DIVERSE WORK ENVIRONMENT AT BOSTON SCIENTIFIC

How Diverse Would You Say about the Work Environment is at the Boston Scientific?



How Diverse Would You Say about the Work Environment is at the Boston Scientific?

Introduction

Diversity may seem self-explanatory, yet it may have different meanings in organizations with respect to different contexts. The term is first defined, followed by a historical background, and contrasted with its definition in today's environment (Schaefer, 2007). Diversity issues from the management and employee perspectives are finally considered. This paper discusses and evaluates the diverse work environment at Boston Scientific.

1- How Diverse Would You Say about the Work Environment is at the Boston Scientific?

Speaking in the context of Boston Scientific, diversity in the workplace has been implied as the ongoing interaction between employees and employers with different cultural, ethnic, and racial backgrounds that have significant influences on the operations and management of Boston Scientific. Diversity at Boston Scientific has broadly been redefined as the collective differences and similarities of different dimensions. For example, diversity issues related to demographic characteristics of employees are different from those related to diverse functional issues such as marketing, research, manufacturing, finances, and so on within an organization. Thus, employees' demography and organizational functions are two different dimensions of diversity. In other words, today's workplace diversity at the Boston Scientific represents the complex multidimensional issues involving workers and management of similar and dissimilar nature.

In response to the changing demographics of the workforce, as well as increased competition, Boston Scientific has instituted a variety of programs and practices designed to capitalize on the positive consequences of diversity while minimizing its negative consequences. Boston Scientific uses training and education initiatives to meet the needs and challenges of a more diverse and changing workforce (Schaefer, 2007). Such initiatives are considered important for generating sensitivity and awareness for differences in the workplace, imparting an organization's value for diversity to its members, and providing employees with skills and competencies for operating in multicultural environments. Because diversity training is typically used as one of the first measures to introduce the concept of diversity within the organization, it has traditionally been viewed as the key diversity initiative.

In words of Schaefer (2007) the changing demographics of new entrants to the workforce now demand that organizations reconsider their recruitment strategies to understand how to best compete for and attract potential employees. To recruit and retain a more diverse labor force into critical roles, Boston Scientific has focused on the image they project to potential job seekers as well as the ways in which they interact with job applicants. Boston Scientific is attempting to diversify their recruitment staffs, as recruiter diversity has been shown to enhance an organization's image as an equal opportunity employer that is committed to diversifying its workforce. Recruitment advertisements are also an important tool in recruiting for diversity, especially given that minority job seekers are more likely to use formal sources of job information and recruitment than are nonminority job seekers (Schaefer, 2007). Diverse advertisements are increasingly appearing in mainstream media ...