Tutor-marked Exercise 1

Concepts
Workplace Diversity
Definition: According to the textbook, workplace diversity includes important human characteristics that influence an employee’s values, perceptions of self and others, behaviours, and interpretation of events around him or her. Diversity includes age, ethnicity and culture, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation and mental and physical capabilities.

Reference to human resource management: There is a major change in the Canadian labour market now, where the workforce is much more diverse than it used to be years ago. It is important for an organization to have a diverse workforce, it can allow them to grow internationally and be more competitive globally. But for human resources, this can pose a challenge, some employees might stereotype certain groups, there might be difficulties with “old boy’s network” or glass ceiling. Therefore, it is Human Resources’ role to manage diversity. There must be diversity management programs implemented, education of employees is a must including sensitization programs.

Example: Given the changing labour force, the federal government enacted the Employment Equity Act to ensure that the federal government offer equal opportunities to the diverse workforce. The Canadian Human Rights Commission frequently audits government departments to assess compliance of the statutory requirements of the Act.

Knowledge Worker
Definition: A professional who applies his intellectual capacities to the acquisition, processing, management and communication of knowledge and information.

Reference to human resource management: Over the last 25 years, technological advancement has increased the need for highly educated workers. With such a high demand, Human Resources must compete with other agencies and come up with incentives to recruit and to retain knowledge workers. Strategic planning is required to determine what will be anticipated vacancies of knowledge worker