Respond to the multiple choice mini-scenarios and provide analysis to justify your responses.Please answer within this word document.

Diversity Nightmare

Stephen Gulliford jumped at the chance to take over management of the southeastern regional manufacturing plant for Jordan (pronounced Jerdan) Carpets. With corporate headquarters and the main manufacturing facility located outside Tucson, Arizona, the company expanded four years earlier, with a new facility located in the Antioch section of Nashville, Tennessee.

Since its founding in 1990, the company prided itself on utilizing the knowledge and carpeting/weaving skills of a diverse workforce. The Tucson facility was largely comprised of Mexican-Americans and Native Americans whose cultures boasted outstanding weaving and carpeting traditions.

In an effort to improve production and quality, Stephen had successfully developed and implemented manufacturing teams in the Tucson plant, providing cross-departmental coordination and opening greater opportunity for task variety and responsibility for workers. An environment of friendly competition developed between teams and the plant had experienced improved output through a more inclusive work environment. Native American and Mexican-American employees had worked well together, and communication within and across departments had improved dramatically.

Stephen hoped to bring that same success to the Antioch plant, which suffered from slow production and numerous complaints from both management and workers about the effect of the work environment on morale and performance.

Antioch had been selected as a site for manufacturing because, like Tucson, it offered a community rich in diversity. The southeast corner of Metropolitan Nashville - Davidson County, running from Antioch Pike, spreading west toward Nolensville Road and east to Murfreesboro Pike, was teeming with diverse immigrant populations dominated by Hispanics, but including Somali and Sudanese refugees, an estimated 30,000 Egyptians, the largest Kurdish population outside the Middle East, as well as scatterings of other ethnic groups. An astonishing 93 languages were spoken in Metro schools. Local government, universities, and organizations around the city encouraged dialogue and celebrated diversity, highlighted by Centennial Park's annual Celebration of Cultures. A potential employment pool of hardworking immigrants from cultures rich in carpet-making traditions and in need of jobs made the city a perfect expansion location for Jordan.

Stephen was certain that, like Tucson, the implementation of manufacturing teams throughout the Antioch plant would result in a turnaround in production and overall quality. However, within months of his arrival, one highly respected Antioch department manager resigned in anger, accusing Stephen and other company representatives of undercutting his authority. Another manager who transferred to Antioch from Tucson likewise resigned, claiming the diversity within this plant's workforce made it impossible to build teams or to develop communication. "This is an impossible situation," he reported to Tucson. "The people want to work and need to work. They show up and work hard. But they stick together with others from their own culture, often speaking a native language. I cannot train people or manage cross-department teams when I cannot be understood and I cannot understand them. It's chaos down here."

"We're trying," Stephen assured Tucson. "But communication problems are unbelievable. Just getting information to workers is challenging. We abandoned the overwhelming task of providing basic instructions in a variety of languages and tried the IKEA method of using picture instructions that could be understood by everyone. That works for signage, but not for training materials for team development."

Stephen and his managers' use of on-site interpreters from among the workers was time-consuming and costly, and on occasion, the translations were flawed, leading to mistakes and more delays, particularly in regards to machine maintenance issues.

"We thought we had lucked out," Stephen explained. "Because within each immigrant population in the plant, we have a number of highly educated, English-speaking people who can't get certified here in America in their fields of expertise, and so they take whatever jobs are available. So, for example, I have a guy with a master's degree in architecture and another with an automotive engineering degree. But without going back to school to get the certifications required here in America, they can't get jobs in those fields. So we took these educated people and assigned them as leaders of the various teams. Did that solve our problems? No. Because within the various societies, groups recognize their own leaders, and they may be members of a certain family. We have entire neighborhoods from 'back home' that can completely monopolize that ethnic group. So some teams will listen to and follow my hand-picked, educated, English-speaking guy, and some teams will brush him off."

"If you need a visual representation of the problem," one Antioch manager explained to Carson Anderson, the head of HR in Tucson, "you only have to look at the lunchroom. The Egyptians are all sitting together in one section; the Sudanese are together in another; the Hispanics are somewhere elseand everyone is chattering away in their language...."

"And I'm supposed to take all of this and create working teams?" Stephen complained. "Now I understand why international treaty negotiations break down."

"OK, let's all take a breath here," COO Travis Collins suggested. "Diversity is working in Tucson. You have lots of examples. So why can't we model what's already working and develop a workable structure for this plant?"

1. Which of the following exemplifies a benefit of a diverse workforce?

a. A diverse workforce improves problem-solving capability in the company.

b. Every employee in a diverse group has the same level of job satisfaction.

c. People can communicate easily within diverse groups.

d. A diverse workplace to develop a homogenous environment among employees.

Your Analysis:

2. Maria has worked at the Tucson for fifteen years. She has been a manager for five years. Men who became managers later than her have already been promoted to senior management positions. Jordan Carpets does not have any female senior managers. What problem is Maria facing?

a. Workforce diversity

b. Glass ceiling

c. Ethnic prejudice

d. Employee affinity groups

Your Analysis:

3. Jordan Carpets is considering expanding from the United States to Spain. What problems may be faced by American supervisors relocating to Spain?

a. Glass ceiling

b. Differences in workers' expectations of their leaders in the United States versus Spain

c. Differences in software

d. Communicating with other American supervisors

Your Analysis: