Workforce America!: Managing Employee Diversity as a Vital Resource

by Marilyn Loden and Judy B. Rosener

Book Overview

Shows how to recognize and rectify problems that can inhibit the full participation of a diverse workforce and create an environment that capitalizes on the creativity and richness that increased diversity offers.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1556233868
• ISBN13: 9781556233869
• Release Date: November 1990
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
• Length: 260 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Basic handbook for today's workplace

Primarily written for managers, this handbook will help anyone wishing to thrive in a newly diverse workplace. While the statistics are outdated, the advice remins current, for diversity affects more and more communities, and their workforces, each year. The authors emphasize that differences are assets, leading to increased creativity and productivity when workers from different backgrounds feel that their contributions are valued. Two sections - that on decoding garbled communication, and that on establishing common ground- should be required reading for everyone entering, or attempting to lead, today's workplace.

More than Diversity

I initially purchased this book as an assigned reading for a masters course in Organizational Management. My inital preconception was less than favorable, as I had not signed up for the class to learn about diversity, but to better understand the barriers to organizational change. What I found from Loden and Roesener was a focus on four areas -- sterotyping, poor communications, collusion, and culture clash -- which I found very useful in meeting my personal objectives for the course. On the issue of sterotyping, the author's talk about primary and secondary dimensions that affect our percptions of people. These translate into obstacles in commucation. The authors also write about collusion: how individual action or inaction affects the organizational staus quo and inhibits change. The book is well-written and easy to read. This book will no doubt meet the needs of creating a better understanding of workplace diversity from a human resources perspective, as well as provide a deeper understanding of the dynamics of organizational management.