Equality and Diversity Policies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Equality and Diversity Policies - Essay Example Although there are varied perceptions of diversity in concept and practice, one compact and comprehensive definition is provided by Esty, et al. (1995), where the authors state that:â€Å"Diversity is acknowledging, understanding, accepting, valuing, and celebrating differences among people with respect to age, class, ethnicity, gender, physical and mental ability, race, sexual orientation, spiritual practice, and public assistance status.†Diversity management, Foster and Harris (2005) opine, â€Å"Encourages innovative practices in human resource management that values employment relationship by addressing individual needs.† Potentially, employers see immense advantage in deploying demographically diverse workforce.Diversity, as opposed to equal opportunity, extends beyond legislation and focuses more on differences amongst individuals and groups. The liberal perspective has moved the diversity discourse from providing equal opportunities addressing social discriminati on to promoting and managing diversity for societal progress and advantages. Equal opportunities policies often promotes sameness in treatment of individuals; whereas, diversity focuses on managing individual differences for gaining competitive edge. Diversity connotes, gender, age, ethnic background, as well as, non-visible characteristics, like work experience and disability factors (Kersten, 2000). In this context, diverse workgroup is beginning to be recognized for its contributory value to meet organizational objectives, than merely to meet legal. and regulatory aspects. Laflà ¨che (2005) chooses a metaphor â€Å"head and heart† to emphasize the effect of diversity on the inner-workings of an organization. It is another way of saying that the entire enterprise must commit to the cause of diversity in order to make a convincing and lasting change in human resource and team management practices that is seen as consistent and