Diversity in the Workplace

The term "diversity" is used to refer to many demographic variables, including, but not limited to, race, religion, color, gender, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, age, education, geographic origin, and skill characteristics. It is important to manage diversity in the workplace as organizations employ people and sell goods and services to an increasingly diverse world of customers. Failure to manage diversity in the workplace leads to stereotyping. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark law enacted to ensure that job applicants would not be considered on the basis of their skin color, religion, gender or national origin. Rather, they would be selected on the basis of their ability to perform a job.