The Importance Of Diversity In Today's Workplace

Introduction

Today’s workplace consists of multi-generational workforce and each generation has a different set of expectations, values, needs and working style. There exists organisations where the employees have an age gap of up to 50 years making the environment a highly diverse one. Although it is good to have such diverse talents at one place, meeting everyone’s expectations at the same time can sometimes be very challenging and might also give rise to conflicts and disagreements. According to Patel (2014) Gen X consists of 60% of the workforce and are people whose birth range from early 1960s to early 1980s. They are independent, resourceful and strongly believe in maintaining a good work-life balance. Gen Y are people who are born between

This group is savvy about communications and the media and it grew up more aware of cultural and global diversity, a key factor in how it is reshaping workplace and lifestyle orientations (Balc and Bozkurt, 2013). They practise flexible work approach and are techno literate. They tend to take a very individual approach; they like to be updated with life and welcome new ideas and are not orthodox (Lub, Bijvank, Bal, Blomme and Schalk, 2012). They want new challenges and the opportunity to build new skills. They prefer multi-tasking and are capable of processing a lot of information. Most of the people from this era have a “do-it-yourself” attitude and as opposed to the previous generations, they happily embrace changes that come along the way. They possess a career-oriented mind-set and are very particular about family time so they actively seek work-life balance. They enjoy independence, freedom, autonomy and work to live rather than live to work. They don’t prefer working very long hours like their predecessors and desire for a flexible workplace. Gen X always welcome constructive feedback and opinions from their seniors and bosses at workplace as they wish to progress in career

These employees wish to participate in projects and programs that are family-friendly and offer flexible schedules, telecommuting and job-sharing. They want to be part of an organisation where they are given the opportunity to handle multiple projects at one time as they believe that they are capable of handling and processing a lot of information (Balc and Bozkurt, 2013). Moreover, they also want independence and autonomy to take decisions as when needed. They also expect their bosses to provide feedback on their performance and progress (Islandia, 2015). After watching their workaholic parents getting betrayed by employers, they have trust issues and thus in order to foster trust, the employers have to spend one-on-one time with them (Lub, Bijvank, Bal, Blomme and Schalk, 2012). Gen X employees crave to be appreciated for their results and accomplishments and always want to be part of the decision-making process as they consider themselves to be the problem-solvers as they have been self-managing things from an early age and follow the concept of “do-it-yourself” (Gilbert, 2011). On the other hand, employers expect these individuals to participate more in team work and actively adapt to the constantly changing work environment and work