DIVERSITY:

Einstein’s theory of relativity explains the word “diversity’ probably better than any other dictionary i.e. “the relative approach”. Generally speaking, it means different approaches of different people. No two people can ever have same approach towards, say, one task, in all manners and every aspect. Diversification is in human mind and every homosapien is unique, in one way or the other.

WORKFORCE DIVERSITY:

If we link up the word “workforce” with “diversity”, it would give rise to understandable “workforce diversity” which, certainly means to have different frames of references in one workplace. These different people may have differences in age, gender, race, thoughts, ideologies, political, social and economical approaches, geographical backgrounds, work experiences and a lot more factors.

It has almost become inevitable for a company, which wants to go beyond the horizons, to not only encourage the workforce diversity but also try and create this diversity in its human capital so as to have a competitive edge on its rivals. Diversification is more important in service industries which currently constitute 70% of world’s total business than production business.

Apart from the fact that many organizations still take diversity as an unnecessary burden, especially in developing countries, the matter of fact is that it will very soon become the leading change the business world will have to face as a result of globalization which is quite a familiar phenomenon to everyone now.

Large business conglomerates have almost a few very commonly understandable factors that motivate them to develop and encourage workforce diversity such as social responsibility towards the place they are doing business in (no matter if it is just an eyewash), economic payback, legal requirements of that country, a marketing strategy i.e. to attract local customers as the word of mouth is one big source of marketing especially in developing countries and as a capacity building strategy i.e. developing a wide range of experience, knowledge and talent.

As the importance of workforce has been realized for last 4 decades and the human resources are recognized as “Capital” instead of “liability”, most of the business giants have adopted this shifted trend and have invested a lot of money in research and developments in the aforementioned field.

Oil giants such as Schlumberger and Shell and Banking superstars HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank are leading the pathway and have developed some truly global cultures and have no specified National identities. The objective is very simple i.e. to attract and retain the best brains from every part of the world regardless of age, gender, race or any other demographic characteristic and if we know these companies as the “Leaders” in

their industries, it is their diversified workforce and competent management that has played the major role in attaining this big position.

HSBC says, “We are the world’s local bank”

This very simple statement depicts all what HSBC thinks about their approach towards globalization and diversified workforce and no doubt that this positive and constructive approach has lead them to success.

By the way, when it comes to Pakistan’s local job market, if an advertisement claims that “we are an equal opportunity employer”, it certainly means that the male portion of population should not bother to apply because it will be just wastage of time. So, as I mentioned earlier, sometimes this workforce diversity can be just eyewash, to fulfill the so called social responsibilities.

MANAGERIAL & ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES WITH WORKFORCE DIVERSITY:

Coming back to the core topic, let’s discuss few of the managerial and organizational issues that might be faced as a result of workforce diversity and as mentioned earlier, only a well diversified workforce is not a sure short success guarantee. More important is the pathway and the roadmap i.e. the competent and very effective management that can handle diversity efficiently.

First and very basic of all, the dim boundary line between equal employment opportunity and diversity management where the management remains unable to draw a clear boundary line between the two and the employees receive confusing signals on different occasions. For example, they are told that the organization is an equal opportunity employer but at the same time, there is one specific post which is reserved for male worker. This can certainly create a lot of confusions in the minds of employees and effective communication is the only solution if that specific post has been reserved for male candidates for some genuine reason.

Practically, almost every organization has some allotted quota for a specific set of people, say, for a specific race which, they think, is necessary to achieve their organizational goals. Now, no matter how transparently diversified you want to be, you have created some pre-determined quotas which again is against the “true global nationality” theory.

Maximizing the profits is a basic objective of any profitable business and what if the studies suggest that diversity is a so called phenomenon and for a specific business, you cannot have a truly diversified workforce here because, obviously, maximizing the profits is the basic theme of any business and cannot be put behind. So, sometimes, diversity cannot be good for business even if the company authorities keep on stressing for its implementation.

Sometimes, the diversity office of HR department becomes a headless dumping place where the heads are just hiring the people around, focusing more on one character e.g. local residents and ignoring a lot others e.g. qualification etc. This adds to impression that diversity program is for special purposes and the people associated with this program are not serious towards achieving the announced goals.

The diversity program is launched before the organization has a strong equal opportunity program. This creates a credibility gap since the employees can clearly see that the organization is talking about sophisticated improvements in communication and team building while the basic obligation of having a nondiscriminatory workplace has not been addressed seriously.

Higher management, in an effort to appear cutting-edge, hires some enthusiastic and vocal trainers who, during the training, often give rise to conflicts by giving controversial remarks. The organization have to be very careful dealing with diversity as any effort to bind them together may end up in dividing them even farther.

These are few of the issues which are faced by the organization in general and management in specific whenever any organization goes global. There can be many other issues as well, varying from business to business, country to country and even person to person.

CULTIVATING DIVERSITY IN PTCL:

PTCL is the largest telecommunication and internet service provider in Pakistan and has enjoyed monopoly in this sector for long time before the cellular revolution ended its monopoly in the beginning 21st century. In spite of facing aggressive competition by the cellular service providers, PTCL still holds the largest overall infrastructure, employee and customer database in telecommunication sector.

After the take over of PTCL’s management rights by Etisalat, a UAE telecommunication giant, things never seemed normal as the huge workforce of PTCL, who were enjoying government jobs for long, were struck with job insecurity suddenly. Eventually, they all came on roads and protested against the privatization of PTCL but to no avail as Etisalat was in no mood to quit the venture.

Now, Etisalat has many challenges to face, biggest of all is the bureaucratic environment of PTCL, including many others. Since PTCL has network and infrastructures all over the country therefore, having a diversified workforce can solve a lot of problems and it doesn’t seem to be a bad approach at all, keeping in view the current position of the organization.

STEPS TO DIVERSITY PROGRAM:

1. View diversity as a business advantage:

The strategists of PTCL have to think positively and consider diversity as a solution and not as a problem. If they are clear in their heads that diversity will be an advantage for the organization, their commitment and involvement level will be highest and so will be the program’s success rate. For example, currently, over 95% of the workforce in PTCL is local and there are very few foreign national employees in PTCL. Hiring people from different origins is a proven successful dimension of diversity.

2. Set goals of hiring diversified workforce:

Goals are to be set and they should be practically achievable. Impractical goals not only demotivate the employees but also affect their organizational performances. PTCL has 65000 employees presently out of which, only about 2000 are females. One goal can be to hire at least 3000 more female employees from around the globe, to somewhat balance the gender discrimination. Try and attract as much brains as possible, regardless of gender, age, origin, race and any other characteristic. Go Global!

3. Provide training:

“Diversity, diversity and diversity”, yelling it all the time will not help employees learn diversity in any way except for creating panic among them. A proper, well planned training program should be conducted to make employees aware of the pros and cons of diversity. The program should be well balanced and very carefully designed because when you have a diversified workforce, you have to keep many things in mind.

4. Hold Managers accountable:

The managers’ compensations should be tied with their performances on diversity if PTCL takes it seriously. Managers should be declared responsible for any substandard results or should be rewarded if the performance exceeds the expectations.

5. Select diverse leadership:

An action plan should be implemented that has the leader from some minority, say, a female who are minority at PTCL. It will ensure the minorities that they will be given equal opportunities of leadership and growth and it will strengthen the diversified culture of PTCL.

6. Open Communication:

Adapt an open door policy. Give ever employee easy access to the managers and even to the planners. Do not hold valuable information. Do not keep secrets. Secret laws and lack of communication is always the major culprit in flop plans. If employees want to know something, it is their right and it is in organization’s benefit. Holding information and proving yourself as an “important” person is the remaining of old culture and should be obsolete.

7. Focus on long-term strategy:

An effective diversity effort needs to be formulated as a long-term strategy where benefits may not be seen very soon. Use of multiple vehicles to find viable candidates, is another major factor and that certainly takes some time. Diversity is a complete process and short sightedness of top management often brings nothing good to the organization.

PTCL has a long red-ribbon bureaucratic history and mindset of the employees can’t be changed overnight. Gradually, the management has to bring changes, biggest of which will be the workforce diversity and after quite some time, things will be a lot different in positive direction, than they are today.