Introduction: Employee demography can be defined as "the study of the composition of a social entity in terms of its members' attributes" (Pfeffer, 1983). Demographics include such factors as gender, age, ethnicity, occupation, seniority, salary levels, marital and family status (Edgar, & Geare, 2004), plus other categories. Furthermore, employee demographics are changing in today's turbulent business environment. For example:
- In the U.S., the number as well as the mix of people available to work is changing rapidly (Dychtwald, Erickson, & Morrison, 2006)
- At the same time, Generations X (born between 1965 and 1980) and Y (born after 1980), with approximately 50 and 80 million members, respectively, in the U.S., are large and growing segments of the labor force that pose challenges and opportunities.
- Differences among racial and ethnic groups among generations in the U.S. are becoming more pronounced. In fact, the younger the age cohort, the more racially and ethnically diverse it tends to be.
- Global demand exceeds the supply of people with needed skills.
- Global distribution of generations are changing.
- Many baby boomers are not retiring.
Until recently, organizations took a "melting pot" approach to the shifting labor pool, assuming that people who were different would somehow automatically want to assimilate into their organizations, but today's managers have found that employees do not want to set aside their values and lifestyle preferences at the workplace. As a result, organizations are challenged to make companies more accommodating to diverse groups of people by addressing various values, lifestyles, needs, and work styles. The melting pot assumption is being replaced by recognition and celebration of differences (Richard, 2000; Decenzo & Robbins, 2007).
Change Employee Values and Workplace Happiness Assignment: Select one (1) group of employees (e.g. age group, minority group, geographic group, etc.). Research and identify what would make this employee group (as a group) "happier" at work. For example, providing Baby Boomers with opportunities to have reduced work hours so as to better meet family responsibilities, tend to their own health, or engage in personal development, etc. are organizational actions that could help Boomers become happier at work. These actions probably wouldn't provide Boomers with a euphoric type of happiness, but it could potentially provide them with greater job satisfaction and loyalty to their organization.
Writing Your Essay: The following presents an easy model often used to prepare papers, which may be of use to you:
- A brief statement of your project topic
- A brief outline of your sub-topics.
- A minimum of 5 references on the research noted within the project
- Rough draft of the entire project
- Final Project
A brief overview of an essay format is provided for your convenience. Please make sure that your essay has a beginning, a middle and a conclusion. The introductory paragraph introduces the purpose of the essay and the topics to be covered in the essay as the essay unfolds. Use these topics as subheadings to segment and highlight your key points. Have a conclusion that ties together key points.
Final Project: Your final project should demonstrate application of appropriate conceptsfrom the reading material and the topics covered in this course and outside support material. The project should be about 5 pages in length. While this is not a hard and fast requirement, it is difficult to envision how you might cover the bases with references, graphs, charts and tables in less than five pages. On the other hand, content is more important than page length.
A minimum of 5 references should be incorporated into the text using APA format. A reference section should be included at the end of the presentation. All textual and digital material must be properly referenced. Check for spelling and grammar.