Recently, Starbucks closed their business for a half day of diversity training. This is an example of when an organization excelled at taking advantage of multiculturalism to promote their image and to help employees better understand how to be sensitive to diverse people. The training was something that arose out of a failure that the company encountered when a black customer was discriminated against.
Therefore, this company has found a way to change the negative experience of the multicultural offense into an opportunity for multicultural growth. The CEO of Starbucks recognizes that society has become increasingly multicultural and that it is therefore necessary to embrace diversity and promote diversity (Calfas, 2018). The organization, Citigroup, has historically maintained one of the best multicultural and divers hiring practices in the nation (Persio, 2018). The way that this has helped employees is that it has given them an advantage over less diverse workplaces. Citigroup is better able to relate to its customer-base.
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Examples of an organization failing at diversity are the incident at Starbucks that prompted the rehabilitation diversity training. Another organization that failed in the area of diversity and multiculturalism is Simon Property Group which has zero diversity in their management (Persio, 2018). The company is not interested in increasing diversity, and they look at the inclusion of minorities and women as fulfilling a legal requirement, but not as an ethical and beneficial business ideal (Persio, 2018). These failures are examples of the ways that employees can represent an entire organization’s cultural values.
Furthermore, the impact on the employee is a lack of morale because the work environment will not reflect the real world—which is an increasingly diverse world. Starbucks has at least meliorated its negative failure; however, Simon Property Group has not made any transformations in regard to their diversity and multicultural policies.
- Calfas, J. (2018). Starbucks is closing all its U.S. stores for diversity training day. Experts say that’s not enough. Time. Retrieved from http://time.com/5287082/corporate-diversity-training-starbucks-results/
- Persio, G. (2018). The best (and worst) companies for workplace diversity. Investopedia. Retrieved from https://www.investopedia.com/articles/professionals/072815/best-and-worst-companies-workplace-diversity.asp
