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Only a few decades ago, the American workplace was made up mostly of U.S.-born m

ID: 419420 • Letter: O

Question

Only a few decades ago, the American workplace was made up mostly of U.S.-born males. They entered the workplace in their 20s, worked at one company, and retired a few decades later. Today’s modern workplace can have employees ranging in age from 8-98 who come from a diverse range of countries, follow several different religions, have different gender identities and sexual orientation, and change jobs often. Explain how the role of a manager in the 1970s differs from the role of a manager in today’s diverse workplace.

Explanation / Answer

Below is how the role of a manager in the 1970s differs from the role of a manager in today's diverse workplace -

1. Earlier managers used to be more of autocratic where they used to make decisions, dictate rules and supervise the employees. Today's managers are more of participative and help the employees achieve their objectives by encouraging them to communicate directly, encourage idea generation and value their opinions while providing the resources to achieve the same.

2. There was hardly any diversity in the workplace during 1970s as the employee selection is locations specific and hence the managers' role was more of a supervisory role with set processes and procedures where employees are expected to work alike while current workplace has a diverse employees who provide wide range of ideas and work together in a global environment and managers role is more of a facilitator while making decisions when required.

3. During 1970s, there was hardly a performance management system in place and managers used to evaluate workers based on the time they work, discipline, productivity etc. while today's managers have a strong performance management system in place where the employees are evaluated based on multiple parameters and discussion with managers.