Diversity

Diversity is defined as the differences based on gender, race, ethnicity, age, and sexual orientation (Schermerhorn, Hunt, & Osborn, 2005). Diversity has a large impact on organizational behavior and culture since each individual may have preconceived notions about a particular group of people. Importance must be placed in educating employees on the differences between individuals to understand that the more diverse workplace that a company has, the more flexible and successful the company can be as a whole. Each employee must learn to celebrate and respect the differences rather than judge based on those differences. This paper will examine how ethnicity, gender, religion and personality traits impact the behavior of people.

The impact that ethnicity has on behavior is clear. Within work and school relationships, influences of ethnicity are experienced on a daily basis. Specifically, the Latino population has influenced the culture of the city of Charlotte. The city has welcomed this population and conformed to the language of these individuals by providing commercials, billboards and stores that are geared towards this population.

LendingTree

English: El-Kattan, Y.; McAtee, J.; Nafion-H. (200...

Organizational Behavior Cover

Companies are also beginning to see the importance of using employees who possess bilingual skills to further profits. At Lending Tree, bilingual consultants were hired and trained to be able to provide service to non-English speaking individuals, allowing for more business and increased revenues. Lending Tree has made monumental strides in ensuring that the company has an ethnic work culture. A Spanish Initiative was introduced which was designed to reach the United States Spanish speaking community. The benefits of this initiative provided an easier way for Spanish speaking individuals to qualify for loans. Additionally, Lending Tree uses a call center located in Mexico to aid in the communication between consultants and customers.

Gender is another type of diversity that has impact on behavior. Being male or female...