Essay on Diversity in the Workplace
Introduction
Today, diversity in the workplace is crucial for the effective organizational performance, especially in the health care environment. The diversity in the workplace is essential for meeting needs of clients of health care organizations but, in actuality, representatives of minorities are still underrepresented in nursing care. As a result, the effectiveness of nursing care decreases because of widening cultural gaps between nurses and their clients. At this point, the current trend to multiculturalism in the contemporary society is the key driver of the diversification in the workplace. Representatives of different ethnic groups and cultures have different norms and needs. Therefore, nurses should be able to meet needs of their clients and avoid offending them that makes diversity in the workplace environment crucial for health care organization and nursing.
Importance of Diversity in the Workplace
In actuality, the importance of diversity in the workplace environment is determined by the cultural diversity of the contemporary society. The contemporary society is culturally diverse and different ethnic groups, which have different cultures, have different level of representation in nursing. The diversity in the workplace in the health care environment affects consistently the effectiveness of performance of nurses. Nurses work with different clients, who have different cultural background. Obviously, if they meet cultural norms and needs of their clients, their performance is effective, if not, they can fail to reach positive effects in nursing care and treatment of patients.
Summary of Ethnic Diversity in the Workplace
Today, the ethnic diversity in the workplace in the health care environment is still relatively low but still it is possible to trace the growing trend to the wider enrollment of representatives of ethnic minorities in nursing care. On the other hand, nurses work with clients, who have different cultural and ethnic background. They have their norms and traditions and nurses cannot ignore these norms and traditions because their actions should meet ethical norms, while the violation of cultural norms and traditions of clients may be offensive and violate professional ethics of nurses.
Underrepresentation of Minorities in Nursing
The current underrepresentation of minorities in nursing raises the problem of the adequate provision of nursing care services to patients. In fact, nurses representing minorities are relatively few but still they can work effectively with patients, who represent their communities because they understand them better than nurses from the mainstream culture and dominant ethnic group. Therefore, the underrepresentation of minorities raises the problem of the lack of cultural experience and skills of nurses to meet needs and cultural norms of their patients.
Influence of Diversity on Nursing Care
In fact, the diversity has a considerable impact on nursing care because the diversity defines the effectiveness of nursing care. In addition, the diversity affects the cultural competence of nurses and their ability to meet needs and norms of their clients. The diversity in the workplace environment increases the overall performance of nurses because they become culturally competent and capable to work with diverse patients.
Summary
Thus, the diversity in the workplace environment is very important in the contemporary nursing care. However, ethnic minorities are still underrepresented in the contemporary health care environment. The underrepresentation of minorities leads to the lack of cultural competence of nurses and low effectiveness of their performance.
