Diversity is an increasingly important factor in today?s work team as work groups become more diverse in terms of gender, nationality, and other personal characteristics of their members. Sometimes the effect of diversity seems positive, at the other times negative, and in other situations, there may be no effect at all.
An example of diversity in my organization is age. The age ranges are from 18-85 years of age. The owner of the company is 85 years old and comes to work on a regular basis. The age ranges in my department are 23-52 years of age. Age quite often becomes a problem where I work because you are automatically stereotyped. Management often thinks that because you are young you are not dependable. They assume that you will call in a lot, be tardy or just have an immature attitude about work. It is assumed that the older you are the more mature and dependable you will be.
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US Navy 080610-N-4965F-642 Marilyn Loden, a member...This is one of the reasons why I believe management has to look beyond the stereotypes and allow everyone and equal chances before assumptions are made.
There are those who believe that an older person can be a hazard to an organization. The pace of an older person can differ from that of a younger person. There may be other factors that can cause an older person not to perform as well such as hearing and vision. The organization may have to accommodate these types of needs. This is not a problem in the department I work in but you can?t help but overhear how other departments wish some of their co-workers would retire or move into a slower paced position.
With the ages in my department it?s really obvious of the age differences. Some are always talking about going to the...