Workplace Diversity
Going from all these points till now it has been found that diversity has been a major issue in workplaces. What kinds of diversities are seen these days? This is well explained by the Exhibit 4-5.
Age:
According to the previous section it has been clear that aging in population has been the major issue for the shifts within workforces. Almost 85 million of boomers are seen active through the workforces but it has been a major point fir manager to view such that employees are treated well by avoiding discrimination upon their ages. Both the Acts including Civil Rights and Age Discrimination Act has been followed or avoidance of any discrimination. In fact, this act has also made it compulsory for avoiding retirement at a specific age. For moving along with the laws the organizations need to follow certain rules and regulations for getting rights of treating employees equally.
Often it has been found that the people have issues with older workers as they consider them to be often sick and provide less hard work than others. All employees are seen with mixed category of feelings for such old aged employees. But on a contrary they even consider these old workers as a sign of bringing positive traits to the organization with the help of their real life experiences, with work ethics, and also with commitments of doing good quality work. They consider older aged people as incapable of doing hard work and also unable to adjust to new technologies. Thus the manor challenge arising within minds of managers is to overcome such misconceptions about old aged employees and also to improve the quality of working and in spite of their age.
Another great fear would be if any of these baby employees are removed then automatically the organization will have to lose talented and qualified employees. From today’s time the industries need a high level of competence just for technical reasons in fields of quantitative and problem solving issues including other skills meat for communication. Organizations that never plan for their future are the one struggling today for high level of workforces.
Thus this aging is not only the basic issue of organization. Almost 50 million from the Generation of X are engaged in work and look after their families. In fact now a day almost 76 million of the Y generations are poised of getting through work life. Being grown up that too in areas where opportunities are brought in for experiencing great responsibilities and workforces, the Generation Y people are seen bringing their new ideas and talents for better quality of work. Thus it should be made a point that workers apart from their ages should be approved for working as talent matters rather than age. In fact, managing the diversified age groups form amongst the organization can also lead to organizations success.
Gender:
The ratio of women with 49.8% and of men with 50.25 has made up the entire workforce till date. Even after this the diversity issue of gender is felt everywhere through the organizations. Recently the new ratio of this workforce has been marked as to be 80.2 for weekly basis and 77.1 for median annual ratio earnings. Various research has shown that men are seen starting their careers faster than those of women. But still today misconceptions do exist within people whether women are better at work than men or not. This has made it clear how vital it is to attend gender diversity matters.
There are no such issues within problem solving abilities of women and men neither through motivation, sociability, skills and other abilities. The major difference has been founded by the psychological researches that women are more of agreeable nature whereas men are seen to be aggressive at times.
Other than this a difference that exists is about working time schedules in between these genders. This happens simply when employees are required to fit in their family’s responsibilities and working women are seen preferring for flexible work. In fact few of them prefer works that are flexible with timings.
Race and ethnics:
For over a longer period a controversial histories have been seen existing about the varied race of people existing around today. Both these terms race and ethnicities are equally important for organizations. Race is used for addressing the biological identification of people whereas the Ethnicity is meant for addressing the social traits of workers. Though ethnicity belongs to the race but the meaning is different. As per the Exhibit 4-3 exponentially the ethnic and race of people are increasing these days. Often few of the researches have shown that workplace has been great at making hiring decisions and evaluating upon performance basis. However most of this has been founded to be effective over the whites and those of African American group of people.
Often at times it has been found that workers support their colleagues from the same race for promotion of decisions, rising of pays and evaluations etc. In fact, somewhere it has been seen that African American perform worse than those of the whites in the workplaces. For example, in any of the employment based interviews the African America receives lowest rates. Often they are paid lower than those of Whites. Race and ethnicity are the major keys that could help managers effectively manage their workforce diversities.
Disabilities or rather Abilities:
For persons having disability year 1990 was mostly water shedding. In this year Americans made the law regarding Disabilities namely Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The major role of this act was to prevent discrimination in between disabled persons and also help the people make their own accommodations reasonably. This law has made the disabled person a representative for the integral workforces.
One of the most common issues that managers face is the definition for disability being quite broad. As per the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission a person is classified to be disabled only when they are physically impaired for major actions to be carried out properly. There are no such special features or identical one to identify which disability would affect working. As per the law a disabled person is not expected to be a pilot, surgeon, firefighter, etc. But barriers related to computer ability have been opened for disabled persons.
After the 20 years of these Act ADA even fears about disabled person’s employment is expected within managers. The US department for Labor has made a survey for getting rid of this fear. The Exhibit 4-6 is able to show you about the fears and what actually the reality is. For instance, take a case of one company named Walgreen, where the employees are both mentally and physically challenged for working at distribution center namely Anderson in the South California. They are made to work the help of innovative approaches like job coach, processes being automated, and also for comprehensive form of training.
For handling and maintaining a perfect environment of employees with disabilities managers are required to make their employees feel the comfort while working and let them disclose about their working needs and accommodations. This is what a balanced act describes.
Religion:
A college sophomore namely Hani Khan has been found working for the three months at Hollister for stock clerk position in San Francisco. Once she had been asked for removing the scarf which she wore in observation of her religion Islam. They told her that it was mentioned within their policy. But the lady refused to follow the policy and henceforth she was fired from organization. Later she had filed a case against this act of discrimination just like what others did.
As per the title from the Act namely the VII has mentioned discrimination against religions. But today the major religion diversity issue lies around Islam in United States. Even after being one of those popular religions almost 2 million Muslims are found in US city.
Often the religious beliefs could even encourage the working behaviors. In fact, few of the Jews being conservative by nature are seen believing that they should avoid working on Saturdays. The Christians are seen taking rest especially on Sundays. In fact, pharmacists are seen refusing to provide medicines to people upon poor beliefs.
This is a common fact that religious beliefs often generate misconceptions. Day by day the religion based discrimination is growing upon rapid rate in United States. Thus it has been important for managers to be aware of those religious beliefs and pay attention equally. It should be kept in mind that employees who are in need should be accommodated with special requests. But this should be done such that others do not consider it as a special care and create issues within organization.
Sexual orientation and the gender identities:
This acronym GLBT is mainly used for people like bisexual, transgender, lesbian and gay. Thus it has been the basis for sexual orientation and identity of gender cases. This is not condoning such group of people upon various perspectives but referring them to the list of people who shouldn’t be kept off the limits. However in the European Union members have tried making legislations upon making these grounds of sex orientation as unlawful.
In the United States employees have taken steps for making approaches for the treatment of sex orientations. In fact, few people have make attempts to follow policies of military of not asking and telling. Often few others ignore hiring employees for GLBT. Today 85 percent of organizations are seen ignoring the employment hiring process upon discrimination of sex. Most of the organizations are seen increasing their rate of practices for keeping this rights of discrimination saved through employment basis. A manager of diversity from IBM has told that, “IBM strongly believes in having strongest of transgender along with gender identification as the best culture of IBM policies”. Most of the United States companies are seen serving their employees with 57 percent of health benefits that too for the domestic partners.
Till now we have discussed a wide number of diversities but here in these sections we have learnt how managers are required to look for managing the need of GLBT employers. Employees must be responded with great protection and care.
Other categories of diversities:
As being mentioned earlier diversities are simply discriminations being made at the workplaces? Other forms of workplace diversities would include team members being included from different zone, thinness, seniority through the job, and other intellectual ability. Again the managers are required to treat all employees equally without any discrimination.
Links of Previous Main Topic:-
- management and organizations a managers dilemma
- Understanding managements context constraints and challenges
- Managing in a global environment
- Managing diversity
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