Diversity: too hot to handle?

Management styles and behaviours that worked in the past are no longer appropriate in companies where diversity exists, says Hafisa Ally, a hospital manager of a top healthcare group and a guest speaker at a recent "Women in Business" conference, hosted by Marcus Evans.

The corporate lament, she says is: "We recruited black managers and paid them well. But as soon as we think we're getting somewhere, we find that our staff turnover within these groups is escalating. Perhaps we should continue business as usual if this sort of thing is going to happen."

Companies that do the numbers game hurt themselves, as well as their politically correct recruits. People have titles and corporate toys, but are excluded from decision-making and adding real value to the company, Ally points out. Diversity, she says, represents the multitude of individual differences that exist among people that also make all of us unique and different from others.

"Managing diversity pertains to everybody. It is not an issue of age,
race or gender. Neither is it an issue of being heterosexual, gay or lesbian, or Catholic, Jewish, Protestant or Muslim."

Affirmative Action, she explains, is a short-term strategy to open corporate doors for previously disadvantaged people.

Managing Diversity, Ally says, is a planned, systematic and comprehensive managerial process for developing an organizational environment in which all employees, with their similarities and differences, can contribute to the strategic and competitive advantage of an organization.

"No-one is to be excluded on the basic of factors relating to productivity. It entails enabling people to perform up to their maximum potential", says Ally.

She points out the strategic importance to diversity is that diverse groups: