Individual Behavior, Diversity, Attitudes, and Job Satisfaction

Part 1

Over the past century, the average age of the workforce has continually increased as medical science continues to enhance longevity and vitality. The fastest-growing segment of the workforce is individuals over the age of 55. Recent medical research is exploring techniques that could extend human life to 100 years or more. In addition, the combination of laws prohibiting age discrimination and elimination of defined-benefit pension plans means that many individuals continue to work well past the traditional age of retirement.

Unfortunately, older workers face a variety of discriminatory attitudes in the workplace. Researchers scanned more than 100 publications on age discrimination to determine what types of age stereotypes were most prevalent across studies. They found that stereotypes suggested job performance declined with age, counter to empirical evidence presented earlier in this chapter that relationships between age and core task performance are essentially nil. Stereotypes also suggest that older workers are less adaptable, less flexible, and incapable of learning new concepts. Research, on the other hand, suggests they are capable of learning and adapting to new situations when these are framed appropriately.

Organizations can take steps to limit age discrimination and ensure that employees are treated fairly regardless of age. Many of the techniques to limit age discrimination come down to fundamentally sound management practices relevant for all employees: set clear expectations for performance, deal with problems directly, communicate with workers frequently, and follow clear policies and procedures consistently. In particular, management professionals note that clarity and consistency can help ensure all employees are treated equally regardless of age.

1. Address the following questions in your Discussion response making references to both the article and the case in your response:
   • Do you think increasing age diversity will create new challenges for managers? What types of challenges do you expect will be most profound?
   • How might diversity impact individual attitudes and behavior?
   • Can diversity increase job satisfaction? If so, how?

Part 2
In Discussion you addressed the effect of workforce diversity on job satisfaction. Now you will continue this topic of job satisfaction in this Assignment. For this section you will use the Experiential Exercise at the end of Chapter 3 in your text, entitled “What Factors Are Most Important to Your Job Satisfaction?” Read the exercise and review the list of 21 factors or attributesA.

21 factors Are:

● Autonomy and independence.

● Benefits.

● Career advancement opportunities.

● Career development opportunities.

● Compensation/pay.

● Communication between employees and management.

● Contribution of work to organization’s business goals.

● Feeling safe in the work environment.

● Flexibility to balance life and work issues.

● Job security.

● Job-specific training.

● Management recognition of employee job performance.

● Meaningfulness of job.

● Networking.

● Opportunities to use skills/abilities.

● Organization’s commitment to professional development.

● Overall corporate culture.

● Relationship with co-workers.

● Relationship with immediate supervisor.

● The work itself.

● The variety of work.

Once you have reviewed the text exercise, go to the Society for Human Resource Management’s website (SHRM.org), and review their results of a study conducted on 600 employees about job satisfaction.

Once you have reviewed both the experiential exercise and the online study results, complete the following Assignment:

Assignment: Your Job Satisfaction

In a Word document, rank-order the list of job factors from top to bottom, so that number 1 is the job factor you think is most important to your job satisfaction, number 2 is the second most important factor to your job satisfaction, and so on.

Then answer the following questions:

1. Explain why you selected your top 5 job factors.
2. Click the Resources icon below to see the results of a study of a random sample of 600 employees conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM ® ). How do your rankings compare to the SHRM ® results? If your rankings are different, why might that be?

Please submit your minimum APA formatted and citation styled 2–3 pages of body text, and include an additional title and references page.