DIVERSITY
INTRODUCTION
Diversity is generally defined as understanding, recognizing and accepting individual differences irrespective of their gender, race ,class, age, ethnicity, Sexual orientation, spiritual practice and so on. Gobbler (2002:46) also supports this view by adding that each individual is unique but also shares any number of biological or environmental characteristics. Diversity can be classified into two groups. The primary dimension such as age, gender, sexual orientation and so on, exhibits the main differences between various individuals.
These primary differences also have a lot of impact on the initial encounters and can be easily noticed and serves as filters with which people view the world while secondary dimensions such as religion, education, geographical location, income etc., are those qualities that are not noticeable in the first encounter and can even change throughout different encounters. These qualities are only noticed after some interactions occur between individuals. (Ashton 2010). Globalization in this recent time has triggered more interaction amongst people from different cultures and backgrounds than before. People are now more open-minded in the marketplace worldwide with competition coming from almost everywhere in the continent. Diversity can be a problem to an organization but could also be a solution, it also comes with its disadvantages but also benefits and dangerous but also constructive.
The challenge then is to extract