Organizational Behavior and Teamwork

Introduction

Organizational Behavior (OB) is the study and application of knowledge about how people, individuals, and groups act in organizations by taking a system approach. That is, it interprets people-organization relationships in terms of the whole person, whole group, whole organization, and whole social system. Workplace diversity can be defined as difference between people within an organization. It might sound simple but it encompasses: gender, race, ethnic group, age, cognitive style personality, tenure, organizational function, education, background among other. Diversity not only involves how individual perceive themselves but the manner in which they perceive others. The perception is likely to affect the interactions. For wide assortment of employees to function effectively within a given organization, human resource management professionals must deal with issues of diversity appropriately. Such issues include adaptability, change, and communication. This is due to the fact that diversity is likely to increase significantly in the coming years. Successful organizations recognize the need for immediate action and are ready and willing to spend resources on managing diversity at workplace.
Challenges of diversity in the workplace

Taking full advantage of the benefits of diversity in an organization or workplace is not without its challenges, some of these challenges include:

Communication – Perpetual, cultural, and language barrier need to be overcome for diversity programs to succeed. Ineffective communication leads to confusion, lack of team work and low morale. Another challenge is being resistant to change; there are various employees who will not accept the fact that social and cultural makeup of their workplace is changing. This is usually because they mentally silences new ideas and inhibits