Assess the Tradeoffs of Diversity and Multiculturalism in Team Settings

Assess the Tradeoffs of Diversity and Multiculturalism in Team Settings

With the adoption of globalization practices in the trading and business fields, workforce diversity has been transformed into a necessity rather than a cost as past viewpoints accorded. Within the health care industry, cultural and linguistic variations are quite common. From a subjective standpoint, it is imperative to have a diverse workforce majorly due to “the values represented by divergent clients” (Huber, 2006, p.399). As economic liberalization continues to spread within the globe, competition and the number of market players have faced a considerable challenge that has mandated the expansion approach in terms of market share and niches. A higher market share accords a higher sense of security to an organization for the purposes of endurance. Although health centers may not be viewed by most individuals as trading organizations, they primarily have to align to the same proponents majorly because they are sustained by funds.

Inferentially, consumer diversity in healthcare centers is attributed to the divergent populace in national levels as enhanced through relocations like refugee movements, higher learning needs and employment requirements. In the US, projections have claimed that by the period 2050, the Hispanic population will account for twenty-four percent of labor, while the Blacks and Asians will constitute to fourteen and close to twelve percent of the workforce respectively. The White population on the other hand has declined in a gradual manner from 77.7% marked in the period 1990 to 69.2% in the period 2010 (International Labor Organization, 2011). A similar trend of reduction is expected to be in the US nation within the upcoming periods. It is therefore evident that the health care system will in future be faced with divergent clients necessitating a diverse workforce to address effectually the requirements of the same. The benefits accorded to this is that it surmounts cultural and language constraints that are evidenced across various ethnicities and races.

Besides the language and cultural constraints, age also plays an element of diversity in the workplace. The young individuals, commonly termed as the X-generation, are highly innovative and spontaneous in their actions and this has created notable frictions with the elderly, the Y-generation. The young workforce in the US constitutes to the highest proportion, with individuals aged above fifty-five currently standing at thirteen percent with the figure escalating to nearly twenty-one percent in the period 2014. Gender differences within the past and current populace have also indicated another form of diversity. At the advent of the latter part of the twentieth century, barely thirty percent of women were included in the US workforce and this has increased to forty-seven percent as noted in the period 2010. The International Labor Organization (ILO) has supported this view by noting that within the global populace, forty-five percent of the workforce comprises of women (International Labor Organization, 2011). It is therefore notably inevitable for an employer not to hire a diverse workforce within the present state, especially with the level of human rights lobby programs in the world.

The rationale for this argument is based on the market share principle. As the customer-mix accorded to the establishment changes, the same has to be matched with the workforce. As the number of market players has increased due to globalization, the rivalry has also been enhanced as well as the consumer preferences (Huber, 2006). Inferentially, a client whose needs are not met can easily substitute the same service with another organization leading to market share changes. Therefore, a multicultural team would overcome this challenge by the ability to support a diverse consumer groups and thus reducing the costs attached to market share losses. Additionally, diversity within the workforce leads to enhanced innovations in terms of products and services as superior ideas and solutions are acquired. The health care’s image is improved with the inclusion of diversity as it aligns with the human rights goals of equity within the employment sector.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Huber, D. (2006). Leadership and nursing care management. Kidlington, UK: Elsevier Health Sciences.

International Labor Organization. (2011). Statistics and Databases. Retrieved from http://www.ilo.org/global/statistics-and-databases/lang–en/index.htm