Managing Diversity in the Millennial Era
An HR person’s work is never done. Each passing day seems to run like a Mobius strip for the HR person, who discovers that how much so ever they travel, how however far they go, they keep arriving at the same point with clockwork efficiency.
Managing people, processes, capabilities, skills, efficiencies and the ever-growing call for tightening up their contribution to the bottom line, the HR manager is ever on a spin, juggling a million different plates on a million different sticks. One plate clatters down to the floor in this juggling act, and the HR person’s next appraisal hits the dark depths of disapprovals.
One of the key roles that HR needs to address in the millennial era, is that of diversity of the workforce. Genders, religions, castes, creeds, preferences for food, drink, for love of animal by some as life and by some as food, parents, singles, cohabitants, all jostle for sustaining identity at a workplace.
In today’s era, when a million, different, people make up a million minorities, one knows that the HR person has their role cut out for them.
It is thus important for the HR person to understand and work deeply towards various learning shared by the world towards including all into a workspace, including all tastes into one fantastic a la carte offering that appeals to all palates, and is yet easy on the pockets of an organization wondering where to get their next budget cut done.
Some of the most fascinating debates on individuality and acceptance happen in this space, and in an era of opinionated intellectuals, it is not easy to keep one from treading on someone’s toes. To ensure that this doesn’t happen, an HR person needs to skillfully set medians for various parameters that are acceptable to all, without compromising on individuality or showing up someone as a sore thumb.
All organizations, going forward will need to continually adapt and scale up to various parameters to keep a workforce together. The challenges of the millennia have just begun.
And all IQ and EQ would be replaced by HQ – the Human Quotient.
