Accountability.

Accountability.

Allen, Dawson, Wheatley and White (13) argues that diversity management programs cannot be successful without holding the managers accountable for implementing its goals through performance management and rewards system. In order to enhance accountability an organization could consider making managers’ performance ratings and compensation dependent on their success in achieving diversity-related goals. Such a move motivates the employees to become personally involved in achieving the diversity goals of the organization. This strategy has become used by the federal government whereby the appraisal criteria of the senior executives depends on how they contribute to the agency’s EEO program. This strategy has motivated the senior executives in the federal government to undertake initiatives such as implementing EEO requirements, and developing zero tolerance for discrimination.

In order to encourage accountability the organization could take some deliberate measures. The first measure is to establish executive-level diversity councils chaired and composed of senior line managers. Each manager should be responsible of ensuring diversity initiatives are fulfilled in his or her line of authority. In addition, managers should be held accountable for developing a work force that mirrors the demographic make-up of the available internal and external labor market.

Participation of the minority-owned based suppliers

Although diversity programs mainly target the minority employees, minority-owned businesses should also be brought on board. Supplier-diversity programs communicate to the community that the organization is committed to pursuing diversity. This initiative is more likely to become successful if the organization establishes a policy aimed at encouraging the participation of minority suppliers.

Evaluation

Although in the last decades organization have embraced diversity management through initiatives such as education, training, communication training, career planning, performance and accountability, cultural-change, employee involvement, they still lag behind when it comes to evaluation programs. Evaluation of the diversity programs is imperative in order to ascertain whether the program has been successful or not. In addition, the evaluation helps to measure the nature of return on investment compared to the costs involved in diversity activities.

Quantitative and qualitative tools are used to evaluate the effectiveness of diversity initiatives. A simple way would be to use employee surveys in order to determine their perceptions. The data collected can then be used to gauge the progress made from the point when the organization began the diversity initiative. Surveys could be used to measure outcomes such as turnover rates, and retention.

Another tool that could be utilized is the 360-degree feedback process. This tool allows management to obtain information related to diversity issues, from the employees. The information collected is then  utilized by the top management to improve the diversity program. Another prominent method is the focus group. Just like the 360-degree process, focus groups are used to gather information from the employees about the progress of the diversity program. Other popular tools include benchmarking, employee feedback, informal group feedback, employee attitude surveys, peer reviews, diversity-specific surveys and customer feedback. Unlike the other tools, customer feedback aims to determine whether the needs of the customers are being met by the company’s products and services.

Although evaluation is an important activity, it is important to note that some components of diversity initiatives are hard to assess. The first component is the impact of the program on the profitability of the organization. It is hard to assess this component because the bottom line performance of an organization is influenced by many factors which makes it is hard to isolate specific diver.............