Question

The global search for talent has led many organisations to embrace diversity in the workplace. The BUS103 Organisation Behaviour (OB) course is teaching you to resist the inclination to rely on generalisations. However, managers sometimes forget that they need to recognise individual differences in their employees in order to capitalise on their unique strengths. It is pivotal that managers develop a greater awareness of these individual characteristics and manage their diverse workforce effectively to yield positive organisational outcomes.

(b) Relate the following individual characteristics to relevant organisational outcomes:

   (i) age

(ii) ability, and

(iii) gender (Minimum word limit: 400 words, Maximum words limit: 600 words)

Answer 1

b)i) Age: Age in the organization is also correlated to experience. The younger is a person, the less varied is his or her work experience. The older is the person, more richer is his or her experience. Experience helps in bringing stability as well as depth in the thought process and attitude with which an employee approaches a problem or project. If the employee is younger, he may be aggressive and his thought-process may be uni-dimensional. His problem solving approach may not be comprehensive enough. When the employee gets older, he gets somber and calmer and his thought process becomes so wide that he will be able to analyze the problem through various dimensions. There is another way of considering age in the organization. Some companies consider younger employees have fresh perspective and they help the organization inculcate innovation. The older employees may have comprehensive idea of the business and they may not be able to get a fresh perspective for business strategy. Hence age is an important dimension, based on which the workplace diversity of an organization is based.

ii) Ability: Ability is all about skills and competencies. Ability of an individual is judged through various technical tests taken by the company. An organization also considers that ability of a person enhances as he becomes old and more experienced. This is so because in such a long tenure, he will be able to work on various projects and gain varied skills and competencies. Ability defines the approach followed by individual for decision making as well as problem solving.

iii) Gender: This concept is quite misunderstood. Gender is not just about being male or female. It is more about the masculine or feminine characteristics which govern an individual. A male employee can be caring and empathizing if he has more dominant feminine traits. A female employee can be an aggressive competitor as she is ruled by dominant masculine traits. To maintain balance in the organization, it is essential to establish a balance between the masculine and feminine traits in the employee base. Moreover these traits bring the variation with which a person thinks and approaches a problem. Hence comprehensive analysis of a problem gets facilitated if the workforce of the company is quite diverse. The overall effectiveness of the company enhances if it has a diverse workforce and has a balanced employee base having similar individuals with masculine as well as feminine traits.

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