Developing Teamwork Productivity in Diverse Workforce Essay

Developing Teamwork Productivity in Diverse Workforce - Essay Example In a team, the unique skills can be combined in effective ways. However, it is not as simple as creating a team and waiting for results. For a team to be effective, attention must be paid to several other areas. This will now be discussed by describing some of the important considerations necessary to creating effective teams. The first major benefit of teamwork is that it allows organizations to make use of the skills and abilities of all its employees. Another benefit of teamwork is that an organization requires that individuals work together. Even if teams are not present, all of the individuals within an organization are working together to achieve some overall goal. This makes it logical to suggest that an organization will function better if all the employees are able to work well together. In a diverse workforce, this can be a problem because individual differences are often a source of conflict. In response, many employees will avoid working with people they consider as different. When this occurs, the differences become greater rather than lesser. The importance of teamwork in a diverse workforce is that it forces individuals to come together and work together. In doing so, they gain a greater understanding of each other and differences are bridged. Even if the team does not continue to operate, the workplace overall has been improved by the process. This is an important benefit to a diverse organization. Of course, teams have disadvantages as well as advantages. One of the cons is that they may not be as efficient as having individuals working independently. Team members may be spending time trying to function as part of the team, where this time could be being spent completing work tasks. This con recognizes that it takes time and effort to manage and run a team. Another con is that it can be more difficult to manage and control a team. In a workplace without teams, tasks could be assigned and employees managed by their supervisor. This is a reasonably simple approach that makes it easy to control processes. If a task is not being completed effectively, the organization only needs to look at who is responsible for a certain task. This is more complicated if a team is present because it means that the task is owned by many It may not be a simple process of identifying and solving the problem. Another con is that teams often create conflict in the workplace. In diverse teams, conflic t can be greater because individual differences make it difficult for people to communicate and understand each other. In some cases, individuals may consider themselves as different to everyone else, reject their role in the team, and isolate themselves from others. In other cases, diverse individuals that share common traits may group together. This can create division in a team accompanied by struggles over power. These are all reasons that a team created to produce positive results can actually have a negative impact on the organization. There are also complicating factors related to motivating people in teams. A major part of motivation is providing positive rewards for desired behavior. If individuals are working independently, it is generally easy to identify desired behavior and provide rewards to encourage it. In a team, it is more complicated. Firstly, individuals are best motivated when the rewards