Management of Diversity and

Inclusion in the Workplace

WHITE PAPER
Diversity management is one of the most recent HR developments for global organizations to remain competitive
in the market. Organizations are widely promoting and taking tremendous strides in endorsing the business case
for diversity while also creating increased awareness about the importance of diversity. The present paper outlines
the need for implementing diversity management practices in the workplace and discusses the challenges and
complexities in its implementation. The paper emphasizes the need to have robust diversity and inclusion practices
in the workplace and the business benefits that can be realized with the help of a research case study in one of the
leading ITES services organizations globally, Aegis Limited.

An Introduction to Diversity and Inclusion

The definition of the term “diversity and inclusion” goes much beyond the factors of race and gender or a simple
‘Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)’ strategy. Organizations have started to recognize that race and gender are
only two of many diversity factors such as age, cultural background, style, perspectives, values & beliefs, ethnicity,
culture and many more. In fact, today diversity is considered as one of the key elements of competitive advantage
and key differentiator as it helps improve the creativity and productivity of the workforce.
There are many strategies that companies are adopting to manage diversity. These are in the form of top
management support, linking diversity to recruitment, selection, placement, succession planning, performance
management and rewards, creating a positive working environment, mentoring programs for diverse workforce,
creation of a support system and linking diversity initiatives with changing demographics and social changes.
Although this concept is still evolving, diversity management in organizations is viewed as a holistic process that is
largely dependent upon the degree of organizational and individual awareness and understanding of diversity. The
present paper is a discussion and analysis of various facets of diversity management practices in the workplace.
The analysis is substantiated with the help of a case study of diversity management practices at a leading global
business services provider of customer experience management, Aegis Limited. The other section throws light on
the need for incorporating diversity and inclusion practices in an organization.

The need for Diversity and Inclusion

In the current era of increased globalization, augmented competition and rapid demographic changes, organizations
are finding ways to address the needs of a
rapidly changing heterogeneous workforce.
1 This has paved the way for the management of
diversity and inclusion in the organization. The
adjacent figure depicts the critical factors
Range of which are compelling organizations to look
Consumer
deeply into the area of diversity and inclusion.
Needs Competitive
Advantage • Range of Consumer Needs: With a
2 widespread customer base, organizations
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have realized that they can best serve
Increase in Need for different customer groups in many different
markets with the help of a more diverse
Creativity & Diversity and
Innovation workforce.
Inclusion
• Competitive Advantage: An organization with
a diverse workforce can effectively adapt to
Globalization market changes, can better understand
and Migration foreign markets and customer needs and can
Ageing increase organizational flexibility thus leading
Population to an enhanced competitive advantage.
4 3 • Globalization & Migration: Organizations are
growing multifold globally with footprints

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 spreading across various geographies with different nationalities, languages, culture, customs and traditions.
In such a scenario, it is critical for organizations to have a diverse workforce to manage their global operations.
• Ageing Population: New advances in health care have raised the number of matured age people staying
active, which has resulted in increased workers’ age. This trend necessitates organizations to build environment
that can be adapted to the different age workers, and modify existing processes to involve senior profiles.
• Increase in Creativity & Innovation: A diverse workforce offers more creativity since more ideas are
garnered from different people, insightful alternatives are offered and the potential benefits include greater
success in the market and a better distribution of economic opportunity.
The next section is a detailed review and discussion of the literature and research studies in the field of diversity
management. It provides the foundation for understanding the concept of diversity & inclusion and throws some
light on various methods to endorse and foster the same.

Researches in Diversity Management

There are few research studies that argue that the concept of diversity should be restricted only to specific cultural
categories, while many research studies strongly advocate a broader perspective, and argue that diversity must
encompass all the possible ways people can differ other than just race and gender.
A few significant research studies are quoted below which underline the fact that managing diversity is a significant
component in today’s global arena to achieve the desired competitive advantage:

a) ‘Best Practices for Managing Organizational Diversity’ by Patricia A. Kreitz1

This study highlights two important studies done in the field of organizational diversity management:
i) Aronson’s study in 2002 discussed in his article on “Managing the diversity revolution: Best practices for 21st
century business” and
ii) The US Government Accountability Office’s (US G.A.O.) 2005 report on “Diversity management:
Expert-identified leading practices and agency examples”.
Aronson gives an excellent overview of workplace diversity and outlines four key practices for diversity
management as described in the figure below:

Commitment Bringing people Where an organization Develop a strategic

from the top on board currently stands plan to promote

The GAO’s review identifies nine best practices for diversity management as described in the figure below.
Both Aronson’s and the GAO’s best practices recommend mixing broad diversity implementation and this
study is built out of the often small, everyday actions taken by people at all levels of an organization.

b) ‘Workforce Diversity Management: Biggest Challenge for 21st Century Managers’ by Ms. Parul Deshwal
and Dr. Supriya Choudhary2
This study identifies the factors on which diversity management is based by conducting a survey of about 120
employees in WNS, IBM, HCL, Maruti Suzuki and Coca Cola offices in India thus focusing on different domains
like IT, Production and FMCG.
The survey findings emphasize the fact that in these large multinational organizations, majority of employees are
recognizing the efforts their organizations are making for creating a diverse and inclusive work environment. The
paper also highlights critical conditions which would make workforce diversity a success in any organization
such as objectivity of performance standards, importance of diversity trainings and mentoring programs,

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 inter-cultural communication opportunities, clear and
concise communication on company policies and the
Recruitment role of senior management in entrusting a culture of
diversity in the organization.
c) ‘How Companies in India are Leveraging the
Succession Diversity Business Benefits of Diversity & Inclusion’ by
planning Training Anjana Nathwani3
This report presents the observations and conclusions
Diversity linked
Top leadership
from a research study and individual case study write-ups
to performance Accountability
commitment from various companies that are leveraging business
benefits of diversity and inclusion. The key characteristics
of such organizations are described below:
Employee
involvement Measurement
• These organizations have a strong leadership
commitment towards diversity and are also making
leaders formally accountable for diversity and
Diversity part of
organizational inclusion through the performance management
strategic
plan system. This helped to ensure that diversity and
inclusion is integrated as part of the overall
business objective.

• These organizations put a greater focus on gender diversity and all organizations continue to focus on ensuring
that female talent is represented across all tiers of the organization especially in senior roles. In addition to gender
diversity, age diversity is also increasingly becoming an important strand of diversity.
• Such organizations have in place flexible working policies which act as primary drivers for diversity and inclusion.
• These organizations ensured that implementation of their Diversity and Inclusion action plan took into
consideration the expectations and requirements of employees and customers from the different areas.
There are other in-depth research studies in this area such as the study by Aon Hewitt 4 which studies the
capabilities organizations need to build in their workforce to make them cross-culturally competent or the study
conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) 5 that provides a snapshot of how diversity
affects FORTUNE 1000 organizations and those organizations listed in FORTUNE’s Top 100 Companies to Work
for list. In a nutshell, these research studies, irrespective of whether they adopt a narrow or broad perspective,
make a strong case in favor of incorporating diversity and inclusion practices in an organization.
Although such is the case, there are innumerable challenges to diversity management. It has been observed that it
is difficult for people to work effectively with people unlike themselves. The following section discusses the key
challenges being faced by organizations in imbibing a culture of diversity and inclusion.

Key Challenges
It has been observed that managing diversity is much more, beyond simply acknowledging differences in people
and involves recognizing the value of differences, combating discrimination, and promoting inclusiveness. Some of
the key challenges are depicted in the following figure:
a) Collaboration issues: As heterogeneous personnel show a different range of backgrounds & experiences,
use different languages, have different priorities, there are multiple collaboration related risks such as
friction, disagreements and conflicts, due to different ideologies.
b) Effective implementation: Even though an organization recognizes the criticality of diversity management,
it faces challenges in implementing it effectively. It is essential for an organization to learn how to work with
differences, and determine the right mix of skills that must be involved in a working process.
c) Elimination of discriminatory barriers: One of the most crucial challenges in diversity management is how
to eliminate discriminatory barriers and prejudices and exchange them for maintaining productive
environment, equivalent rewarding system and overall job satisfaction.

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d) Consensus building: Diversity can generate ethnocentrism, stereotyping and cultural clashes. Thus it is often
difficult to build consensus when there is cultural diversity within organizations. The negative consequence of
such dynamics may decrease productivity, increase turnover and absenteeism.

e) Unsupportive and hostile working environment: An

unsupportive and hostile working environment for diverse
Collaboration employees may lead to diverse employees being
issues excluded from social activities and thus prevented from
Not seen as
organizational Effective forming networks among other employees.
priority implementation
f) Fear of being discriminated: People fear being
discriminated against and therefore are reluctant to
Fear of being
Key apply for jobs where there are different nationalities or
discriminated Challenges Elimination of cultures other than theirs.
discriminatory
barriers g) Not seen as an organizational priority: In many
Unsupportive organizations, despite consistent efforts, employees
and hostile Consensus sometimes may not view diversity efforts as
working building contributing to the success of the organization. It is
environment
a challenge for an organization to empower its
employees to imbibe the culture of diversity in their day
to day operations.
Diversity and Inclusion
Today, organizations are constantly striving to eliminate the above challenges to ensure that workforce diversity is
part of its day-to-day business conduct. The next section delves deeper into the area of diversity management at
workplace and specifically discusses the diversity practices being incorporated by Aegis Limited.

Diversity and Inclusion at Workplace - Case study of Aegis Limited

Today, organizations look at diversity in the workforce as a competitive advantage because different viewpoints
can facilitate unique and creative approaches to problem-solving. This increases creativity and innovation and
leads to better organizational performance. For organizations, this means that their market share, efficiency, human
capital, international competitiveness and level of innovation will depend in part upon their ability to effectively
manage a diverse workforce both within and across organizational boundaries.

The remainder of the paper discusses the research study

conducted in Aegis Limited and its world-wide affiliates. The
Inclusion of organization has three major lines of businesses viz. Customer
Indigenous Person with
Lifecycle Management Business, Enterprise Technology and
People Disabilities
Shared Services Business, and employs 40,000+ employees
across 9 countries.

Aegis follows a hexagonal approach to Diversity comprising of

Mature Age Six Dimensional
Gender Persons with Disabilities (PwDs), Gender Inclusivity, Socially &
People Diversity Model inclusivity
of Aegis Economically Disadvantaged People, Culturally & Linguistically
Diverse People, Mature Age People and Indigenous People as
shown in the figure below.
Culturally &
Socially &
Linguistically
Economically a. Research Study Objectives
Diverse People
Disadvantaged
Key objectives of the study have been outlined below
which are mapped in 7 dimensions:

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 i. To study various facets of workforce diversity that Aegis is deploying apart from gender
ii. To understand the penetration of different diversity practices across the organization
iii. To understand the perception of employees’ on workforce diversity
iv. To understand demographically the impact of diversity practices
v. To understand the role of diversity practices in customer satisfaction
vi. To understand the impact of diversity practices on employee engagement
vii. To understand the impact of diversity practices on business performance

b. Research Methodology:

i. Sampling and Data Collection:

The universe chosen for the purpose of research study comprised of 39795 regular employees employed in
7 countries viz. India, Malaysia, Argentina, Australia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia and UK across the globe. A
total of 4607 respondents (including 468 PwDs) were chosen through a mix of stratified random sampling
and convenience sampling.
A survey questionnaire was developed to examine the perceptions of employees regarding diversity and
inclusion policies and practices.

ii. Tools for investigation:

The research work was predicated on primary and secondary source of information. Primary data was
collected from all the 7 locations of the organization, administering the Schedule comprising of the
Demographic Profile and the Diagnostic Questionnaire, and collecting first-hand information through
personal interviews. Secondary data was collected through various documents, qualitative interactions,
surveys, online tools and intranet of the organization. To supplement the secondary data, the views of Senior
Management in the organization were also incorporated.

iii. Scoring & Measurement of Variables:

The different items in the Schedule indicate different scale factors i.e. variables relating to both the
dependent variable and the intervening variables were provided on a Likert pattern of 5-point scale from
Strongly Agree (5) to Strongly Disagree (1)

c. Results and Findings

The overall results show that most of the survey respondents were of the view that diversity is ingrained in
each of the employees at all levels of management. For most participants, diversity goes beyond gender and
differently-abled employees and extended to various other facets. The detailed statistical findings are
tabulated in Annexure – 1. Specific key findings can be summarized as below:
i. After applying factor analysis on the seven factors as identified above and analysing mean scores, it was
observed that Aegis adheres to a healthy, acceptable and vibrant diversity culture of its own and the
process it employs to implement the same is also to the satisfaction of its employees. However, more
efforts can be made in improving the perceptions of employees with regard to the impact of diversity on
business performance.
ii. The dimension-wise analysis shows that all respondents favourably perceived the company’s
commitment to incorporate, disseminate and propagate Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) practices in the
workplace. It also observes that diversity and inclusion is a focal point in the organization and that diverse
perspectives were valued and encouraged.
iii. The study also shows that at Aegis, there is a structural framework of diversity that provides a positive and
constructive environment for PwDs, females, mature age people and all other facets of diversity.
iv. The study notes that majority of employees strongly believe that diversity has a robust correlation with
customer satisfaction and also creates a significant impact on employee engagement, satisfaction and
commitment to achieve greater organizational results.
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 v. For most participants, diversity goes beyond gender and differently-abled employees and extended to
various other facets. For them diversity is the ability of the employees to accept the differences, work
together and produce superior results.
vi. A large majority of the respondents from the differently-abled category believed that they were given
autonomy to participate in the decision-making and also felt part of the larger community.
vii. It was also observed that Human Resource function had cascaded lot of programs on diversity and
inclusion which enhanced the awareness of employees such as induction, training and various other
sensitization programs.
In summary, the interpretations of the survey results showed a high proportion of favourable responses towards all
the facets of diversity both at the micro and macro level analysis. The findings emphasize the fact that the company
has deployed various initiatives which act as remarkable enablers in building a diverse and inclusive workplace.
These include leadership commitment and implementation of progressive policies like Human Rights, Equal
Employment Opportunity, Prevention of Gender Harassment, Policy on Affirmative Action amongst others.
From the research study, it can be concluded that Aegis has a fairly evolved model of Diversity and Inclusion
framework and is in the process of constantly refining and assessing this practice in order to make it more
sustainable and viable. This has helped to stimulate social, economic, intellectual and emotional growth of all
stakeholders, adapt to new market changes and increase organizational flexibility. This has led to enhanced
competitive advantage.

Conclusion
With increased globalization and growing competition, organizations are recognizing that the management of
diversity goes much beyond the common factors of race and gender and thus are shifting their mind set and
broadening the gestalt of diversity. There are several research studies which emphasize the pressing need of
diversity and inclusion practices in an organization and also provide best practices and guidance in order to
effectively manage diversity at workplace. Although there are multiple challenges an organization faces while
managing diversity at workplace, the findings of the research study conducted at Aegis clearly indicate that if there
is an incessant commitment from the top management for imbibing diversity in the work culture, the organization
can leverage the business benefits of diversity and inclusion and gain competitive advantage.

1. Annexure1: Schematic Representation of Factor analysis and Dimension-wise Analysis

Mean Standard Statements on Dissemination

Deviation of Practices

Diversity Model 4.2412 .49605 80

78.91 80.8 80.0280.76 81.41 81.9
78.05
80.59 81.65 79.9 79.89 78.88

Dissemination of Practices 4.2091 .48886

60
Employee's Perception 4.2180 .48172
Percentage

Impact on Community 4.1718 .56461 40

Impact on Customer 4.1957 .52101

Satisfaction 20

Impact on Employee 4.2313 .47999

0
Engagement
DP 1

DP 2

DP 3

DP 4

DP 5

DP 6

DP 7

DP 8

DP 9

DP 10

DP 11

DP 12

Impact on Business 4.1561 .54385 Dissemination of Different

Performance Diversity Practices

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 Statements on Statements on Impact Statements on impact on
Employee Perception on Community Customer Satisfaction

82.23 80.37 80.14 81.75 80.22 79.35 79.81 80 79.86

79.75 79.47 79.83 80.06 78.33
80 80 80

60 60 60

Percentage
Percentage
40 40 40
Percentage

20 20 20

0 0 0
EP 1

EP 2

EP 3

EP 4

EP 5

EP 6

EP 7

EP 8

C1

C2

C3

CS 1

CS 2

CS 3
Perception of Employees Impact of Diversity Practices Impact of Diversity Practices
on Workplace Diversity on Community on Customer Satisfaction

Statements on impact on Statements on impact on Statements related to

Employee Engagement Business Performance Diversity Model

81.25 81.77 81.71 81.77 79.83 82.61 81.19

80.19 80.03 80.62 80.94 80.38 80.25 78.26 78.22 79.09
80 80 80

60 60 60
Percentage
Percentage

Percentage

40 40 40

20 20 20

0 0 0
DM 1

DM 2

DM 3

DM 4

DM 5

DM 6
EE 1

EE 2

EE 3

EE 4

EE 5

EE 6

EE 7

BP1

BP2

BP3

Impact of Diversity Practices Impact of Diversity Practices Various Facets of Workplace

on Employee Engagement on Business Performance Diversity Model

2. References
1. Best Practices for Managing Organizational Diversity, Patricia A. Kreitz, Director, Technical Information
Services, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University, Stanford
2. Workforce Diversity Management: Biggest Challenge for 21st Century Managers: Ms. Parul Deshwal,
Assistant Professor, Maharaja Surajmal Institute and Dr. Supriya Choudhary, Associate Professor, Maharaja
Surajmal Institute, Delhi
3. How Companies in India are Leveraging the Business Benefits of Diversity & Inclusion, Anjana Nathwani,
Senior Director – Emerging Markets, Report on Seminar held in Mumbai – March 2010
4. White paper by Aon Hewitt on “Diversity and Inclusion: Making the Mix Work”
5. Impact of Diversity Initiatives on the Bottom Line- SHRM

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About the author
S.M. Gupta
S.M.Gupta steers the Human Resource (HR) function in respect of multicultural, multilingual and
socio-economically diverse 41000+ strong workforce of Aegis as the Global Chief People Officer. He brings with
him over 29 years of HR experience across IT, ITES, Telecom, Retail, Oil and FMCG sectors. Through his strategic
vision, astute decision making and unmatched execution, he has enabled and inspired innovative people
strategies, policies and programs for Aegisites across 10 countries. As a result of his indefatigable passion for
excellence and spirit for achievement, Aegis has been conferred with 74 distinct HR awards from industry bodies
such as Aon Hewitt, Great Place to Work, NASSCOM, CII, SHRM, People Matters, NCPEDP, Business World and
BPeSA among others. He serves as a Director on Board for several Aegis entities/ associate companies including
CCC, the joint venture company of STC and Aegis in Saudi Arabia and is also a Governing Board member of the
National Abilympic Association of India. A distinguished speaker and a thought leader at various forums and
associations, he is committed to working towards creating a progressive workplace, and is a true believer in
inclusion and diversity.

For more information, write to us at

[email protected] or visit www.aegisglobal.com

Copyright 2017, Aegis Limited. All rights reserved.

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