Globalization is the process albeit a gradual one, the takes place in daily life. The process is marked by diffusion of ideas and commodities. The life and everything else is becoming standardized around the world. There are a host of factors that have contributed this process. These factors include the increased sophistication of transport and communication technologies as well as transport and communication services provided around the world. Also as a feature of this process there is increased migration of people from one place to another people change their country of origin frequently due to improve transport technology that has simplified transport. The level of economic activities has outgrown the national border to international frontiers, and the ratification of numerous international agreements simplifying conduction of business abroad as were as reducing the cost incurred in conducting international trade have also been considerable reduced thus increasing trade between countries.
Globalization has availed an opportunity to make supernormal profits to companies and countries or states. This has however been complicated by diversified expectations, living standards, unanticipated global Cause-and—effect relationship, values and cultures and legal systems. However the process has been generally advantageous sever to ensure global diversity and availing factors of production from other parts of the world for instance there has been increased exchange of technology, mobility of raw materials and labor. The process has also sparked many debate about it is effect with critics trying to pull it down and proponents glorify. Of all the phenomenon associated with globalization this, paper is keen interested in investigating the issues pertaining the management of workforce diversity at the present globalised world.
Work force diversity. As a result of mobility of people from one country to another or one region to another, employers have had opportunity to employ new skilled employer from different places across the globe. People change their location frequent within their countries and also around the world. Switching between jobs or occupation has also become so common in the present world that people do not have specific professions in which they specialize. Coupled with these is the emerging trade of people from other countries migrating to newer countries in search of jobs. Actually they manage to secure these jobs and earn a living. In fact some of them change their nationality in total.
This migration of people has brought many people with different cultural backgrounds, religious back ground, social background and racial backgrounds. The interaction have really had an impact on the people view of the world and thus people are embracing each others differences
Certainly those who are opposed to globalization do not find this to be of any advantage, but employer will most likely find it to be very helpful. The process bring diversity together the employers seek to benefit from the diversity in employee base.
This process of globalization brought with it diversity and foreign culture to many of the world societies. These societies have benefited more that they can admit. To become part of the global economy societies have accepted foreign ideas, new identities or characteristics and method or techniques of doing things. Employer and nation are thus able to benefit from a skills, talents and technique that are brought in by new employees of a diverse background. No single place on this world can have all the necessary manpower required to perform all kinds of work. Some companies, more so in the developed world have always outsource for services from other countries where they believe the costs of labor are law. However, the most important function of outsourcing has always been has always been to benefit from resource of labor force that an organization lacks.
With globalization, organizations have been able to access directly the diversify pool of workers available. Unfortunately, in some parts of the world people find it difficult to embrace diversity. Religion, cultural interlaces and racism has denied countries the opportunity to benefit from skills from other countries or parts of the world.
The world demographic trend
The global arena will also increasingly being shaped by shaped by the demographic dynamics around the world. Population changes in the various parts of the world certainly influence ideologies and philosophies world wide.
Changes in demography are the main source of creation of alliances and developing of networks among nations of the world. Policies in various countries have been unified as the countries come together to benefit from mutual economic agreements. It past decade most of the world’s memorable events were concentrated in Russia. According to the Long term global demographic trends published in 2001 this trend is expected to change. The reduction in the number of these activities will be coupled with a reduction in the population. The population in these countries is also expected to become increasingly aged.
The present day population increase is mostly concentrated in the developing countries with that of the already developed nations becoming static. In the 1950s the pulsation in Europe consisted of 22% of the world’s total population. All indication however suggest that due to reduced birth rates in Europe this population has shirked to about 13% and is still expect to shrink to about 7.5% the next four dictates. During the 1950s out of the ten most populated countries 6 were developed countries. However, with the high rate of population increase in developing country on the U.S and Russia will still remain on this list by 2020.
Statistical predication also indicate that much of the population gains will be centered in Asia and Africa where the total gain is expected to be about 1.5 million people. The Caucasian population on the other hand will become less and far more aged.
Changes of this magnitude will certainly have several effects on the world politically, social and economically. Shift in political influence will certainly be unenviable. The population of the aged above 65 years of age will considerably increased. The aged people will occupy about 16 percent of the total population in four decades time.
National demographic trends. In the United Kingdom, there are quite a number of changes that have take place since the formation of the European Union. These demographic variations are observed easily via various demographic variables including age, disability, gender and religion.
Religion and belief. U.K has been a Christian country traditionally. The Anglican Church and the Church of Scotland which is a Presbyterian church accorded the respect of a national church in Scotland were the leading churches in the country. The country is made up of 6 major religions including Christianity, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Jewish and Buddhist religion with high number of followers and total percentages of religions in their respective orders. More than 150,000 people consisting of around 0.3% of the total population in many parts of Wales and England are followers of religious groups that are not section of the main religion. 5000 Rastafarian followers, 4,000 Zoroastrian, 32,000 Spiritualist, 31,000 Pagans, 15,000 Jain and 7,000 Wicca are good examples of such groups. Even though Jedi knights are not popular religion, it has 390,000 followers. There is approximately 9,104, 000 an average percentage of 15.5 percent of the population which lack religion. 7.3% made up of at least 4,289,000 citizens of the general population didn’t state their religion. Pantheism, Satanism, New age ancestor worship among others is additional religions which had very few members.
Important changes are taking place in the composition of population in terms of age. However, the increased rate of the aging population in the United Kingdom is the most notable changes. For instance, in the year 1911 older people’s population of approximately sixty five years and above was standing at five percent of the total population (Bartlett &Phillips, 1995). With time, this figure has risen steadily. It was fourteen percent by the year 1971 and fifteen point seven percent in 1991- when the European Union was formed. The percentage occupied by this population was expected by the 2005 to reach twenty four percent. This population has been fair statistically till the year 2001 and it is increasing at the rate five percent yearly. This rate is expected to prevail for numerous decades. Old people off around sixty five to seventy nine years will represent twelve percent of the entire population while twenty four percent will be represented by those people who are over 80 years in these changes. At the moment, population of U.K. can be characterized by three large age groups. Populations which were born during post World War II a period in which baby born between 1946 and 1951 is the first group. The product of a baby born between 1961 and 1966 is the second and the largest group. The largest number of U.K’s population is made up of these groups. The population is not distributed evenly in the country and some areas have large number of children and youth while other has high number of the elderly and adults. Children between 0-14 years represent eighteen percent of total population in U.K, fifteen to sixty four percent, sixty six point three percent and sixty five and represent fifteen point seven percent above. This indicates certainly that the U.K population is increasingly become aged.
Gender. The disparities between men and women have greatly reduced in a number of ways. The number of women getting employed and attaining university education has risen. Unfortunately, as the office of the National Statistics (2009) observes there are still a number of issues that continues to remain different between men and women
For instance, the life expectancy of the women in the United Kingdom is higher than that of men despite women spending more years of their life in sickness as compared to men. Close to 50% of the male and female populations in the country are married but if windowed or divorced men are more likely to remarry than women.
Another notable fact about gender in the U.K is that more men own house while more women rent houses from social houses. Although, more men are employed, many women take up part-time jobs. Also more men own vehicles than women but it women who perform the so called “escort trips” like taking kids to schools and to clubs.
Disability. In the U. K there is a lot of disability and sickness among he old people of about 65 years and above. Close to four million adults are reported to have been reported to experience prolonged conditions and sickness and disability (The poverty site, 1998).
In the country, the Northern region, northwest, Southwest and the East midlands have the larges number of the disabled population. 20% of the population in Wales is disabled and has the greatest population of people with disability while Scotland has the lowest number of people with disability. Statistics recorded in 1999 Northern Ireland and Wale indicated that 8 out of every 10, 0000 of the population was disabled. A year later, this increased from 8 to 10 out of 10, 000.
There are great disparities between the disable and the non-disabled when it comes to employment. Only half (50%) of the disabled people in the country are employed. This is totally different to the situation of the non-disabled people where over 80% of them are meaningfully employed. Disparities also exist in terms of qualification with 23% of the non disabled people have no qualifications to help them secure employment as compared to only 9% of the non-disabled.
Impact of the diversities on the employers’ policies and practices in enrollment and selection. Employee diversity is the array in the current international market. Manager’s policies are usually affected or influenced by the existence of such diversities. In accordance to Wigan and Leigh Housing (2010) employment policies should embrace and ensure that an industry is capable of achieving the diversified resources. Nonetheless, this may solely depend on various factors which may be unique or external to the organization.
Employer will try to find policies that overcome age buriers and therefore inhibit the work place from recruiting some employees. Such a policy will likely depend on the employees, experiences, skills, and talents and in turn facilitate them in overcoming some of the challenges that may deter them from realizing their full potential. Such an organization policy may be changed to allow for programs that support a wide range of employees in terms of their ages and remuneration.
The development of employment facilities becomes vital at this phase in order to allow the new recruits to undergo through some sort of training on particular aspects of the business to help them acquire the required information concerning what should be done to improve the performance in the organization. The policy should further encourage equal access to training opportunities by all employees irrespective of the age gap.
In order to benefit from these diversified resources in the organization there is the need to develop strict recruitment policies that allow consideration of all job applicants. At least every applicant should be invited for interview and be subjected to the same fair process that every other employee are likely to go through.
The recruitment policies shall also be developed in a manner such that it will as a result facilitate enrollment of the diversified skills and talents that can help the company achieve its objectives. The recruitment process will be modified to allow a proper understanding of new recruits so that the organization can plan for training and nurturing the different skills that are possessed by recruits without bias. The policy will further be made to facilitate creation of a friendly work environment that every worker is encouraged to do their best and facilitate achievement of the vision of the organization.
Diversity provides the room for modification of the policies and makes it possible for minimization of barriers. In any organization there are always members of disadvantaged social groups who are usually faced with various difficulties. The policy should ensure that members of the marginalized group who are qualified are given the first priority in the workforce. The policy can be changed to facilitate the development of good records containing recruitment information. This information can be used for future reference in order to facilitate identification of inequality and unfairness in the organization.
Many companies are adopting polices that help in creating a workforce that reflects the population of a nation in terms of gender, race, poverty level by instituting equality statutes within the policy and seeking to amend them appropriately. The company or organization should provide training and direction to their managers, employees as well as the board members to facilitate or enhance their recognition and realization of their responsibilities as far as stipulated in the setting of the organization.
The management should have a way of determining whether the policy that has been put in place is being put into practice. This can be done by entrenching within the policy measurable benchmarks that can be reviewed at various intervals in determining the efficacy. The employs can help provide feedbacks on the success of the policy put in place. Conducting regular reviews of the employment polices of a company as well as on its procedures very significant in ensuring that every statement in the policy is aimed at promoting equity. This should concur with the best practices for workforce hiring and management and should reflect the mandate of the prevailing legal requirements. Finally the policy should facilitate the development or the process of reviewing the present identity statements within the organization concerning matters of diversity at the work place such as ethnicity, belief, gender, sexuality, age and disability (Wigan and Leigh Housing, 2010).
How these factors may affect the employer’s attempt to create a diversified work force. Introducing diversity at workforce may be accompanied with resistance from already existing employees who might not be willing to embrace diversity. For instance, employees from a particular religion may not positively take in the recruitment of new members who belong to a different faith (Hicks, 2003 p159-184). They may try to instigate other employees against the new members to the organization. Such resistance may also be considered as a product of prejudices by other existing workers. However, conducting awareness programs for the members concerning diversity could help overcome the resistance. Also, it may be very difficult to attract people of distinguished backgrounds for recruitment process of companies in a particular region. For instance, if the disabled looks at a company not to have a place for them, they are not likely to appear anywhere close to that company seeking for employment since they already have a negative impact.
Deeply rooted ideologies and stereotypes may not allow for achievement of diversity through the recruitment process. For example the belief that elderly people should pave way for new graduate with new ideas may reduce employment opportunities for old people. Also, stereotype about religion and gender may reduce the chance of job seekers of a particular religion, gender, ethnicity to positively enroll in the company.
Conclusion. Certainly, globalization is a force to reckon. It has affected the availability and mobility of labor such as skill, experience and knowledge lead to diversification in an organization. To benefit from this kind of setting; many organizations must adopt diversification in the workforce through formulation of policies that enhance allow diversity. Globalization is a demographic change that indicates great disparities in terms of distribution internationally. For instance the population in the developing world is expected to increase and the other that is already developed and economically stable will remain stable. Countries also participate in the process of globalization through stipulating regulations that govern workforce diversity to ensure that there is equity in the workforce.