender, age, disabilities, religion, physical appearance, sexual orientation, nationality and work experience. Having a diverse workforce in your business is important not only for compliance with anti-discrimination laws, but your company can also benefit base on efficiency perspective. Expanding your workforce can be complicated, as some employees may not accept people from different cultures or backgrounds. So here are some ways on how to increase diversity in workplace:

 

1. Identify what are your needs

Does your workforce resemble the communities that you operate in? Do they match the demographic that you serve or want to serve? If not, develop a hiring strategy to increase workforce diversity. You can also ask employees for referrals, since they have peers in the industry or know qualified candidates who may be looking for work. http://guides.wsj.com/management/building-a-workplace-culture/how-to-increase-workplace-diversity

2. Beware of age discrimination

Make sure that when you place job advertisement or promotional ad it is not age bias for example phrases in job adverts such as “be part of a young, elite magazine company”, or “18- 30 yrs. Old age limit” this may appear discriminating.

3.Advertise your company more widely

Advertise in different ways like utilize the internet, promotional advertisement on TV, billboards, bulletin, news paper, leaflets. You can also do a job fair that appeals to different groups.

4.Don’t ignore the disabled

You could be sued if you don’t follow the Disability Discrimination Act of 1995 to make all reasonable adjustments to buildings to make them accessible by the disabled. http://www.uknetguide.co.uk/Business/Article/ImproveDiversity_in_the_Workplace-100430.html

5.Keep an open-door policy

This is for employees to safely express their concerns. When an employee who complains about being discriminated against reports the harassment, management should take immediate steps to correct the situation in order to gain the trust of the entire workforce. http://www.livestrong.com/article/217083-how-to-improve-diversity-in-the-workplace/

6.Offer Language Training

Offer training in English as a second language. This type of program allows you to employ from a bigger set of candidates, as it removes language barriers as a reason for not considering a qualified applicant.

7.Clarify the Benefits

Inform to your employees how the company and employees benefits diversity. You should also provide incentive pay for management linked to the achievement of organizational diversity goals.

8.Demonstrate diversity awareness

Observe religious or cultural holiday by diverse employees in the form of celebrating different cultural events or giving them a paid holiday leave.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Workforce Diversity

Diversity 101 (The Basics)

Hello everyone! This will be my first post about diversity in workplaces. Just like other sources, I guess we should start with the basics to understand this topic. To help you guys understand what diversity is all about, I've decided to design my blog simple and easy to understand. So, lets start! :)

1. What is diversity??? I think this video I found at YouTube already explained it very well. You'll be the judge... 

So what you think? Seriously right??? Wow. An old wooden ship that was used during the civil war era? And come to think of it, his friend next to him agreed too.

2. What do humans use as a basis? Here are some examples...
                                                  

• Age
• Abilities
• Ethnicity
• Gender
• Race
• Sexual Orientation
• Religious Beliefs
• Social Class
• Political Affiliations
• Family Structure
• Learning Styles
• Geographical Region
• Language
• Nationality
• Education

Sometimes people get affected when they try to apply for jobs. Some employers create stereotypes and biases during interviews. Which is not suppose to happen. But hey, welcome to the real world. Not all people has the same character/personality as you are.

3. Who are those people being affected because of stereotypes and biases?

• Minority groups - people who are socially disadvantaged because of their relative powerlessness. (e.g. Women, Aboriginals, Disabled, etc.) Usually the group who often experience prejudice and discrimination.
• Visible Minorities - In Canada, it refers to people other than Aboriginals who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in skin color. (e.g. Filipino, Chinese, Blacks, Indians, etc.)

4. How should we prevent workplace biases or stereotypes?

We and employers should realize that most of us here in Canada came from another country. All of us are immigrants with different talents, ideas, work ethics, etc. One should not believe that their race is superior than the other. Canada is one of the most powerful and respectable countries because of its diversity. We are one of the most diverse countries in the world - 2nd only to Australia. Good thing we have the Canadian Human Rights Act who prohibits discrimination and Employment Standards Act/Employment Equity who makes sure every individual should be treated equally. They shall support those people who feel they have been mistreated unequally. Companies should also realize the importance of diversity which I would talk about on my next blog post.

In conclusion, diversity covers a wide range of people with different race, abilities, beliefs, etc. Some people are mistreated unequally during at work, interviews or even at their personal lives because of their cultural background, sexual orientation or nationality. Canada is lucky because of its number of diverse people. There are laws that prevents discrimination towards minority groups like women and disabled people and also laws that help them find jobs and live life peacefully. Without diversity in workplace, companies block themselves from different ideas and talents that comes from different people around the globe. Stay tuned on my next blog where I explain the advantages and disadvantages of having a diverse workplace.

Until then, thanks for participating/viewing my blog! :)

- R.