Thinking About Diversity and Inclusion
Soc 315
Alexandra Rycar
July 28, 2014

Thinking About Diversity and Inclusion

What is diversity? “Diversity is about business and the bottom line and about leveraging the skills and talents of all employees to enable the organization to compete. Diversity is not about reaching quotas and hiring unqualified minorities for the sake of “having diversity” (SHRM, 2007) (Harvey & Allard, 2009). The dimensions of cultural diversity are made of different views by comparing us to all the different race groups that we tend to work with or share the workplace. The workplace is shared by many individuals that are all different and we all come from a different nationalities and have different believes as well as behavior and that is what makes diversity. Some of these dimensions
• Race
• Gender
• Sexual Orientation
• Education
• Religion
• Work Experience

I identify myself with the Hispanic Culture, I am Mexican and when it comes to work diversity this puts at the bottom of the chain. I have to say that there are other races in the work place like African Americans that are also considered minorities and have to deal with being treated differently because of the way they talk or the color of their skin that could be considered one of the things that we have in common. We both generate from immigrants at one point in history to get to this beautiful Country and have had trouble whether learning the language or developing our careers or lives in the US. You could also say that we have in common food, clothing and many other aspects of the everyday life, we tend to have big families at young ages and have to deal with trying to fit in everywhere we go, especially at the work place. Trying to fit in may be difficult for all different races, especially the ones considered minorities.

The difference between diversity and inclusion could be that diversity means or refers to a group of people that share things among each other or exist under one roof. There is diversity among each other such as age, race, color of skin, level of education, religious believes, etc. and this makes diversity stand out in the work place. Inclusion, could be referred to the welcoming for people in an organization. It can be how an individual feels when he is welcomed to a new company for many reasons that may or may not be familiar to his/her race, color, etc. Many companies may practice inclusion as much as they have diversity and can be recognized by the reputation of a company. Unfortunately now in days, diversity and inclusion have a substantial difference and companies are changing the views towards individuals and what they have to offer.

All companies should always provide this training to all their employees since the majority of employees in most companies come from different Countries or have different backgrounds or believes. These types of training could serve as explanation to the employees that we can all develop cultural sensitivity, sex, background, etc…and we are all not so