Article Review: Why Age Matters

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Recommended: Diversity and ageism

Summary of Article:

Why Age Matters in the Work Preferences of Public Employees was an interesting journal article that discusses the challenges involved with employing individuals that vastly range in age. With organizations concentrating on age diversity, they are employing individuals that were born in different generations, and range in age from young to retirement age. The challenge for management is that each generation has different goals and expectations from their employer, and management is unable to treat all of these generational groups the same way. It’s a balancing act for management because the older employees are more concerned with job security and high pay, while the younger employees are more concerned with job opportunities and career advancement. With age diversity, management needs to identify why age is important in their organization and try to cater to each group differently in order for the organization to be successful.

Experience Regarding Article Content:

In my current profession age really does matter because there is so much technical information to learn about our equipment. The younger employees need the knowledge and experience that only our older employees are able pass down in order to succeed. Per Bright, it is wise for organizations to create a multifaceted understanding of why age is important in a particular organization or field as there is no one size fits all approach (2010). As stated by Baldoni “Experience counts, it takes time to learn a job, but knowledge is one thing, competency is another” (2008). In my profession leadership can’t just throw a new hire into a position and expect them to succeed. In order for the new hire to be successful, they would need to shadow a ...

... middle of paper ...

...d Why Age Matters in the Work Preference of Public Employees. I was unsure about the title of the article, but after reading the entire article I felt that it fit my requirements perfectly because it discussed some of the issues leadership faces with diversity.

Works Cited

Baldoni, J. (2008). Harvard Business Review. Why Age Matters. Retrieved from

http://blogs.hbr.org/baldoni/2008/05/does_age_matter.html

Bright, L. (2010). Why Age Matters in the Work Preferences of Public Employees: A

Comparison of Three Age-Related Explanations. Public Personnel Management, 39(1),

1-14. Retrieved March 26, 2011, from ABI/INFORM Global.

(Document ID: 1996553661).

Notter, J. (2009). The Multicultural Advantage. Generational Diversity in the Workplace.

Retrieved from http://www.multiculturaladvantage.com/recruit/group/mature/

Generational-Diversity-in-Workplace.asp

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