Assignment

Question 1
Even though having a diverse workforce brings a lot of advantages for the organization however it may have some downsides too. If a company has a diverse workforce, then it has an added responsibility of creating and maintaining a culture that respects and supports employees that come from different backgrounds. Also, having a diverse workforce could sometimes lead to issues or challenges in communication (Mazur, 2010). If the first language used by the employees is no English, then it may lead to a lot of challenges in communicating effectively with the team and across the teams as well. If the communication is not smooth and effective, it directly impacts the productivity and efficiency of the employees (Klagge 2016).
Another challenge that a company may face when having a diverse workforce is that it will have to deal with reluctance from its certain employees who do not want to accept and respect people from diverse social and cultural backgrounds (Triandis, Kurowski, and Gelfand,1994). A lot of time and energy is required to be spent in dealing with the resistance of the employees towards accepting other people from diverse backgrounds as a part of the organization. In short, it can be said that having a diverse workforce can lead to social tension in the organization which arises due to cultural and language differences amongst the employees.
Apart from the above, having a diverse workforce can also lead to a lot of other workplace issues such as discrimination against certain employees. As revealed by one study, there is a higher probability that African American employees would resign from a diverse workplace, as compared to a white employee.
Question 2
Today, a number of organizations face the issue workplace stress prevailing amongst its employees. There are a lot of factors which contribute towards workplace stress; there could be organizational factor such as discrimination at workplace, lack of growth opportunities, unhealthy competition amongst colleagues, too many policies and rules etc. Apart from organization factors there are personal factors as well which could lead to stress for the employees (Michie 2002). Such factors could be inability to understand the role and key areas of responsibilities, poor work life balance, financial struggles etc. There are certain other factors like poor working conditions, nature of job, inflation, changes in technology etc. which also contribute towards stress of employees. There is no doubt that stress causes a bad effect on the professional performance, health and overall well being of an individual, hence it is very important to manage stress (Michie 2002).
    An individual can follow many strategies at his individual level in order to be able to manage stress in an effective manner. An employee can prepare a to –do list which will hep them plan and prioritize their tasks. It will also enable them to manage their responsibilities properly as it is a lot better to track the tasks assigned to them when all those tasks are listed at one place. It minimizes the possibility of missing out a task (Panigrahi 2016). The second most important thing that an employee can do is take short breaks at regular intervals of time. The employees should also work on their time management as it would enable them to complete their work responsibilities within the specified timeframe and it would be possible for them to maintain a healthy work life balance. (Panigrahi 2016) Thirdly, the employees should adopt a healthy lifestyle and take good care of their health. It is very important to get proper sleep, to have meals on time and have enough water. Also, the employees should involve themselves in some sort of physical exercises too. All these things would keep the employees fit and healthy. An employee can also adopt stress buster techniques such as meditation and yoga which help to calm and relax the mind (Panigrahi 2016).
Question 3
There are certain factors which play a significant role in achieving team based organizational success. There are certain essentials or prerequisites for team based success- sharing the same vision, clearly established roles and responsibilities, clearly defined priorities, strong collaboration...