Diversity in the workplace has become part of common parlance. Initially when speaking about diversity, we implied issues related to gender equality, which was the right thing to do. Thus businesses were expected to take affirmative action to promote equality.

We then shifted focus to other things such as age and gender orientation. To this we added the issue of diverse nationalities at the place of work. The reason for this is that in many businesses today one may find a number of nationalities, and not just Maltese. This is mainly due to the presence of what are now tens of thousands of non-Maltese in our labour force.

The strong performance of the Maltese economy has meant that there are more job opportunities than job seekers and as such has not as yet caused unemployed Maltese to grumble about this hefty presence of non-Maltese. So the issue that businesses face is the management of diversity, given a number of demographic aspects.

I believe that we need to go one step further. There is diversity in the workplace not only because of demographic aspects. That would be too simplistic.

There is diversity also among Maltese members of staff of the same gender or of similar age, arising from different social backgrounds, different values, different personal situations, different motivations, different outlooks, different expectations, etc.

It is more difficult to align individual personal goals with professional goals and company objectives. It is more difficult to get all team members to feel involved in day to day operations

Add to all this different national cultures, and one can understand the challenges that businesses face in this regard.

In such a context it is more difficult to create a team culture, with which staff can identify. It is more difficult to enhance productivity and increase collaboration. It is more difficult to align individual personal goals with professional goals and company objectives. It is more difficult to get all team members to feel involved in day to day operations.

We also need to consider the fact that in several businesses, not all staff work in a single office. In several cases there are staff working at different sites or working at their clients’ workplace. Therefore not only do businesses have to manage diverse cultures, personalities and characters, but they also have to manage staff working in different locations. Hence the challenges that I have mentioned become even more acute.

This means that the ability to manage a diverse workforce becomes key to attracting and retaining talent and consequently to business growth. Unfortunately this is a view that some persons in managerial posts do not share. They may pay lip service to it in order to protect their consumer brand; but it is not seen to have a tangible benefit for the business. So there would be very little truthfulness and authenticity in what they do in seeking to manage diversity.

In my view, when managing diversity businesses cannot see this issue as one of multiculturalism. Neither can they see it as one of assimilation. The former would not lead to a bonding of the team, while the other implies an imposition by a dominant force. Multiculturalism would accept the presence of diversity, but would do very little to achieve teamwork. Assimilation would mean forcing persons to leave behind their own personal uniqueness and embrace something that is not them.

The next option is inter-culturalism through a process of education. It implies creating an environment where staff value diversity and understand the benefits of having people with different cultures, personalities and characters working together for one common vision with complementary business objectives. This would mean providing staff with the coaching, mentoring and skills they need.

We often speak of the importance of a process of lifelong learning at the workplace. Such lifelong learning should not just be restricted to technical issues. One other issue it needs to cover is how persons with different demographic characteristics as well as different social backgrounds, values, expectations can work together as one team.

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