Week 5: Increased diversity in teams
Introduction
To begin Week 5 first watch the following video in which Lynne Johnson introduces the week.
Download this video clip.Video player: wdt_1_week_5_lynne.mp4


Transcript
LYNNE:
You're now halfway through this course, so it's worth taking a moment to consider what you've learned so far. You've already looked at Belbin's nine team roles and explored the different stages a team is likely to pass through before it functions at optimum performance. You considered your own team experiences and roles and how to help to move a team on through its stages of development.
This week, you'll be returning to a theme that we started to explore in an earlier week. Teams today are far more diverse than they used to be, and there's evidence that increased team diversity is a good thing. But what do we mean when we talk about increased diversity, and why do employers want to employ more diverse teams? You'll consider what has contributed to the changing makeup of the teams we're likely to be part of in the workplace today and what organisations can do to foster diversity in the workplace
[MUSIC PLAYING]
NARRATOR:
Get more from the Open University. Check out the links on screen now.
Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).
By the end of this week, you will be able to:
- explain what ‘diversity’ means
- classify diversity as social diversity, informational diversity, or value diversity
- understand the factors contributing to increased diversity in the workplace today
- identify diversity in some of the teams that you observe or belong to
- understand what organisations are doing today to foster diversity.