Diversity and Inclusion: Explain generational differences within the workplace, and describe appropriate strategies for managing a diverse workforce. Risk Management: Determine appropriate

GENERATIONAL ISSUES

Managing People from 5 Generations by Rebecca Knight SEPTEMBER 25, 2014

For the first time in history, five generations will soon be working side by side. But whether this multi-generational workplace feels happy and productive or challenging and stressful is, in large part, up to you: the boss. How should you relate to employees of different age groups? How do you motivate someone much older or much younger than you? And finally: what can you do to encourage employees of different generations to share their knowledge?

What the Experts Say As people work longer and delay retirement, internal career paths have changed. “Organizational careers don’t look the way they did before,” says Peter Cappelli, professor of management at the Wharton School and coauthor of Managing the Older Worker. “It’s more common to see someone younger managing someone older.” This can lead to tension on both sides. “Maybe there is a feeling of: why am I being bossed around by someone without a lot of experience? On the other hand, maybe the younger person feels insecure and wonders: how do I do this?”

“It’s important to be aware of generational tension — loosely defined as a lack of respect for someone who’s of a different generation from you — among colleagues,” says Jeanne C. Meister, a founding partner of Future Workplace, a human resources consultancy and the coauthor of The 2020 Workplace. “It’s your job to help your employees recognize that they each have distinct sets of skills and different things they bring to the table,” she says. Here’s how.

Don’t dwell on differences The Boomer mystified by Facebook; the Millenial who wears flip-flops in the office; the Traditionalist (born prior to 1946) who seemingly won’t ever retire; the cynical Gen Xer who’s only out for himself; and the Gen 2020er — born after 1997 — who appears surgically attached to her smartphone. Generational stereotypes abound but according to Cappelli, “they are just not true. There is no

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evidence that 35-year-old managers today are any different from 35-year-old managers a generation ago.” Besides, your goal is to help your team “move beyond the labels.” Generation-based employee affinity groups are a waste of time and energy, he adds. Don’t assume people need special treatment and “don’t dwell on differences with a group discussion that devolves into: ‘People my age feel like this.’ Or ‘All Boomers act a certain way.’ There’s a lot of variation,” he says. “Get to know each person individually.”

Build collaborative relationships While it may seem daunting to manage someone much older than you, try taking a cue from the military. The U.S. Marine Corps routinely puts 22-year-old lieutenants in charge of 45-year-old sergeants, notes Cappelli. “The mindset is to make that person your partner and involve them in everything you do. You’re still the boss and the one making the decisions, but you should hear them out.” A collaborative approach works well when managing workers who are in their 20s, too. “They are used to discussion and engagement because that’s what they had in the college environment,” Cappelli says. Help your employees make the transition from school to the workplace by encouraging debate. “You don’t necessarily need to take their advice, but be aware that this is where they’re coming from,” he says.

Study your employees “Just as you would research a new product or service, you need to study the demographics of your current workforce and the projected demographics of your future workforce to determine what they want out of their jobs as these things are different generation to generation,” says Meister. If your company conducts an annual survey of vision and values, Meister suggests adding new questions to the mix, such as queries about your employees’ preferred communication style and planned professional paths. Then “use that information to look critically at your human resources and business strategies. Figure out: What matters to different sets of employees? What can you do [to attract younger or more experienced workers]? It’s a low cost way to get a pulse on generational career issues,” says Meister.

Create opportunities for cross-generational mentoring Reverse or reciprocal mentoring programs, which pair younger workers with seasoned executives to work on specific business objectives usually involving technology, are increasingly prevalent in many offices. “The younger person — who grew up with the internet — teaches the older person about the power of social media to drive business results,” says Meister. Meanwhile, the more experienced employee shares institutional knowledge with the younger worker. Mixed-age work teams are another way to promote cross-generational mentoring. “Studies show that colleagues learn more from each other than they do from formal training, which is why it is so important to establish a culture of coaching across age groups,” says Meister. In mixed-age teams, mentoring relationships develop more naturally, adds Cappelli. “Older folks are more likely to fall into a mentor role and help the young employees,” he says. Meanwhile, young people often find it easier to take advice from an experienced worker than from one of their peers “because they’re not competing in the same way,” he says.

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Consider life paths When it comes to inspiring and incentivizing employees who are much older or much younger than you, it helps to think like an anthropologist. “Consider where your employees are in their lives and what their needs are,” says Meister. Younger people, for instance, typically don’t have many outside obligations; work-wise, they are motivated by new experiences and opportunities. Employees in their 30s and 40s, on the other hand, often have children and mortgages and are in need of flexibility as well as “money and advancement” says Cappelli. Workers at the end of their careers “are probably not as interested in training, but they do want interesting work and work-life balance,” he says. “Understanding the characteristics around these predictable life paths will help you figure out how best to [divvy up] work assignments and also the best ways to manage and motivate your team.”

Principles to Remember

Do:

• Experiment with mixed-age teams and reverse mentoring programs that enable older, experienced workers to interact with and learn from younger hires

• Develop incentive plans that reflect where your employees are in their lives • Conduct regular human resources surveys to get a pulse on your employees’ demographics and

needs

Don’t

• Bother with generation-based employee affinity groups — they generally reinforce stereotypes • Act like a top-down manager — forge partnerships with employees of different ages and encourage

them to share their opinions • Assume you already know how to motivate employees who are older or younger — ask them what

they want out of their professional lives

Case Study #1: Leverage your young workforce’s expertise Ron Garrow, Chief Human Resources Officer at MasterCard, is not a technophobe, but he readily admits that social media didn’t come easily to him — at least at first. “I recognized that I had a lot to learn about operating in this new world,” says Ron, who is 51.

So he volunteered to take part in a reciprocal mentoring program run by one of MasterCard’s internal business resource groups. The program partners young employees with older colleagues to work on tech skills. Ron was assigned a coach, Rebecca Kaufman — 24 years old and an avid social media user — who taught him how to use Twitter and how to get more out of professional networking sites, such as LinkedIn. “Rebecca has shaped my thinking in terms of how I operate in the social space,” says Ron. “I now carve out time in my day to get on LinkedIn and I have a [better appreciation for] the importance of social media.”

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Working with Rebecca also helped Ron relate to Millenials as both the consumers and workforce of the future — a critical insight considering the changes taking place in MasterCard’s industry. “This new generation is shaping the future in terms of purchasing habits: They don’t use cash to buy things; they use electronic means. [As a result,] MasterCard’s job descriptions have changed.” Rebecca also benefits from the relationship: Ron provides professional counsel and is also helping improve her communication skills.

Today hundreds of MasterCard employees take part in the program, which is currently offered in five offices. “There’s a contagion going on — people are raising their hands and saying: ‘I want a mentor.’ It’s really about making yourself vulnerable,” he says.

Case Study #2: Motivate your employees with incentives that matter to them Kris Snyder — the founder and CEO of Vox Mobile, the mobile technology management company based in Cleveland, Ohio — offers his 130 employees a veritable cafeteria of benefits, compensation, and work assignments. “I think of my employees as a cast of characters,” says Kris, who is 42. “Everyone’s needs are different, so we can’t be a one-size-fits-all [employer].”

The majority of Vox Mobile’s sales force — about 85% — are just out of school and on their first or second job. Its leadership team, however, is comprised of people in their 30s and 40s. To appeal to these different age groups, he has developed different sets of employee perks based mainly on where these two age groups are in their personal and professional lives. “I noticed that these groups have different motivations and, therefore, they need different incentives,” he says. “There are no hard and fast rules, but generally speaking, my Gen Y workers want us to fund their LinkedIn accounts; they like things like branded gear and company-sponsored happy hours — they’re more social and they’re not going home right after work. Gen Xers don’t care about logoed backpacks; instead they are looking at our 401(k) matching plan and our healthcare provisions.”

The different incentive packages and perks will likely shift along with the company’s demographics, says Kris. “As we build and grow and as the company goes through different stages, the makeup of our workforce will change, too,” says Kris. “We will navigate those changes and experiment with new ways to incentivize employees.”

Rebecca Knight is a freelance journalist in Boston and a lecturer at Wesleyan University. Her work has been published in The New York Times, USA Today, and The Financial Times.

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OL 600 Milestone Three Guidelines and Rubric Global HR, Diversity, Risk Management, and Social Responsibility

Overview: For this milestone, due in Module Seven, you will analyze HR strategic initiatives of managing HR globally, diversity and inclusion, risk management, and social corporate responsibility that impact an organization’s strategic goals. Prompt: First, read Chapter 15 in your text, the Harvard Business Review article Managing People from 5 Generations, and the SHRM resources Sexual Harassment Policy and Complaint/Investigation Procedure and Socially responsible human resource practices: disclosures of the World's best multinational workplaces. Refer to the chapter readings and module resources to support your responses to each of the four critical elements below. Carefully read and address each critical element as written, using detailed and informative analysis that conveys critical thinking. The four critical element are aligned to the workplace technical competency within the HR knowledge domain. Specifically, the following critical elements must be addressed:

• Diversity and Inclusion: Explain generational differences within the workplace, and describe appropriate strategies for managing a diverse workforce. • Risk Management: Determine appropriate proactive HR activities and policies for mitigating risk, and explain how these strategies can be used within

the organization.

• Corporate Social Responsibility: Describe HR’s role in creating a culture of social responsibility within the organization and the organization’s community.

• HR in the Global Context: Determine appropriate strategies for properly preparing employees for an expatriate assignment, and explain how these approaches ensure ongoing engagement.

Be sure to incorporate instructor feedback on this milestone into your final submission.

Rubric Guidelines for Submission: This milestone must be submitted as a 3- to 4-page Word document with double spacing, 12-point Times New Roman font, and one- inch margins. Use the latest edition of the APA manual for formatting and citations. Note that the grading rubric for this milestone submission is not identical to that of the final project. The Final Project Rubric will include an additional “Exemplary” category that provides guidance as to how you can go above and beyond “Proficient” in your final submission.

Critical Elements Proficient (100%) Needs Improvement (70%) Not Evident (0%) Value

Diversity and Inclusion Explains generational differences within the workplace and describes appropriate strategies for managing a diverse workforce, using specific examples

Explains generational differences within the workplace and describes appropriate strategies for managing a diverse workforce, using specific examples, but description is cursory or contains inaccuracies, or examples are inappropriate

Does not explain generational differences within the workplace

22

Risk Management Determines appropriate proactive HR activities and policies for mitigating risk and explains how these can be used within the organization, using specific examples

Determines appropriate proactive HR activities and policies for mitigating risk and explains how these can be used within the organization, using specific examples, but explanation is cursory or contains inaccuracies, or examples are inappropriate

Does not determine appropriate proactive HR activities and policies for mitigating risk

22

Corporate Social Responsibility Describes HR’s role in creating a culture of social responsibility within the organization and the organization’s community, using specific examples

Describes HR’s role in creating a culture of social responsibility within the organization and the organization’s community, using specific examples, but description is cursory or contains inaccuracies, or examples are inappropriate

Does not describe HR’s role in creating a culture of social responsibility within the organization and the organization’s community

22

HR in the Global Context Determines appropriate strategies for properly preparing employees for an expatriate assignment and explains how these approaches ensure ongoing engagement, using specific examples

Determines appropriate strategies for properly preparing employees for an expatriate assignment and explains how these approaches ensure ongoing engagement, using specific examples, but explanation is cursory or contains inaccuracies, or examples are inappropriate

Does not determine appropriate strategies for properly preparing employees for an expatriate assignment

22

Articulation of Response Submission has no major errors related to citations, grammar, spelling, syntax, or organization

Submission has major errors related to citations, grammar, spelling, syntax, or organization that negatively impact readability and articulation of main ideas

Submission has critical errors related to citations, grammar, spelling, syntax, or organization that prevent understanding of ideas

12

Total 100%

Socially responsible human resource practices: disclosures of the world’s best multinational workplaces

Charbel Greige Frangieh and Hala Khayr Yaacoub

Abstract

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the socially responsible human resource practices disclosed by

the ‘‘World’s Best Multinational Workplaces,’’ with the aim of facilitating the benchmarking of these

disclosed practices.

Design/methodology/approach – Using the ‘‘World’s Best Multinational Workplaces’’ list was a

strategic decision in this study due to the rigorous methodology used in the preparation of the list as it

concentrated largely on the employees’ feedback, thus ensuring that these listed companies are actually

top workplaces. Both manifest and latent content analysis, are applied on 23 of the 25 listedMultinational

Corporations’ websites and reports, and company reviews done on these companies by the Great Place

toWork for to pinpoint the social responsible human resource practices.

Findings – Most of the practices disclosed are oriented toward enhancing the employees’ work

experiences whether that happened through improving their employment conditions or through having a

diverse and inclusive workplace. Thus, the employee-oriented human resource management practices

got the lion’s share of the disclosures, rather than the legal or the Corporate social responsibility–human

resources facilitation components.

Research limitations/implications – The practices that are already used at small and medium

enterpriseswithin national contexts were not covered in this study.

Practical implications – It is assumed that businesses can benefit from the practices of these MNCs

which are considered as great places to work for, and as pioneers in their socially responsible human

resource approaches.

Originality/value – This study is likely to fill an important gap in the corporate social responsibility

literature, which gave pint-sized attention to the internal stakeholders, rendering the academic coverage

of employee-related practices scarce if not absent

Keywords CSR, Content analysis, Multinational corporations,

Social responsible human resource practices

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

An ethical movement is gaining momentum in the business world as a result of

management malpractices committed in the past decades. The ethical crisis drove

practitioners and researchers around the world to acknowledge the importance of

integrating business ethics and sustainability into their organizations. Engaging in

responsible practices was seen as a means to avoid crises and simultaneously lead to

financial benefits, (Doh et al., 2011; Wang et al., 2015; Voegtlin et al., 2012), produce social

capital (Maak, 2007) and enhance work-related behaviors like retention and workplace

commitment (Waldman and Galvin, 2008; Cameron, 2011; Doh et al., 2011; Doh and

Quigley, 2014; Miska et al., 2014). The misconducts in top management positions gained

extensive media attention due to their infamous contribution to the 2008 financial crisis. The

Charbel Greige Frangieh

and Hala Khayr Yaacoub

are both based at the

Faculty of Business and

Management, University of

Balamand, El-Koura,

Lebanon.

Received 2 November 2017 Revised 30 March 2018 19 June 2018 Accepted 21 June 2018

DOI 10.1108/SRJ-11-2017-0226 VOL. 15 NO. 3 2019, pp. 277-295,© Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1747-1117 j SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY JOURNAL j PAGE 277

duty of engaging in responsible behavior is often assumed to the leaders of organizations

due to their ability to make a difference. “There is a need for managers to act with greater

concern toward others, which implies, taking into account others’ meanings and not only

those of shareholders” (Gomez and Crowther, 2012, p. 13).

Responsible leadership that aims at creating inclusiveness and sustainability acknowledges

that a business needs to adopt responsible practices toward a multitude of stakeholders,

not just shareholders, despite inherent difficulties (Maak and Pless, 2006; Frangieh and

Yaacoub, 2017). This leadership theory is embedded in Freeman’s stakeholder theory

(Freeman et al., 2004). A direct victim of the many reported ethical misconducts in firms are

the employees (Doh et al., 2011).To alleviate the unfortunate repercussions faced by

employees, one has to adopt socially responsible human resource practices (SRHRP). As

the literature on such good practices is scarce, due partly to the novelty of the topic and its

simultaneous complexity, a good start on this could be achieved by taking lessons from

other organizations who successfully implemented SRHRP into their organizations as

suggested by Lubna Olayan, CEO of Olayan Financing Company, in the 2017 World

Economic Forum Meeting.

The notion of socially responsible human resource management (SRHRM) and SRHRP is an

intersection between corporate social responsibility and human resource management

literature (Nie et al., 2018). The emphasis on SRHRM has been gaining momentum in the

business ethics literature (Greenwood, 2013, Jamali et al., 2015; Nie et al., 2018). SRHRM

involves offering practices that go beyond legal requirements. SRHRM aims to enhance

different aspects of an employee’s life and to fulfill an employee’s social and personal

expectations (Nie et al., 2018). These practices vary from work-life related benefits, to

continuous learning and training, competitive compensation, inclusive recruitment methods,

among others (Nie et al., 2018). This study pinpointed and extracted the practices as

disclosed by the corporations in the sample. All categorizations and coding took place after

analyzing all the disclosures in the sample, as the literature has not extensively covered

these practices. To fill this gap, the authors turned to the disclosures of practices of the

corporations on the World’s Best Multinational Workplaces (WBMW) list generated by Great

Place to Work for (GPtWf), for reasons that will be explained later. Extracting these practices

and categorizing them would create a valuable reference for interested scholars and

practitioners, as these are not readily available in the literature.

Disclosures of these practices, on both the multinational corporations’ own websites and on the

GPtWf’s website, were used to extract the SRHRP practices. The corporations’ disclosures are

believed to be valid due to the extensive scrutiny these big multinational workplaces undergo.

Any inconsistency between the disclosures and the actual practices is likely to be spotted and

reported due to the big army of employees who have high stakes in their own companies’

practices, as in the case of Sprint. Employees at Sprint pointed out inconsistencies between the

practices they actually benefited from and those reported by the company, thus exaggerated

practices caused embarrassment for Sprint (Filbeck and Preece, 2003).

In the following sections, the authors will first provide an overview of the literature on

corporate social responsibility, SRHRP and disclosures of which. The methodology used to

conduct this study will then be discussed, justifying the use of content analysis and the

WBMW list. Then, data representation and analysis will follow. The paper will culminate with

a concluding note stating limitations, research implications and further research

suggestions.

Review of the literature

Corporate social responsibility

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been highlighted

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