 Assalamu alaikum, I am Mokhtar Ahmad with virtual university course of Human Resource Management that is MGT 501 and today we will be discussing about diversity that is our chapter number 8. So far we have covered basic concepts of management. We have also discussed about organizations and the behavior part of individual group and team. We have also covered the history of personnel management and shift from personnel to human resource management and during our last lecture that was lecture number 7 we tried to understand the challenges of today's organization with reference to human resource management. And there we have covered the general the micro level environment challenges the organization level and individual level. And we have also covered the trends in today's organization and during that time we also discussed about diversity right. Let's start our lecture number 8 but again we have to give little more focus on our chapter number 7 to make the link. So chapter 7 main, we have read that was about challenges are managing human resource in this changing environment and things are changing very fast there. So what we have discussed in the last lecture, it changes very rapidly, technology change is going on, globalization concept is being read, workforce diversity is being read. At that time I had told you that this is very important. So let's discuss this topic in a separate lecture. So today our focus will be on diversity. And again we divided this environment into three parts, challenges divided into three parts that was organization level and before that it was the macro level in which as a manager or as an organization it is difficult to control. And then organization level and then of course individual level. And then after that we saw that trends are changing, working style is changing, working environment is changing. Even people are going for sharing of work. If we are both doctors they might be working in the same organization. Half-time work, half-time work, and there is shift that instead of going for permit placement people are going for project basis work. Even there is another change, people are moving towards entrepreneurship. So rather than working for other people, they are thinking of their own business. Why don't we should be our own boss? Instead of working for this, we have to start our own business. So that is again a shift new trend. There will be a lot of people, expectations will increase. That is how this competitive pressure is building on organizations as far as the human resources goes. So diversity was the issue. I think we decided that we will discuss in lecture number eight. So today's topic, our today's topics are basically number one. Workforce, diversity, and what are the sources of diversity? We will also try to understand whether it is good or bad for the organization, for the society. And then we will try to cover few points or few strategies by which we can manage the diversity at organizations level. So let's start with our first topic. And to introduce, let's see what is this workforce diversity? How can we define it? What definitions are there? Generally, this is human characteristics that make people different from one another. Based on that, we have different people working together. We call this is diverse work force. And diversity can be due to any reason. So technically, the human characteristics, their personality, their knowledge base, whatever other, their culture, stage, demographic characteristics, different kind of. Due to that, the diversification or the difference between the two, we say that this workforce is diversified. And why is this diversification becoming the dominant activity of HR? So this, as we have read in lecture seven of the challenges, there is a shift from manufacturing to what? Service economy or service industry. Now in manufacturing, people can be diversified there as well, but it will be the same kind of people, the same mindset. They are more connected with the chances. But when the asset shift towards the service industry, then it is the reason to work together with different kinds of people. And when they work together, that is why the diversification comes into the aggravation. Similarly, we also discussed in chapter seven about the concept of globalization. That the boundary becomes meaningless. This whole world is a kind of market for you. And in this world, there are thousands of people, whose cultural background is different, whose values are different, whose knowledge base is different, whose perception might be different, their attitude, behavior might be different. Since they are becoming the part of the same market, the whole world, now they are depending on each other too. And they are affecting each other. That is another reason that we have to focus these diversification things. And we have to also get benefit of this. And similarly, due to new approaches of businesses, new compatible kind of pressures, now we have to more and more depend on teamwork. The more it is coming with the complex thing, the more it is coming difficult thing, the more we require a team. And when we are talking about team, of course the different type of people will be working in a team. That is another reason that our main activities are now moving around this diversification setup. Similarly, the new world order, the new style of business, the new concept of globalization, this new niche has emerged. We call it mergers or alliances one way. Now different people, they are coming close together and they are sharing their resources so that they should create an edge on other competitors. A big company, a big organization is gathering together so that there is more competition. Now due to this competition, every organization is working to create one way or the other with some competitive advantage or another. So they figure out, if they can join together, they can minimize the cost by pooling the resources of different organizations together. Instead of overlapping, every person can be as strong as any other organization in the marketing department. Someone's R&D is very strong. So independent, every organization cannot have the same type of everything. So they decided to merge together. They decided to create alliances together. Now when this happened, what happened? People with different backgrounds, the human resource or the workforce of different cultures, different approaches, they come close together and they started working together with different mindset. So naturally the diversity was there. This was another reason and that is another reason we have to, our management has to focus on this diversity issue. And again, the labor market has changed. As I said, that the whole, due to this concept of globalization and communication and the virtual concept of working together, not only people started moving from one place to another place, now for the organization to pick people from different localities, different religions, from different cultures, because the whole market was a market for them. That became another reason that they have to focus now on this diversity issue. Why diversity again? Why should we go for diversification? Is it good or bad? There are so many issues that we have to think about diversity management. Why to go for diversification? Anybody can ask this logical question. What is the need for me to bring Muslim countries to people and work with them in their own way? While I have good people here, do you have any reason to think? What justification can we have that we should go for diversification? What is the positive? What is the benefit of this? Think about this. Why should we figure out? Why to go for diversification? Let's see. We believe diversity is an asset for home, for organization, yes. It is a kind of asset. The more you diversify your workforce, the more positive you can take from it. We can give so many different reasons for the benefits of diversification, but generally there are three. One is creativity. If you have diverse people working together, the chances of creating something different or innovation will be more. Let's see. I have to develop a software. I am going to do it. I am going to do this with you. I am doing this with you. If I will pick only four or five people within that group, basically, there is only one institution. There is no option that I can take four or five people from you. Another option is I should pick one person from virtual university, one person from other university, one person from abroad and bring them together and ask them to work together. It will be difficult. Naturally, you will say that it is difficult to make them a team. But the outcome will be more. There will be five or six different background people. Yes, the initial work will be difficult to bring them at the point where they should work together. If I will achieve that, the logical thing will be that they might come up with a better solution. The first benefit of this is that this diversification will always generate creativity and innovation. After that, problem solving is their best option. It is the same thing. If there is a diverse group, they will give different options. When you have different options, you will come up with a better solution. If you go ahead, you will see that the more you have information, the more options you will have, you will come up with a better problem solving solution. Similarly, there is another benefit of this. It generates a system where there is more flexibility. Because people with different backgrounds are coming together. Each is trying to accommodate each other. Of course, there is a negative aspect to all these things. That will create a flexible environment. The more flexible you have, the better working environment will create and deliver the better. So, what is workforce diversity? Workforce diversity, we are talking about. Diversity within the workforce of any particular organization where some basic basic human characteristics are different. When they work together, we call it a diverse workforce. Have you ever worked in a diverse environment where there are diverse people? Yes. When you go to college, it is not necessary that you have the same type of people working with you or studying with you. Let's see, you are going to be in Lahore. So, it is not necessary that all of them are in Lahore. Some might have come from Kassur, some might have come from Islamabad. It is not necessary that all of them are of the same age. And not necessarily from the same technical background. You must have also observed what issues are generated from it. What problems do you face at the same time? What is the benefit of it? It is the same. And that is what globalization is basically. People of different cultures, people of different backgrounds, people of different religions, people of different cultures, they come close together and work together. Nobody was kind of imagined, couple of decades back, that you have another country in your city, or you have children, you are studying together, you are working together, but now you will find them. You can see that. And even a couple of years more and you will see that even from the different countries, different religions, those people who were enemies, they are also working together. What are the sources that we will discuss on the basis of our lecture? We will try to understand them with an example. If there is a diversification of these sources, then what is the difference between a human and a source? I have enlisted some things, like racial or ethnical diversification. The age, as I said, in demographic factors, there is age. So let's work together. On the basis of gender, male and female work together. Education is different. Religion, culture and so on. Let's discuss them one by one and try to understand what kind of positive or negative effects they are creating in the organization. Let's see if people with different backgrounds, ethnical or racial, people of different races, people of different ethnic backgrounds work together. What we have said in the beginning is that the basis of our belief is that diversification is always good. Why is it always good? Because it creates creativity. It gives direction and a kind of force towards innovation. It has better problems. But some issues also arise. Some problems also arise. And in the organization as a manager, we have to be careful. We should be ready to address those issues. Because everyone has a different perception. Everyone has different beliefs. Everyone is different because every culture, every race, every ethnic group has different values. Because all those attitudes and behaviors that we discussed in previous lectures, where we discussed individual groups, where we tried to discuss behaviors, we saw that everything that you said, whether it is personality or behavior, it depends on the values and norms. So when different races are connected, when different ethnic groups are connected, every group can have a different approach. They might have different liking and disliking. They might perceive differently. Now it is becoming a challenge for our organization. How to convey the same message across the board? Across the board, all the people are the same message that you want to give them. Along with the benefits, it is necessary to address these issues. This part of human resource, it is important to address these issues. What about different ages? Older workers are working in today's organization. As the science and medicine developed, now mortality rates are decreasing. People's health is improving. Of course, there are other parts too. Stress is also increasing due to competitive pressure. There will be diseases as well. But as you can see, older age people, who are close to the age of retirement, are working in today's organization. Of course, economic pressure is there. That old time went by when everyone else was earning a share of the family. Now every person has to work. And until all the work is done, it does not work. Just imagine that young people are also working, old people are also working. What does it matter to you? Of course, it is a positive thing. Experience, you cannot match it. Young people are there with you, within the same organization. So, probabilities, they will create less energy. But at the same time, what about those beliefs? See, agnation, they will be expecting the same kind of work from the both youngster and old person. But the requirement for both of them will be different. The motivation for both of them will be different. Youngster, they are starting their career. Their energy level is increasing. Their beliefs and names are different. What about the work, about work? And their attitude will be different. Their responsiveness will be different. At the same time, the people who are already working in the agnation are new, but they are old, older people. They have different priorities. Now how come a manager or administration makes sure, see that working together to create an efficient and effective response, or to achieve goal in an efficient manner, that should be the main concern, yes. So, this is also one basis of diversification, that people of different age working together. Especially, you have more and more older worker at your workplace. Now, their life span is increasing. Their health and physical condition, their mental condition, they are very strong that they can deliver. So, even, agnation would want to lose those good people, even if they are old. They still want to get benefit out of them. This is another basis for the diversification. Very important and the biggest challenge of today's agnation due to diversification, the gender. At the same time, we talk about our Pakistan. For the children, the female component that we have for the society, there were two or three special jobs. Can they become a teacher? Can they become an essential profession? I think that's it. But look at today. You can see them in each kind of work they are doing. They are running the machines, in computer science, in medicine. Even business, they are running the business. And this is very important. Our population's more than 50% component is also coming up. This is a positive sign. But again, see the, its consequences should be kept in mind. Working for male or female is very good for the society. Because your more than 50% component which were doing only the house job, now they are also contributing in the main stream. In two cases, our female component they have to do extra work. 40 hours of work. And around 25 to 30 hours at home. Look after the children and the house. But the other side, even so called those developed societies where they claim very proudly that they have the equal rights. They also have a concept, they call it glass ceiling effect. And what is this glass ceiling effect? In a career, especially female components can go ahead of them. But after that, they can see that they are in a position above it. But they cannot go ahead of that system. Even I have seen in the university system there, at the same level of, like two professors, male and female, they are getting different salaries. And because of that, there are some issues, what is harassment? Harassment is a concept. It is a sub-topic. What is harassment? Harassment is basically a continuous act of a person where other person feel uncomfortable. But even so called those developed societies, they have a lot of these issues there. And agnation has to pay million and million of dollars to settle those issues. So diversity is another, diversity due to gender is another, or you can say gender, or this comes sex, male or female. Because of this, there is diversification in the workplace. As I told you, working with women is a very good change, especially in our society. The accommodating women in the workforce is not just the right thing to do, but the economically, the smart thing to do. Because now, those 51 or more than 50% of the population are also taking their part for economic contribution in the mainstream. But keep in mind, that the consequences, the other aspects of that are to be addressed by agnation, management, they have to settle. What about education? Yes, education becomes another base of diversification. See a person started his or her career, he was having or she was having only college level education. And they reach at certain hierarchy position or management position. Now with new education system, people with advanced degrees, master, PhD and other things, they can fresh, just complete, after completing their education, they can join agnation, but they will be starting from that level with that person, with college level or even less, school high school level education, he or she started her career. Apart from that, different education background people, different level education people are working together. What happens to that? It is beneficial too. See now you have a different knowledge basis. But same time again, with different knowledge base, with different education, they are going to have different perception, different approaches, different values, that is also going to be the concern for the management. It is possible that someone has to explain it to you in Urdu, or someone has an English memo, it is enough and so on. What about religions? Very important factor when we are talking about norms and values. When we are talking about ethics, in a specific religion, one action can be ethical, another can be ethical. Due to a specific religion, a specific value can be left for you, for someone else. But again, we see today, due to this globalization concept, and the borders that are ending and people easily move from one place to another place, and of course, even the agnation of going out of their boundaries. You have set up your own agnation in another country. What will happen? People from different religions will come to you while working. There also can be some issues. This should also be concerned. If you want to give away the holidays of Eid, then you have to take care of Christmas holidays as well. Similarly, other human resource related activities as well. As a management, you have to keep it in mind. Very important again, the culture. People with different cultures coming close together working. What will happen? Again the same thing. Different values, different norms, different behaviors, different attitudes. So, management, dealing with HR part, they have to keep all those things in their mind. We were talking about the basis of diversity. So, due to culture, we can have the diversification in the organization. So, this is also another base. Now the big question, how to manage diversified workforce? Why should be this the main concern? Just imagine, if you are a manager and you have to deal with different type of people. Even in case the one wish had different hope, the people who work together can have different languages. Their beliefs will be different. So, how will you communicate with them? Let's take the communication part on. When different beliefs come together, your priorities and your beliefs can have conflicts with each other. Remember, always keep in your mind that the job of the manager is the job of the management is to organize those resources to lead those resources including the human resources. In a way that, they should be able to create or achieve the goal in efficient and effective way. So, related to HR, this is also going to become your prime duty to manage those diverse people, diversify people working for your organization. So, managing the diverse workforce involved different activities so that we should integrate all different set of people working for your organization for that common goal to create competitive advantage. Let's see very important the top commitment the people at the top level of organization the CEO the owner unless they are committed you cannot create any change in the organization. So, if you have to manage the diversification if you want to have the diverse workforce to start with you need to have top commitment who should be giving value to this diversification. If they believe yes, these diversify people are valuable to us so naturally they are focused there attitude will be different now and they will be far this diversification and to manage this diversification like we are talking about that change comes that change cannot be created that change cannot be created after top commitment now so, the first thing you can do the first thing which will make sure that you can manage the diversification of workforce diversification basically is the top commitment that they are giving value to this diversification apart from that you can arrange trainings for the people for the people who are working with you train them teach them tell each other's culture tell each other's values you can manage the diversification of the organization same type apart from that other activities like organization also create some sports group in the organization those sports group what they do that the divers segments they develop a consistency they provide them the counseling and they also identify some kind of misunderstanding and they try to help them this is also one aspect one kind of activity diversification at workplace similarly organization can organize different social activities parties giving chances to come them to close together giving those different diverse different sector of that workforce different groups to work together to function so that it is easy to understand each other their priorities to understand each other when it is done naturally there will be a confidence built and when the confidence is built then that team that different diverse force will work together what else the new concept is developing that the organization is getting mentor concept you know what is mentoring right mentoring is basically when you make somebody a mentor let's say if you play cricket then you are impressed by somebody if you are a baller then you are impressed by Imran Khan and you try to copy him this is natural again that means Javed Niazad and Imran Khan become your mentor similarly when people join the organization somebody is impressed and they try to adapt they go to college in school so somebody is impressed by a teacher it is good to learn his style he or she is very kind to you so naturally you start copying him you start making his style you start making his style this basic psychological thing the organization instead of that people should try to make their own mentor which can be right around for them they have made it an official setup that they nominate senior people they are your mentor now whenever you have problem go and talk with them they will guide you so to manage diversity the organization can have this mentoring concept they make a mentoring program people can go and discuss issues if there is some conflict even they can settle those type of things so this is another way you can manage the diversification diversity at work place and this is there is another way also the organization should do off and on some kind of research research the purpose is to survey take feedback about how people are doing the activities is there any difference between the two for that some kind of R&D activities the organization gives feedback yes people are adapting it to this change so that is also beneficial Xerox company is very famous a photo state machine their slogan is if you don't value diversity so the bottom line is the same as we started if you really want to manage the diversity you should believe on it and have the commitment I have said that top commitment is very essential otherwise you can't manage diversity willingness if you believe all the efforts you will do chances are you can manage the diversification a diversity of work force and remember it is positive it is beneficial having the most more diversification of work force can give you better results so that is that simple right no when you manage diversity there are no challenges with it what are those challenges here you see you have different type of people working together with you so you have to make sure that you are very fair when we are dealing with individuals or groups sometimes when they are connected when there is peer pressure when there is peer pressure that can create a kind of problem for you as a manager this is also one challenge fairness is to maintain whenever you create change as I said earlier that is always difficult people always resist there are many reasons there can be fear unknown fear anything again human psychology that you always it is very difficult to accept a change again to change you have to make different activities you have to plan and train you have to teach diversification with a diverse workforce you will naturally get resistance and that is one challenge earlier you were having one type of people one type of people one type of people now you have different people merger different companies both of different backgrounds it will become more and more difficult for you that is the challenge because one way or other way both groups have to adjust they have to change they have to change then a common point where they can start delivery so it means change will be there and when change will be there and it has to be there so naturally you should be expecting resistance what is this you have to overcome when you are bringing different groups together naturally you can expect problem in cohesiveness and conflict inter-group conflicts there when we discuss about teamwork remember we discussed that the more cohesive you are the better your performance will be but as different people gather that cohesiveness there is no cohesiveness in the beginning and this too because of different beliefs because of different values conflict begins that is also natural so this is going to be another big challenge for you as a manager the management who is dealing with HR or even the organization manager as a whole ultimately your objective is to achieve goals in efficient manner so this cohesiveness and conflict within the groups are between different groups that is also one challenge you will be facing let's see what is next challenge segmented communication network what does it mean here this is natural you must have seen that in a group there is a group in a group within the group or in a separate communication network you want that your communication whatever you are communicating or management want whatever they are sending it should go equally to the concerned people now if you do have different network different communication networks working within the organization so that filtering or perception you have will be achieved and then within group or network there are some social aspects there is a conflict or grouping there is a political behavior things like that are also involved that is going to become another challenge for management when they are dealing with human resource especially when it is a diversified workforce resentment generally that old setup one type of people as I told you diversification will be generated that our female component started working there is a natural resentment from the old group and we can observe those things in everyday life again why is this resentment the philosophy of change that people don't accept the change quickly there are many reasons one of them is fear and then you don't listen to anyone girls can't do this it is a difficult job but we have seen them flying airplanes so it is again in natural that there will be a lot of resentment from the prevailing groups already working in the organization or as we have said it is a merger that the other group buy out the company or the organization so now you have to restructure the organization setup you have to redirect the resources the old people will have resentment they will have a problem that is also one challenge for the organization for the management dealing with the diverse workforce let's see what is the next challenge that lesson it is called you can find this stuff of things so again when you have diversification people with different backgrounds the stereotyping effect can be seen people assume that this particular group will do this so this is another challenge for you as a manager similarly there will be a lot of competition and opportunity some people will say we should find the first thing the diversification due to that when the resources are not enough and the competition becomes more the type of conflict so with diversification the opportunities will be equally available to everyone more than that the human resource that you have can develop so that you have to manage to why we are discussing these types of things of course there are hundreds of benefits we can quote here why looking only on benefits is not important not enough because this is a negative aspect that with which there is discouragement or with which your main objective can be achieved you have to look at them so that you should be able to address those issues before dealing with such type of things I think enough so we have covered today what let's summarize it there were three points three topics mainly we covered today and that those three points were from one only one agenda item that was diversification the work force or workplace so did you see that first there was diversification and why to go for diversification is it beneficial or yes these were the things we discussed and after that we tried to understand what is the basis for diversification we saw many things demographic characteristics of human body, human people considered here human part of the work force in that we also saw because of globalization because of merger because of different culture and we tried to understand if there is diversification then what is the problem at the end we tried to understand the challenges of managing the diversification and how to manage basically the work force diversification also discussed some challenges what next next chapter our lecture number we will discuss today's HRM or HR functions there we discussed them earlier but now we will start it so what I will suggest it is called buckle up so now we have already established some basis for human resource management functions the actual subject of course it does not mean that the previous lecture was the same we will start our HR starting with next lecture as function of today's HR work hard do read it we will go ahead with these thoughts thank you very much peace be upon you