Managing and appreciating diversity at work

Employers are very cognizant of this fact and have therefore ensured that their policies and practices take into consideration the cultural diversity at their work places.

It is for this reason therefore that deliberate moves have been made to accommodate staff from all walks of life and to try and forge a truly unique new workplace culture.

Employers can no longer afford to stand idly by and ignore the need to break down preconceived cultural biases and deliberately foster team work and a new, vibrant workplace culture.

In many multinational corporations, even the languages spoken in the various jurisdictions are completely different.
Therefore managers will look to pro-actively step up their game as far as improving teamwork is concerned, especially in the midst of a culturally diverse work force.

This is the reason why in their job adverts, employers specifically make reference to the fact that they are equal opportunity employers.

Being an equal opportunity employer means that in their selection and recruitment exercises, they will not practice segregation against any applicant on the basis of their race or tribe, religion, cultural background, gender, disability or even social standing.

Any organisation that looks to register strides of growth will embrace workplace cultural diversity and foster teamwork, completely oblivious of the cultural backgrounds of their staff.

The only allowable exception to practice would be a deliberate attempt to practice affirmative action and increase the numbers of disadvantaged groups at the workplace as a measure of correcting inherited historical biases that had not given a good chance to applicants from these disadvantaged backgrounds.

The positive trend even in Uganda today, is that organisations are becoming very diverse culturally due the international nature of their workforce. This is the way it ought to be.