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The Importance Of Cultural Diversity In The Workplace

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The Importance of Cultural Diversity
Cultural diversity is defined as “The existence of a variety of cultural or ethnic groups within a society” (Oxford, 2017). Within the workplace there have been a trend towards promoting diversity by maintaining a workforce with workers differ in area such as race, sexual orientation, age, and gender. This is often times a daunting and difficult task for management. Effective communication can be challenging for diverse groups. Language barriers for example may cause confusion leading to conflict. Another risk to implementing diversity in the workplace is that some employees feel that individuals may have gained their respective position unjustly. Conversely, differing employees may feel out of place and not assimilate well with the rest of the group (Kirby & Richard, 2000). Promoting cultural diversity is not just relegate to the hiring of diverse individuals; rather the organization must also seek to create and maintain policies, procedures, training, and even incentives to truly cultivate a positive culturally diverse environment (Patrick and Kumar 2012). With all the time, money, and effort necessary to create and maintain a diverse work environment, leaders are left wondering what if any, benefits can be gained by promoting cultural diversity.
Research indicates that there are several valuable assets to fostering cultural diversity in the workplace. Firstly, the makeup of the labor pool is changing. There has been a steady increase

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