Diversity Milestone 3

1

2-2 Final Project Milestone One: Critical Analysis Portfolio and Presentation Proposal

China Brown

SNHU

11/7/2021

Generational Diversity in the Workplace

Generational difference is an important topic because it helps organizations ensure that various generations coincide. Generational diversity in the workplace shows an organization's transformations in employment and how these transformations help an organization eliminate discrimination, unrealistic expectations, and an overall loss in production. Toro et al. argue that intergenerational diversity is an essential aspect of today's work environment. Further, they assert that globalization, the use of the internet, availability of information, and the growing interest in diversity and sharing economy represent changes affecting people and organizations to a significant extent. The workplace environment is today known as VUCA, an acronym of "Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity." The changes that have occurred since the abolition of the slave trade and the Cold War periods have made companies develop new approaches to these environments. One of the approaches that many companies have adopted is called intensification of work. Intensification involves the intensity of work and the hours worked. The intensification has resulted in pressuring moving from the peak and toughs to become something continuous. This paper will analyze generational diversity issue through the four general education lenses. These education lenses include natural sciences, history, humanity and social science.

Connection of generational diversity issue to the lens of history

The historic significance of generational diversity issue in organization is the changes that have occurred in the organizations since time immemorial until today and how they affect service delivery, and productivity in organizations. The generational diversity in the United States’ workplaces is growing at a faster rate. In the U.S, the generational diversity can be traced from the seasoned baby boomers with expertise and experience to Generation Z, who are well networked. Angeline (p45) claims that the American workforce is becoming more diverse in terms of age. There are four generations in the workplace. They include baby boomers, Generation X, Generation Y, and Generation Z. Some of the potential problems that originate from generational diversity when analyzed through historical lenses include lack of mutual understanding, communication gaps, risk of conflict, and different working styles. Each generation has a unique characteristic that may result in these challenges. The role of employers is to ensure an inclusive workforce by addressing these diversity issues. When each generation has distinct characteristics, there would be a potential conflict because of clashing behaviors, values, and work ethics, beliefs, and communication styles.

Connection of generational diversity issue to humanities

The generational diversity issue can also be analyzed through the aspects of human society and culture. When handling generational diversity, employers are likely to face interpersonal issues. For instance, there are many cases reported in the Human Service Profession of many elderly employees and the problem of these aging employees in getting along with j young employees, which have undermined employee engagement, productivity, and service delivery. These generations have not only diverse working styles but also differing communication styles. The use of technology in many human service organizations today is characterized by the inability of old employees to use these technologies. These diverse styles can lead to miscommunication which poses a significant problem in the workplace.

The image shows that from 2025, the highest U.S workforce will comprise of Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y, and Generation Z. Heather argue that the advantages that the U.S will enjoy from achieving generational diversity in 2025 will be based on how best organizations address challenges that come with the efforts to coincide these generations and withstand the problems that diverse generations can bring to an organization and employees.

Connection of generational diversity issue to social science

Generational diversity issue in the workplace can be analyzed through the lens of social science by evaluating how the issue interacts with societies, organizations, and the relationship between individuals within these organizations. According to Notta (p7), organizations that embrace generational diversity can benefit in the following ways: employees from diverse generations can offer a unique perspective and bring different strengths to the table. Also, embracing generational diversity can benefit organizations in promoting their problem-solving approaches, enable them to understand various clients, offer learning opportunities, and help an organization monitor their employees.

Rood (p82) found various best practices for approaching generational diversity in organizations, society and workplaces. They include adopting recruitment strategies, avoiding stereotyping and age-based assumptions, listening to employees and establishing what they want, and customizing every employee. Adopting diverse communication styles, refining approaches for delivering and receiving feedback, assembling age-diverse teams for projects, and establishing employee retention practices.

Connection of generational diversity issue to natural science

Natural science is a science that deals with natural world. Examples of natural world include geology, biology, chemistry and physics. In workplaces, the factors that determine how people reason, and make decision is called cognitive thinking. Reports indicate that the use of GMO foods have increased cognitive thinking of the current generation in workplaces. Cognitive Thinking Theory established that people who are more exposed to computer and other learning machines make good decisions. Also, the theory established that young people can easily learn new skills than aging people. Therefore, in an organization, it is evident that young and vibrant employees will easily learn new skills than aging ones.

In conclusion, this paper has connected generational diversity issue to four general lenses: history, humanity, social science and natural science. The paper has found that proper understanding of the issue through these lenses makes it easy to manage and address.

Work Cited

Bates, Heather. “How To Manage Generational Diversity In The Workplace” (2021). Retrieved from https://harver.com/blog/generational-diversity-in-the-workplace/

Notter, Jamie. "Generational diversity in the workplace." Retrieved October 9 (2002): 2008 https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.539.3621&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Rood, A. Scott. "Understanding generational diversity in the workplace: What resorts can and are doing." Journal of Tourism insights 1.1 (2010): 10. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1009&context=jti

Toro, Sobrino-De, Jesús Labrador-Fernández, and Víctor L. De Nicolás. "Generational diversity in the workplace: psychological empowerment and flexibility in Spanish companies." Frontiers in psychology 10 (2019): 1953. Retrieved from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01953/full