A Study of The Role Played by Diversity in Company's Workforce Management

Diversity is an important aspect of workforce management in any organisation, healthcare inclusive. Lack of adequate diversity among the workforce in a healthcare facility is a cause for declining number of patients. The leadership in such establishment bears a huge responsibility in reversing the trend of diminished diversity through such initiatives as deliberate recruitment of healthcare employees from minority groups, cultural activities, transfers and promotions and by raining awareness through training and campaigns. For the problem at hand, these initiatives have been proposed to help reduce the negative perception from the culturally diverse community in the neighbourhood of the satellite clinic.

Diversity refers to the deliberate efforts that are geared towards ensuring that the population of workers is made up of diverse groups of people sufficient to reflect the overall make-up of the entire society. It is an attribute that is often provoked by the needs of the target clientele as well as compliance to statutory and industry best practise. Just like is the case in all sectors of the society, diversity is equally important in healthcare is its own exceptional way. A nation like America is made up of people from diverse origins, languages, sexual orientations, ages, religious persuasions, disabilities among other attributes. In order to transfer the diversity inherent in the society, it is imperative the healthcare administrators adopt deliberate efforts in ensuring that affirmative actions are put in place to accommodate all groups.

The importance of diversity in healthcare sector cannot be overstated. It is obvious that the demographics of patients’ population are as diverse as the population of the country is. A culturally and racially diverse healthcare workforce will respond to culturally sensitive patients with ease leading to more satisfied and healthier patients. Further, it has been proven scientifically that a diverse healthcare workforce is better in problem solving than less diverse counterparts (Cohen & Steinecke, 2006). This is informed by the enhanced objectivity among the highly diverse groups.

This article focuses on present challenge in a satellite health care facility that is located in a culturally diverse neighbourhood. The management has noted with ha lot of concern the emerging trends in patients’ population since its inception. Initially there was a high volume of patients attending the facility but later, the volumes dropped drastically. It was noted that the drastic drop in the volume of patient from the culturally diverse community was the perceived lack of diversity in the composition of staff that seemed not represent the diversity in the neighbourhood. One notable finding on the inquiry towards the lack of diversity in the workforce is the focus during recruitment of the current workforce. The current team was recruited with a sole focus on the skills and experiences with total disregard of the diversity. This is such a big concern that the current management intends to initiate programs to enhance diversity and make the facility appealing to the neighbourhood community.

Outlined here below are two solutions which, if they are explored, will help the satellite achieve an acceptable level of diversity among the neighbours. It includes the plans to recruit, employ, and retain a sufficiently diverse workforce and carryout an awareness campaign among the existing staff to enhance their cultural awareness and sensitivity.

I. Interventions to Enhance Diversity

The first intervention that will seek to reverse the current lack of diversity among the employees is the plan to recruit new employees who reflects the surrounding population. It is appreciated that in the current establishment, some of the employees will have to be moved to parent location of the hospital. This will create the much needed vacancy in the satellite clinic the creation of these vacancies will be structured in such a strategic manner that it will offload a team who are in excess. Further, in preparing the list of transfers, the clinic management will consider the spread across departments. In order to promote a high acceptance rate of transfer proposals back to the main facility, the targeted employees will be given a 15% salary increase with an option of housing in the new station because the parent facility has more vacant houses. The provision of such incentive will make the transition easy (Kearney & Gebert, 2009).

Once these vacancies have been created, the recruitment process will be cognizant of the objective to enhance diversity in the workforce. Thus, while placing up the advertisements the candidates from certain groups in the society will be encouraged to apply. For instance, if the management seeks to increase Hispanics in the nursing fraternity, then the advertisement for the position nurse will have a line that says, “ Candidates of Hispanic origin are encouraged to apply.’’ This is just the foundation of realizing a diverse workforce. The subsequent stages in the recruitment process such as shortlisting, interviewing, and eventual hiring will take into consideration the ultimate objective of increasing diversity to reflect community.

It will be of great importance to ensure that the few currently employees who meet the criteria of diversity should be retained at all costs. Therefore, by virtue of being associated with the diverse groups, they will be given an additional practicing allowance and more specialized training with a bonding agreement upon graduation from these programs. These initiatives will help retain the diverse employees.

The second solution being proposed in response to the perception of less diverse workforce is the plan to have a continuous career development of the employees’ competencies through trainings and professional development. One of the ways suggested to help enhance professional development among the employees is through formal training on interpersonal and communications skills. This program appreciates that most of the medical professionals are not adequately trained on other competencies outside the profession. Through this program, the current employees will learn how to communicate between each other and with the patients or their relatives without making the clients fell foreign and not belonging. In addition to this training program, the hospital management will initiate a campaign aimed at raising awareness of cultural diversity (Brown, 2004). The main objective of this campaign is helping the workforce appreciate cultural diversity in America and within the neighborhood of the healthcare facility specifically. In addition to the formal sessions with the facility leadership, there will be a weekly program whereby certain aspects that are unique to the communities residing in the areas will be adopted. Such aspects include dressing, food selection in the common restaurant and background musing in the receptions and general wards. The focus on specific community attributes on weekly basis will help one community appreciate the diversity in the American population. Passive initiatives such as themed dress codes will help foster acceptance of minorities.

In order to drive the anticipated changes in the current structure effectively, the leadership will leverage eon the skills horned through the previous academic training, but most importantly the hands-on experience from exposure to the industry. In this case of deficiency in diversity at a healthcare facility, the scholar practitioner in leadership role will not only provide mentorship to other workers but will provide adequate resources for facilitating soft skills of the workforce through formal trainings (Salipante & Aram, 2003). Out of the two approaches, formal training sessions will yield better results than mentorship because the latter is subject to pre-existing prejudice in the treatments of minorities. While choosing the institution and programs to facilitate formal training to the employees, the current hospital setting will be looking for technical skills and more importantly interpersonal relations. A well-read leader will fit into this role of steering the facility to more appealing status in the eyes of the culturally diverse neighborhood than those who have less exposure to the academia world. Scholarly exposure provides leaders with better understanding of practical application of academic knowledge. In this model, the leaders are seen are significant knowledge generators for their followers through mentorship.

II. Supporting Evidence

The hospital leadership plays a key role in promoting diversity and strategy and public pronouncements will determine whether the clients feel accommodated or excluded by the facility (Dreachslin, 2007). It is incumbent upon the leadership demonstrate deliberate efforts that can be cascaded to the followers. Through mass transfers, targeted recruitment and appropriate training programs, a healthcare facility management can increase its workforce diversity (Mitchell & Lassiter, 2006).

According to Phillips & Malone (2014), there are certain deliberate initiatives which may be adopted by the management of healthcare facilities in enhancing diversity. One such initiative which has been suggested in this article is through affirmative recruitment and training processes.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it has been demonstrated that the problems of poor diversity perception of the new satellite healthcare facility in a culturally diverse community is that cause of sudden drop in the number of patients. The management of the hospital holds a critical role in reversing this perception through its strategic plan and personal pronouncement. Through the interventions of the current leadership, the perception may be reversed by transferring a section of the current workforce to the parent establishment and recruiting a new the replacements through an affirmative action. Secondly other awareness initiatives have been suggested to help enhance the competence of the current workforce with appreciation of culturally diverse communities. All of the suggested initiatives are proven to be effective through previous documentations as highlighted in the references section.