Diversity Management

Diversity management is an important topic today in human resource management. Organizations take steps to comply with equal opportunity law and affirmative action; however, diversity management is more involved. Diversity is considered to be an asset to organizations. According to a study conducted by the International Personnel Management Association, “diversity efforts in the workplace facilitate the exchange of new perspectives, improve problem solving by inviting different ideas, and create a respectful, accepting work environment, all of which make good business sense (Reichenberg, 2001).”

Organizations that go beyond the law and embrace diversity within will benefit greatly. Embracing diversity seems relatively easy but developing a diverse environment that has a positive effect can be somewhat taxing and requires proper planning and execution. This paper will analyze and critique a diversity management plan developed by Francoise Roy, the Human Resources Director for the People’s Bank of Quebec (PBQ).

Roy’s plan consists of five steps that are supported by associated activities to accomplish each step (Panaccio and Waxin, 2010). The first step in Roy’s action plan is to design and implement global equity, anti-harassment, and staffing policies. Additionally, managers will be trained on the requirements of the Employment Equality Act and a reward program will be implemented “to recognize the efforts of managers and employees who adopt practices that promote diversity” (Panaccio and Waxin, 2010).

By designing and implementing policy, Roy is ensuring that information is available. By making this information available, the importance of diversity is publicized. It is important for Roy to do this early on in the process because it will be easier to gain support from both managers and senior bank leadership.

As far as a logical time frame, Roy is making sure that policy is developed prior to pushing for training. This makes sense because training would be incomplete without policy to fall back on. Additionally, policy formalizes the process by establishing rules and procedures (Reichenberg, 2001). One thing that Roy needs to do prior to publishing the policy is gain support from senior leadership. Bringing in diversity management professionals to discuss the importance of diversity and how PBQ will benefit from a well-executed diversity management program will insure top-level leadership is truly on board. After this training has taken place, the CEO should publish a letter establishing the policy and explaining the importance of diversity management. This would carry more weight than Roy implementing the plan without top-level support. Panaccio and Waxin (2010) support this idea, saying it will show the bank’s commitment to change.

Looking at the framework of HR diversity management presented by Shen, et al (2009), one can see that by setting rules and practices