Define workforce diversity and how it affects supervisors

What will be an ideal response?

Workforce diversity is made up of males, females, whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, the disabled, homosexuals, straights, and the elderly.

The implications of work-force diversity for supervisors are widespread. They must be flexible enough in their practices to be accepting of others who are unlike them in terms of what is wanted and needed from work. Employees don't set aside their cultural values and life-style preferences when they come to work. So supervisors must remake organizations to accommodate these different lifestyles, family needs, and work styles. This will require a broad range of new policies and practices. A supervisor's challenge is to accept diverse groups of people by addressing different lifestyles, family needs, and work styles.

Examples of flexibility for a supervisor would include work schedules that need to be more flexible to accommodate working parents and couples maintaining commuter relationships. Provide child care and elder care so employees will be able to give full attention to their work. Benefit programs will need to be redesigned and individualized to reflect more varied needs, etc.