DIVERSIFICATION HAS CHANGED MANAGERIAL INTERACTION WITH THE WORKFORCE

Abstract

The diversification of the American Workforce has changed the way managers interact with employees. This diversification is due to tighter labor markets, increased immigration, and women entering the workforce. Cultural factors, not present before, have caused managers to develop new methods of tasking, motivating, and educating these diverse employees. Essentially these new methods have been a change in interpersonal behavior, the way a manager acts and re-acts to employees. This change in behavior was necessary to increase productivity and maintain a competitive edge in the market place.

I. Introduction

In my Cultural Anthropology course, I had to learn and memorize the definition of culture; "Culture is an organized system of learned behavior patterns, always made manifest in a group, making that group distinctive from other groups?" This definition was the basis for my understanding and ability to learn about other people, different than myself and from different backgrounds, during my studies in Anthropology and Psychology. This definition has the key element of what culture is, a system of behavior distinctive to a particular group of people. These behaviors range from cultural norms to religious beliefs.
In business, the effectiveness of an organization rests on the ability of the management to interact with its employees and to motivate the workforce to accomplish the goals of the company. This ability of interaction between the manager and the employees depends on the managers understanding of the cultural differences between himself and his employees. The masculine form is only being used as example for the purpose of this paper. It ...