Weekly Faculty Guide

Study Guide
HRM/531 Version 7 / 1

Week Six Study Guide: Diversity

Readings and Key Terms

· Ch. 4 of Managing Human Resources

o Diversity

o Globalization

o Teamwork

o Cultural diversity

o Generations

Content Overview

· Five reasons why diversity has become dominant in managing human resources

o The shift from a manufacturing to a service economy

· Roughly 90% of U.S. employees work in a service-based industry (Cascio, 2013, p. 122).

· Manufacturing will always remain; however, much manufacturing has been taken overseas and made the majority of U.S. employees service-based.

· Service-based jobs require much more interaction, which results in a higher need for education.

o Globalization of markets

· Globalization now makes it possible for organizations to offer choices that are typically unavailable in the domestic market.

· Many global organizations have made stronger ties domestically so their goods and services are available to more people.

o New business strategies that require more teamwork

· To expand and offer services to more people, companies must work harder to provide higher service, quality, and support, which requires multiple departments within organizations to work together as one.

· Organizations have come to realize that teamwork offers the ability to provide better quality, innovation, cost controls, and efficiency to customers.

o Mergers and alliances that require different corporate cultures to work together

· Mergers and acquisitions managers have learned from experience that it is important to bring people together, which means creating new partnerships that span across different corporate cultures.

· Many mergers can create a culture shock result with management, which causes more than 50% of management to resign or be fired within 18 months of a foreign takeover (Cascio, 2013, p. 125).

o The changing labor market

· The face of labor markets has undergone some large changes and will continue to change over the next 25 years to include more minority groups, women, people of ethnic backgrounds, and older individuals (Cascio, 2013, p. 126).

· The changing labor market requires the need for increased diversity training among all organizations on a global scale

· Differences between EEO/AA and diversity

o EEO/AA

· Government initiated

· Legally driven

· Quantitative

· Problem focused

· Assumes assimilation

· Internally focused

· Reactive

o Diversity

· Voluntary (company driven)

· Productivity driven

· Qualitative

· Opportunity focused

· Assumes integration

· Internally and externally focused

· Proactive

· Characteristics of four generations of workers

o Silent generation

· Born 1930–1945

· Too young for World War II fighting and are in high demand for their experience

· Much of this generation went to the best higher education institutions

· Many since have retired while others currently hold powerful corporate positions

o Baby-boom generation

· Born 1946–1964

· Currently account for 78 million people and over half of the world’s workforce (Cascio, 2013, p. 136)

· Believers in right to privacy, freedom of speech, and due process

· Valued for having many years of leadership and management experience that cannot easily be replaced

o Generation X

· Born 1965–1980

· Represents over 50 million Americans and one third of the workforce

· Witnesses of many social, political, and economic changes and large corporate downsizing

· Known for being the generation of practical, focused, and future-oriented individuals who also demand interesting work assignments

o Generation Y

· Born 1981–1995

· Known as the Millennials generation who are mostly the offspring of baby boomers

· Seventy-three million people strong will be a large impact on future projects and management practices

· Has grown to see more changes in technology than other generations, which has been part of their regular practice—e-mail, text, and so forth