Scenario

Tom founded Sun City Boards out of his passion for surfing and has hired employees who have also expressed their surfing interest. Through the help and advice of his friend, he has been making changes to the business operation, including hiring new people. Sun City Boards now employs 17 people, and Tom plans to hire another 8 to 10 in the near future. Tom is unaware of and unaccustomed to the concepts of culture and diversity in business, and his initial hires primarily stemmed from his immediate friend group and local surfers. Additionally, looking at the org chart, you find that while there are several people of color and women in the organization, a majority of leadership roles are filled by white men. You have decided to advise Tom to consider a more diverse population of people for his next hires and any upcoming promotions.

Preparation

In this assignment, you will review aspects of culture and diversity for Sun City. In your readings on Culture and Diversity, you learned to define culture in a business and the impact of a diverse workforce on business success.

You will look for ways their culture can be evaluated and then summarize your findings and advice in a memo to CEO Tom Wilson. The following steps will help you prepare for your written assignment:

1. Carefully consider the artifacts, values, and assumptions that might be observed at an organization like Sun City Boards.
2. Think of how a diverse workforce would impact the Sun City business.

Your Task

1. Identify specific artifacts you might look for at Sun City to evaluate their diversity, using at least three specific examples or topics covered in the reading. For example, since Sun City is in a change mode, you could identify the impact of role modeling on the employees.
2. Finally, write a three-paragraph (minimum) memo addressed to Sun City CEO Tom Wilson. Explain why diversity is important to his business and how he might go about evaluating the culture and diversity of Sun City Boards. You must support your advice with the three specific examples you identified in the previous step. If you’re not familiar with a Memo style, you can click this link to view a sample memo. (Note: Your memo does not need to contain every section included in the sample memo. Just be sure to include the date, recipient, sender, subject, and at least three paragraphs explaining to Tom Wilson why diversity is important to his business and how to evaluate it.) Be sure to address the CEO properly, and write to him as a concerned executive. In addition to the text, you are encouraged to research culture and diversity using reliable and properly cited Internet resources. You may also draw from your personal work experience with appropriate examples to support your references.