Professional Documents
Culture Documents
• Managers also need to recognize that difference among people can lead to
Miscommunications;
Misunderstanding, and;
Conflicts.
Demographic Characteristics
• Surface-level Diversity
Not thoughts and feelings;
Can lead employees to perceive one another through stereotypes and assumptions;
Such as gender, race, ethnicity, age or disability;
However, evidence has shown that as people get to know each other, they become less concerned about
demographic differences.
• Deep-level Diversity
Differences values, personality, and work preferences that become progressively more important for
determining similarity as people get to know one another better.
• Sexual Harassment
Unwanted sexual advances and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature that
create a hostile or offensive work environment.
Example: In a company a married boss ask a young woman team member to travel with him
and then made sexual advances toward her at the hotel.
• Intimidation
Overt threats or bullying directed at members of specific groups or employees
Example: A few years back workers from Bihar and UP were threatened in Mumbai.
Forms of Discrimination
• Mockery and Insults
Jokes and negative stereotypes; sometimes the result of jokes taken too far
Example: jokes on accents, mannerisms etc.
• Exclusion
Exclusion of certain people from job opportunities, social events, discussions, or informal
mentoring; can occur unintentionally.
Women in engineering jobs claim that they are given light workloads that don’t lead to
promotion.
• Incivility
Disrespectful treatment, including behaving in an aggressive manner, interrupting the person,
or ignoring his or her opinions
Example: Female lawyers note that male attorneys frequently cut them off or do not
adequately address their comments.
Biographic Characteristics
• Age, Gender, Race, and Length of service are some of the most
obvious ways employees differ
Biographic Characteristics
• Age - What is the perception of older workers?
Positive Qualities Negative Qualities
Commitment to Quality
Biographic Characteristics
• Age – How does it impact organization turnover?
Older people are less likely to quit the job;
Fewer job alternatives;
Long tenure in an organization provide them higher wages;
Longer paid vacations;
Attractive pension benefits.
• Older people have lower rates of avoidable absenteeism but higher
rates of unavoidable absenteeism;
• Studies prove that age may be a reason for lower productivity;
• Most studies indicate a positive association between age and job
satisfaction, at least up to age of 60.
Biographic Characteristics
• Gender – Whether women perform as well on jobs a men do?
No significant difference in job productivity;
Unfortunately, gender still affects our perceptions;
E.g. Women who succeed in traditionally men domains are perceived as less likable,
more hostile, and less desirable as supervisors.
• Working mothers more likely to prefer
Part-time work;
Flexible work schedules;
Telecommuting in order to accommodate family responsibilities.
• Women have higher rates of absenteeism than men do
Women in the work Force
Biographic Characteristics
• Disability
Representation of people with disabilities did not improve significantly over
the period;
Blindness; Hearing impairment; Locomotor disability; Mental retardation.
Individuals with disabilities tend to encounter lower performance
expectations and less likely to be hired;
On the other hand, evidences show that workers with disabilities receive
higher performance evaluation;
Lower ratings for perceived employability.
Ability
• We weren’t all created equal in our abilities;
Example – Regardless of how motivated you are, it’s unlikely that you can
perform as some other do.
• However, everybody has strengths and weaknesses that make him or
her relatively superior/inferior to others in performing certain tasks;
• Why we concern
• By knowing how people are different in abilities so that we may use the
knowledge to enhance performance.
Ability
• What is ability?
An individual’s capacity
to perform the various
tasks in a job;
Made up of two factors;
Intellectual;
Physical;
Intellectual Ability
• Intellectual Ability
Needed to perform mental abilities;
Thinking;
Reasoning, and;
Problem solving.
More societies place higher values on intelligence;
Intelligent and smart people generally can earn more money;
IQ (Intelligent Quotient) tests are designed to ascertain a person’s general
intellectual abilities.
Dimensions of Intellectual Ability
Physical Ability
• Physical ability have been and will remain valuable;