Discrimination

When discrimination is discussed many people first think of racial or gender discrimination. For many years both minorities and women were discriminated against severely but as the courts have begun punishing work places for that type of discrimination has started to diminish or at least become easier to deal with. I believe that age-related diversity is the hardest type of diversity barrier to overcome.

I believe that it is the hardest type of diversity to overcome because age is not something that anyone can change about themselves or other people. It is also hard to change people’s views about the younger or older generation. An older generation employee can transfer the knowledge that they know to the younger generation (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013).The younger generation can teach the older generation about new technologies to make their job easier. While they can teach each other something valuable about the workplace, they have to be willing to learn and many times they are not. It can also put a strain on the company. A company has to entice both generations of workers so that they will always have employees (Bell & Marz, 2007). When bringing in younger generation managers or supervisors, you may be causing the older generation to become McGregors Theory X person. Bringing in the new younger person may cause the older generation to become lazy, develop the need for closer supervision, and becoming interested only in the security of their job(Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013). If the older generation begins to feel as if the security of their position is in jeopardy, they will begin thinking more of retirement. The company then needs to find a way to encourage that person to stay. While a company can provide initiatives, retirement might look better to the older generation because they have worked all of their life.

This age generation gap has been experienced personally. I was the assistant manager at a Dollar General and was often working with a...