Managing a Diverse Workforce

This chapter discusses the conditions that may impact workforce diversity outcomes and their underlying processes. Managing a diverse workforce is a growing concern for many public organizations that aim to improve their representativeness and responsiveness. This is a complex challenge given the multiple and sometimes conflicting motives that underpin public organizations’ HR and diversity policies. Public organizations aspire to workforce diversity in order to diminish discrimination and to support the inclusion of underrepresented groups. At the same time, workforce diversity can be seen as a resource that informs work practices and policies, enhancing organizational performance. Since workforce diversity may yield group processes with positive as well as negative consequences for individual and organizational outcomes, the role of leadership gains more attention. Leaders’ influence in fostering inclusiveness in diverse work groups is highly relevant and is increasingly being explored, both in academia and in practice. The chapter concludes with a conceptual framework that may guide future research.