Critical analysis of the concepts related to cultural diversity

Discuss about the Diversity in Qantas Airline for Social Status and Sexual Orientation.
 

Globalization has encouraged business organisations to have a wider rich to their target market. Political scenario, economic conditions and society are some of the aspects in the external business environment which become more significant in international market.  Acceptance of various cultures all over the world is a large part of globalization (Martin, 2014). There are various advantages in the process as it provides a broader perspective of things; it also helps the company in management and building relations with the customers. Diversity is a concept that includes different factors that make up an individual, including age, gender, culture, religion, personality, social status and sexual orientation (Grivastava & Kleiner, 2015). In a business organisation, diversity and acceptance of individual based on their talent and skill leads to a number of benefits. In order to understand the aspects of multiculturalism or cultural diversity, one of Australia’s famous airline companies is going to be analyzed: Qantas Airline.

Discrimination is the process by which a person is treated in a different way based on beliefs, values norms conditions. For example: in an organisation, if a person is treated in a different way because of the gender of a person overlooking the skills of the person. There are four aspects of the concept of discrimination in the society, direct effect, indirect effect, Harassment, Victimization (Mishra & Mishra, 2015). In direct discrimination a person is directly treated in a manner that is unjustified compared to another individual with similar skills in a similar situation. Indirect discrimination is the process by which a person feels he or she is treated in a way which is not direct or the impact of the discriminating behavior (Mishra & Mishra, 2015). Harassment is associated with the conduct of a person, unwanted behavior with the purpose or effect of abuse the honour of an individual and of creating a threatening, aggressive, demeaning, embarrassing or offensive environment. For example: one of the most highly complained case of harassment is based on gender. The last concept of discrimination is victimization it is the process by which a person is being continuously subjected to misconduct and unjustified treatment (Jones et al., 2017).

Racism can be defined as any biases towards a person or a group of people based on their cast, creed, skin colour and ethnicity. Racism is an issue that has been reported and combated by organisations all over the world. For example: mistreating a person because of their cast or religion.  Prejudice is said to be the case when there is a certain stereotype towards a person or a group of people, then there are certain outcomes or behavioral expression which are associated with the stereotype. For example: a preconceived notion that people from the Muslim community is orthodox (Emerson & Murphy, 2014).

Discrimination

An organisation can be defined as a group of people who strive towards achieving the goals. In the process of achieving the objectives, organisations appoint employees on the basis of their skills and talent. With globalization there is an increased need of understanding the importance of cultural diversity, for example a company that originates in Australia may also have its operations in India, the two countries have a huge cultural difference and thus in order to operate in the Indian environment the company have to adapt to the culture of the country ((Grivastava & Kleiner, 2015). The importance of cultural diversity improves the potential of the company in terms of broadening the perspective. A company can be called as diverse when there is a variety of groups represented by the population of the organisation. In order to strengthen the philosophy of diversity in the company the idea should be integrated in the core values and principles. The management of the company is expected to have a broad mindset and non-judgmental approach towards value of differences.  Discrimination as well as the issue of prejudice and racism is issues in the society that has been recorded and devised for a long time. In workplace these issues are also relevant; there are instances where people have reported harassment and other forms of discrimination (Grivastava & Kleiner, 2015). These issues in culture diversity leads to a number of issues within the company as well as impacts the shareholders as well for example some of the most significant impact of absence of cultural acceptance and diversity are:  increase in the attrition rate, increase in the internal conflict, reduction of the perspective etc.

In order to maintain diversity in the organisation companies should have a similar approach towards any employee. The Human Resource department of the company is responsible to ensure that there is no cultural biases in the company, policies and decisions should be made discriminating people on the basis of their culture. The management should ensure that every individual should be given equal chance (Tjosvold, 2017). For example: the HR department can allow holiday for a person during their festival time.  People should be allowed to embrace their ethnicity. An example of such a scenario is the acceptance of Saree as formal attire among the Indian community as well as organisations that operate in India. Encouraging the people to uphold their cultural uniqueness helps the company as well. It increases the faith in the brand and helps the company establish a valuable relation with the customers (Barak, 2016).

Prejudice and racism

The management of the company claims to value diversity in the workforce in order to encourage thought and experience. Qantas is a company that encourages inclusive and collaborative work culture as is of the view that this is an aspect that contributes towards the success (Qantas.com, 2018).

The objectives that the company follows in order to encourage multiculturalism in the work culture are:

• Treating every individual in the organisation with dignity and respect.
• Leaders are trained and developed in the organisation to encourage inclusive behavior and build teams and work environment which is culturally diverse
• The management is should focus on developing programs and providing support to the subordinates so that they
• Maintain the inclusive policy of the company by ensuring there is global acceptance, communication plays an importance role in the process (Qantas.com, 2018)

The company believes in developing collaborative leaders who are capable of managing an inclusive team and supporting every individual to perform in their best.  This is an essential part of the cultural diversity strategy that the company has undertaken. The focus is on the leaders as they are responsible for establishing the culture of inclusive and cultural diversity (Qantas.com, 2018).

Some of the policies apart from developing the leaders are: ensuring flexibility in the mainstream process across all operational segments, challenging and mitigating bias and supporting the employees of the organisation with equal opportunities to develop their career and future (Qantas.com, 2018).

Apart from these steps that company focuses on gender inclusion in the organisation. In Australia there has been reported imbalance in gender among the higher management (Davey, 2017). The company has recognized this issue and is addressing it by removing all the biases of hiring and promotion based on gender in order to avoid discrimination among the employees based on gender (Qantas.com, 2018).

Conclusion

It can be concluded form the above discussion that the cultural diversity of Qantas airlines is focused on leadership, equal opportunities, removing biases from the work environment. Discrimination prejudices and racism is held as a major issue in the work environment and the company is focused on eliminating these aspects.  One of the major ideas of the policy of developing leadership is team building activities are as it is one of the important ways in which the management ensures cultural diversity. This provides an advantage for the company as well as different proficiencies match the Global requirements. The company employees a number of policies for the different employees to feel that there are not biased or stereotyped against and they can relate to the organisation and its goals giving the maximum output. The development of multicultural groups is one of the best ways to develop the cultural diversity and dependent upon the different employees who’s Qantas uses. Building in inclusive culture environment employees the different processes to improve in inclusion free from any bias based on gender class ethnicity or religion. This process is best achieved by assigning people work based on their professions is and merits on which they are employed in the organisation. Qantas also ensures employee indigenous culture and the cultural activities in this program so that the employees can relate to the organisational culture and the overall goals of the organisation.

Reference List:

Barak, M. E. M. (2016). Managing diversity: Toward a globally inclusive workplace. Sage Publications.

Davey, M. (2017). Australian report finds disturbing evidence of gender inequality. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/mar/08/australian-women-display-tremendous-resilience-in-face-of-gender-inequality-kate-jenkins-finds

Emerson, K. T., & Murphy, M. C. (2014). Identity threat at work: How social identity threat and situational cues contribute to racial and ethnic disparities in the workplace. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 20(4), 508.

Grivastava, S., & Kleiner, B. (2015). Managing Cultural Diversity In The Workplace. Journal of International Diversity, 2015(1).

Jones, K. P., Arena, D. F., Nittrouer, C. L., Alonso, N. M., & Lindsey, A. P. (2017). Subtle discrimination in the workplace: A vicious cycle. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 10(1), 51-76.

Martin, G. C. (2014). The effects of cultural diversity in the workplace. Journal of Diversity Management (Online), 9(2), 89.

Mishra, B., & Mishra, J. (2015). Discrimination in the Workplace. Journal of Higher Education Theory & Practice, 15(4).

Qantas.com. (2018). Qantas Diversity and Inclusion Statement. Retrieved from https://www.qantas.com/infodetail/about/corporateGovernance/diversityStatement.pdf

Tjosvold, D. (2017). Cross-cultural management: foundations and future. Routledge.