Another example of this kind of discrimination as stated by Gordon (2000) is that more than half of all workers surveyed said they knew of a fellow woman or minority employee that had the potential to move up to CEO of the company in which they were employed. At this same time only one third of the executives of that same company, being asked the same question, stated that they recognized that particular employee as an actual contender. In the long run, these companies will find it hard to do business by not keeping pace and failing to have the same kind of diversity in their management as reflected in their market place. For instance, as your customer base changes due to increased diversity, your company must also change by employing the same kind of people to help facilitate the needs of you customer base. As a result of this, if more and more companies become more diversified, the result would most likely impact the economy in a very positive way. .
Diversity in the Workplace.
Generally when someone begins speaking about diversity in the workplace, thoughts of Affirmative Action, racial diversity, or even sexual equality are usually foremost in our thoughts. However, diversity in the workplace really is so much more than this. We must also consider aging workers, handicapped workers, those with alternative lifestyles, and even physical traits to name others (for the sake of simplification, throughout this paper these will usually be included in the term, minorities). Gender, racial, and ethnic diversity means different things to different people. Some believe that diversity is about quotas, and affirmative action. Others believe that diversity is something that will happen on its own with out intervention. Some experts who study diversity, however, believe that diversity is not something that should be left up to chance. It is important, therefore, for organizations to take action to encourage and foster diversity in the workplace as explained by (Clarke, 1995).
