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Understanding American ethnocentricity and worker lifestyles to better manage the diverse workforce / by Frederick Robert Delie.

by Delie, Frederick Robert.

Women -- Employment

Minorities -- Employment

Organizational change

xviii, 206 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm. + 2 computer disks (3 1/2 in.)

Advisor: Dr. William Gleason.

Changing labor market -- Women in the workforce -- Minorities in the workforce -- Government's influence on the work force -- Global competition's influence on the workplace -- Human needs -- Education -- Establishing a proper work environment.

The character of the American workplace is changing. Global competition has mandated American companies reevaluate how they do business. “Downsizing”, “retraining”, and “technology-based” have become the buzzwords of the business world. Today’s companies have found that to survive means working smarter and with less employees. Good-paying jobs are rapidly disappearing for those having only a high school diploma. Employers are retraining their remaining workers to be able to effectively use the technologically advanced software tools and production equipment needed to maintain their viability. As workers retire or leave the company, each employer determines which jobs are essential to the company and require refilling. It is in the effort of recruiting workers to refill these positions that American businesses encounter a startling fact. The number of new entrants into the workforce is smaller than it has been in several years. Workplace entrants in the 18 to 24 year-old age bracket is expected to decline from 28.9 million in 1980 to an estimated 23 million in 1995. More dramatic than the reduction in worker numbers is the composition of these entrants. It is estimated that between 1988 and 2000 the number of White non-Hispanic males entering the workforce will be 2.3 million. Compared with the estimated 6.9 million White non-Hispanic women, 3 million Blacks, 1.9 million Asians, and 5.3 million Hispanics who will enter the workforce in the same time period, the White male entrant has become a minority, representing only 11.6 percent of the total. Entrenched in an organizational culture which favors the White male with a European ancestry, many companies are struggling with how to integrate the multi-ethic/multicultural new employee. Changing worker lifestyles further compound this problem. Single parent families, dual-income families, day-care needs for both the child and aging parent, are just some of the additional challenges facing today’s employer in molding an effective organization. Key to surmounting these challenges is a historical understanding of American ethnocentricity, an insight into how worker lifestyles affect their performance in the workplace, an appreciation for the importance of education, and a knowledge of the cultural attributes of today’s workforce.

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