Do Older Employees Tend to Pose a Bigger Problem to the Company?

Age

Due to the baby boomers, those born between 1940s to the 1960s, who are between the age of 50 to 70, there isn't as many to replace them in the workforce as the population decreases after that. Many of them remained in the organisation, creating an "old workforce" in most companies. Many people believes that job performances declines with increasing age and regardless of it being true or not, many people believe and act on it.

Do older employees tend to pose a bigger problem to the company? A number of older workers have positive qualities such as experience, judgement, a strong work ethic, and commitment to quality. However, this people are also perceived as lacking in flexibility, and resisting new technology. And while organisations are actively seeking individuals who are adaptable and open to change, age seems to be hindering and there is a higher likelihood they will be the first to go during cutbacks.

On the other hand, these workers have a higher reliability because the older one get, the less likely one will quit their job because their current jobs provides higher wage rates, longer paid vacations and other benefits. Therefore, it is important to know that different age groups of employees have it's own pros and cons, therefore managers have to consider this factor whilst employing.

Gender

Based on traditions, it has been perceived by many misconceptions and unsupported opinions that women in general do not perform as well on jobs that men do. Psychological studies have found that women are more willing to conform to authority and that men are more aggressive and more likely than women to have expectations of success, but these differences are minor.

Research shows that there are no consistent male-female differences in attributes needed for management. This can be supported by the fact that in the past 40 years, an increasing number of women entered the workforce, a breakdown of the traditional idea that some jobs are gender specific.

In recent years, we have seen extraordinary results from women. For example, Temasak holdings, an investment company owned by the government of Singapore, spearheaded by CEO Ho Ching, wife of Singapore's prime minister, managing multinational staff of over 400 people with a portfolio of $193 billion. In another industry, female fighter pilots have been seen as incompetent and rare for those who graduated in the past. But over the years, we have seen female fighter pilots graduating from Top Gun, naval fighter squadrons and even drew equal or better results compared to males. Although the top positions are still male dominant, women now comprise 30 per cent of the three most senior levels of management.

Ethnicity and race

Race is the biological heritage people use to identify themselves; ethnicity is the additional set of