DIVERSITY

  

Florida JobLink™ is an Affirmative Action/EOE Advocate.  It is our goal that our

services benefit all parties involved with Leap Hire.com™, Florida JobLink™ and

all of our other network sites. We hope that all employers will share our ideals.

 

Our Career Fairs support diversity initiatives and embrace the attendance of all

candidates, of all races, religions, lifestyles and physical abilities.  We go the

distance to support employers who offer opportunities to differently abled

indivuduals.

 

Can Workplace Diversity Really Be Managed? 

 

Workplace Diversity is a multi-faceted concept that continues to evolve as more industries move toward a global marketplace.  In order to understand the necessities and benefits of managing workplace diversification, the concept must be fully explored.

 

In the broadest sense, the management of diversity is a business’s reaction to rapid cultural and sociological changes.  Internally, diversity management means providing a climate where all employees feel that they are valued by and contributing to an organization.  Externally, it means that organizations are flexible and astute about changes occurring in world markets.  The hard truth, however, is that inequalities exist for employees within organizations due to stereotyping and preconceived ideas about a person based on race, gender, religious or cultural origins, age, physical or mental limitations, and more.  Racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. can not be managed away.  It is precisely these beliefs and perceptions that necessitate managing diversity.

 

Managing Diversity Is Not Affirmative Action. 

 

Affirmative Action and the language of Equal Opportunity came as a political response to the social outcry over the racial and social injustices that limited equal access to the workplace.  One of the problems with Affirmative Action is that it began to be perceived as a public relations scheme more concerned about quotas than about individuals.  Managing diversity in the workplace strives to ensure that when an individual is hired, they should be able to trust that they have been chosen because of their unique qualifications, not because of gender or ethnicity. 

 

We have moved from a use of words like unfairness, inequality, and injustice toward terms such as ethnic diversity, political correctness, and cultural consciousness.  Have we changed our perceptions of the problems of workplace inequality or just the way we describe it?

 

Diversity consciousness cannot be simply mandated into a system, integrated into a corporate culture, or prompted by financial incentives.  It is reflective of an attitude that organizations and their staffs must adopt that will allow them to change their basic concepts about workers and convert “them” into “us".