Benefits of a Diverse Workforce

¶ … employment relationships are likely to occur as the population ages?

Concerns about things like medical care and retirement savings will rise. Also, the flexibility and rigors of handling things that increase more with age including having older kids rather than younger ones or having an empty nest as compared to a household of kids will all change. The career and familial priorities would change a bit just from the aging and familial change processes alone.

• Do you think increasing age diversity will create new challenges for managers? What types of challenges do you expect will be most profound?

Having people from diverse age groups would certainly create challenges. What makes younger generations "tick" and what drives them is a lot different than the same thing for people with older or adult children. Similarly, people with established careers and more established lives will be different than those that are just starting out. There are obviously general societal and cultural generational differences as well.

• What types of policies might lead to charges of age discrimination, and how can they be changed to eliminate these problems?

Policies and directions that talk about "new blood" and "fresh ideas" might lead to people that are older and/or more mature in their career getting squeezed out. Indeed, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act in the United States refers to and affects those over the age of 40. However, there is surely also discrimination against young people. Many young people are reckless, less than loyal and so forth but assuming anything in a stereotypical fashion is obviously not fair or practical.

• Discuss some other challenges organizations often encounter while trying to build a diverse workforce.

They would face challenges in marketing in the right areas or in the right way. There would be challenges in not being obvious and over-the-top about the marketing. Doing a low-key booth at Brown University (a traditionally black college) would be a good way to get the job done but using street slang and pandering would be less than wise, for obvious reasons. Other challenges would include justifying picking candidates for diversity reasons when other qualified candidates exist.

• Describe some of the actions an organization should take to overcome diversity challenges, explaining why those actions would be helpful. Provide examples to support your conclusions.

HR staff that want a diverse workforce should have a wide array of recruiting sources and avenues but they should not go for diversity for diversity's sake. They should hire the best candidate regardless but they should make sure that there is a good and diverse candidate pool.

• What are some of the important benefits of having a diverse workforce?