Introduction

Understanding diversity is an essential prerequisite for managing the recruitment and selection process. A mindset which actively values diversity will shape all aspects of the process and bring benefits to your team and organization.

In this section we look at what is meant by diversity, its benefits and its relationship to the concept of equality of opportunity and the 'equal opportunity legislation'. We also begin to explore the barriers some people may have towards creating diverse teams as it's commonly recognized that people feel more comfortable selecting people in their own image.

What Does Diversity in the Workplace Mean?

Few people would dispute that every single person is unique; different in some ways to everyone else. Therefore, it could be argued that any group of people is diverse.

However, diversity in the workplace is about selecting people who bring in a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences due to differences in their:

• inherited characteristics (i.e. age, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation)

• culture (the way of doing things we feel comfortable with).

Our culture results from the way we were brought up and live. It's a result of our life experiences something we acquire, develop and can modify throughout our lives. It includes our personal values and beliefs, routines and preferences.

Inherited characteristics (nature) and our culture (nurture)...