Age discrimination in workplace Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Age discrimination in workplace - Essay Example According to Gregory (2001), â€Å"Employers commonly make decisions affecting older workers that assume these workers are no longer capable of performing adequately† (Gregory, 2001, p.4) Age discrimination is one of the major problems in the organizational world nowadays. At the same time, avoidance of experienced workforce is suicidal for an organization. It is better to keep a balanced workforce in organizations which includes both younger and experienced employees. However, many organizations have the habit of avoiding the interests and needs of older employees while they give more importance to the needs and demands of the younger ones. In short, age based discrimination is not a myth but a reality in organizations. According to Torrington et al. (2011), â€Å"Human resource management (HRM) is the basis of all management activity†(Torrington et al., 2011, p.4). Human resource management or HRM is responsible for age discriminations in organizations. Recruitment, r etention, training and development, allocation of jobs, deciding promotions, dispersing remuneration and incentives etc are some of the major human resource functions. Putting the right person at the right place at the right time is a major HRM function. HRM adopts several strategies to identify the right person for a particular job. Age is often a criterion while HRM decides about the recruitment of a candidate to a particular position. The topic age discrimination at workplace attracted me a lot because of the ethical dimensions involved in it. It is unethical to avoid, neglect or discriminate a person because of his age even if he had served admirably in the past for the organization. My father is a victim of age discrimination in current organizations. Even though my father worked hard and brought so many advantages to his organization, a fresh candidate with less qualification was appointed as a manager on top of him. Because of this humiliation, he was forced to resign from hi s organization even though he had a lengthy service with that organization. He discussed some of his bitter experiences with that organization. He has point out that his organization treated him differently while he was young and old. In short, his bitter experience motivated me to research this topic or the age discrimination at workplace more deeply to get more insights about the topic. This paper analyses the various aspects of age discrimination at workplace. HRM & Age Discrimination at Workplace Recent research has highlighted a so-called "prime building block" of HRM – the principle of "AMO". There must be sufficient employees with the necessary ABILITY (skills, knowledge and experience) to do the job; there must be adequate MOTIVATION for them to apply their abilities; and there must be the OPPORTUNITY for them to engage in "discretionary behavior" – to make choices about how their job is done (Buchan, 2004, p.3). From the above findings, it is evident that expe rience plays a vital role in the success of organizations. No organization can develop properly with the help of fresh employees alone. Same way, it is difficult for the organizations to remain competitive if it keeps only experienced employees. A mixed bag of fresh and experienced employees may serve better for an organization. Careful blending of youth and experienced employees may help an organization to develop new ideas and introduce it successfully in the market. Younger generation is capable of bringing new ideas. But these new ideas require the fine tuning from the experienced employees before an organization introduce it succ

Community vs. Cheers Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Community vs. Cheers - Essay Example It featured a cast of mostly blue-collar characters who spent all their time hanging out together in a bar called Cheers. A more recent addition to the Thursday lineup is Community. It also features an ensemble cast of friends: A group of students at Greendale Community College. On the surface, these shows seem very similar. However, the styles of the two shows are actually quite different. Cheers was a traditional sitcom that followed the old rules for TV comedies, while Community is perhaps one of the most ground-breaking shows ever to air. The two shows do have some striking similarities. The apparent lead characters seem very similar at first glance. Cheers has Sam Malone, the former baseball player who owns Cheers. Sam is a little sleazy and an unrepentant womanizer, but he is a good man at heart. Community has Jeff Winger, the even sleazier former lawyer who has to attend a community college after he is exposed as having a fake degree. Like Sam, Jeff becomes the leader everyone depends on. Cheers has Diane Chambers, the prissy, self-righteous blonde whom Sam hires on the first episode as a waitress because he wants to sleep with her. Community has Britta, another self-righteous blonde who is nearly as prissy as Diane. Like Cheers, Community begins with the â€Å"alpha male† character trying to sleep with the blonde. Each of the two shows has a naà ¯ve, â€Å"dumb† character: Community’s Troy corresponds to Cheers’s Coach and his replacement, Woody.... Both use a mixture of long-running plotlines and episodic plots. Yet these shows have more differences than similarities. Cheers is filmed like a play in front of an audience with the three-camera format that has long been standard for sitcoms. Community is filmed in the modern style like a movie, in a single-camera format without an audience or laugh track. Filming style is not what makes the shows so different from one another, however. Community is best known for the clever way it â€Å"breaks the fourth wall,† the invisible wall through which the audience views the characters as their stories unfold. Traditionally, sitcom characters are supposed to go about their lives as if they are real people, unaware that they are fictional and being watched by the audience. This is the way that Cheers works, and this is the way things have always been done on television up until recent years. On Community, the characters verge on being self-aware, communicating to the audience with a wink and a nod that they know it’s not real, yet they still come across as loveable and believable characters. Despite the apparent standard â€Å"handsome white man as leader† and â€Å"beautiful blonde as love interest† cliche, over time the viewer begins to see that the key characters on Community are not Jeff and Britta. The most important character is Abed Nadir, a young Arab-American with Asperger’s syndrome, a type of autism. Abed is fixated on movies and television, and he sees his life as fictional plot. Each episode parodies a particular movie or genre of movies, but in a much more clever and subtle way than other TV shows have done before. Abed interprets everything that happens around