What I learned from the Course Essays

What I learned from the Course Essays What I learned from the Course Essay What I learned from the Course Essay `Diversity Issues in the workplace` is a course that is essential for the study programs in the world today. With cross-continental and cultural barriers vanishing and distances shortening, it is important to know how to operate in a diverse environment. Of course, when the factor of diversity comes in to play in a work environment, it gives rise to its own issues and obstacles. In order to be able to work productively in a modern day organization, a person has to understand the element of diversity so that the issues can be avoided and dealt with in a professional and ethical manner.As I have taken this course, I now understand the different facets of the concept of diversity in a work place. First of all, what this course aims at developing is a sense of keenness towards dealing with situations in a humane and ethical manner, and at the same time, maintains professionalism. Different work places have different environments; the organization may have different attitudes towards diff erent sexes, ethnicities, sexual preferences, races or even age groups. Â  At the same time, people come from all sorts of demographics and cultural backgrounds. When these backgrounds and demographics mix, issues are bound to arise. This course has taught me how to deal with such situations.By first of all defining and clearing up the concept of diversity, the course makes it easy to understand that diversity is not just about races and color; it’s about differences and variations of people around us. Then, the course also highlights the advantages of diversity and how it helps diversify the environment, organization and idea generation. It removes all doubts, resistances or discriminatory thoughts that a person might have against the concept of diversity. Then, the course teaches us an important part of organizational behavior; identifying diversity. This is done through identifying and acknowledging different kinds of diversity factors such as cultural differences, differ ences in personal style and expression, privacy, intimacy and communication. Another aspect of the course that helped me understand the concept was the understanding of diversity barriers. These can come in various forms; stereotypes, discrimination and the wrong ways to deal with these issues. Understanding these barriers and the wrong approaches helped me understand about what not to do and how not to handle issues in a diverse workplace. It is important to consider every aspect of everyone’s feelings and cultural differences in order to not offend anyone around us and be objective and professional about everything we do.One of the most important aspects of a diverse workplace is communication. The course gives a clear understanding of the communication issues and barriers that arise in such an environment, how to overcome those barriers, bridge the communication gap and ensure a healthy relationship among the employees. The key to improving communication is to promote part icipation and take everyone’s input so that people around us, no matter how different, feel comfortable and significant in any team project or task. When this is done, a major diversity barrier is overcome and relationships strengthen.Managing diversity is also an important issue. It is important that the people’s core competencies are identified and people are judged and evaluated on the basis of skills and not any other factor. Workforce diversity comes into play in this representation aspect of a diverse organization. The concept of equal opportunity is important in such situations; the fact that all people living in a geographical area should have equal rights and equal and fair chances to all employment and work opportunities within and outside the organization. Affirmative action is mandatory.It is important to understand, not only the negative impact of diversity in a workplace, but also the positive impact; diversity promotes positive impact of diversity, incre ased creativity, multiple points of view and a multiple skills, wider range of experiences and backgrounds. There are several issues in a diverse workplace including dealing with different sexual orientations and sexual offenses and harassments. The key is to educate the employees and spread awareness about these issues and how people are different and have their own rights and choices. This helps implement a cooperative environment. Also, it gives the people a complete overview on identifying, reporting and dealing with discrimination and offenses.Employee retention through diversity is another important aspect of an organization. It is important to understand the people’s concerns and issues that are linked with organizations and to understand the factors that affect employee turnover. By better understanding these concerns, the organization would be able to reduce turnover rate and ensure that a healthy workplace exists and employee retention is high.Education on governmen t legislations about diversity is also important; it is important to understand federal laws and regulations regarding diversity, affirmative action and discrimination. Lastly, the course sheds light on developing and implementing a healthy and diverse corporate culture and creates an environment that employees from all cultural backgrounds can enjoy working in and be comfortable interacting within so that they can learn and grow personally and collectively. Â  (Class Syllabus: Diversity Training 101, 2009)