Cultural Diversity-Worksheet
We have presented a few scenarios below related to workplace diversity. Go through the scenarios and mention how the following scenarios make you view workplace diversity as.
After interviewing a few aspirants to fill a direct support position, one HR remarked in front of his colleague, “Let’s go for this guy; Asians are hard workers and really practical.”
Salma clearly mentioned it to her supervisor, Kim that her religion prevents her from performing CPR on someone, if such emergency rose and would also not want someone to perform it on her. Although Kim understood the gravity of the matter and see Salma’s conviction in this matter, she was required to have one CPR-certified staff member on duty at all times, as per policy. Kim was at a loss of ideas on how to handle the situation.
Beth is a manager at an old people’s home. She manages a multi-cultural staff. Beth believes that the best way in which she can respect all her staff members is by treating them as same. Her logic was that this would minimize the potential conflicts between the staff members. However, she could sense some tension and friction in the mind of one of the staff member, Shamaa.
When asked, Shamaa told that, her culture prohibits men and women to interact closely, however Beth has assigned her the responsibility of assisting some male residents with their personal hygiene.
The company that Issac works for hosts a Christmas Party every year. Joseph expressed his concern to his supervisor that there are staff members like him who don’t celebrate Christmas. His supervisor told Issac that, he is being overly sensitive and the celebration isn’t religious is nature. Having said that, the supervisor did change the name of the event from “Annual Christmas Party” to “Annual Holiday Party”, but everything else has remained the same, including the Santa Claus.
Hadi was having a discussion with his supervisor at the restaurant he worked in, when he told him that he would start fasting during daylight hours starting from the next day for the entire month, as it was the month of Ramadan. His supervisor found this interesting and asked Hadi more about his religious beliefs. The next day, Hadi found out that he has been assigned the job duty of preparing all the meals for the day.
Sissy was attending to a new customer who had stopped in front of her counter at the jewelry store. Without making any assumptions, Sissy asked the customer about her heritage and learnt that the customer’s family had immigrated to the United States many generations ago.
Sissy also found it interesting that the customer said she was proud of her culture and still celebrates some of the important holidays of her culture, however, she and her family speak only English at home and have adopted many practices of their new country.
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