The "shape" of your human capital is changing more dramatically than in any period in history.  Are you embracing it?

© Dr. Terry J. van der Werff, CMC

Strip away everything else, your future depends on those who work with you.  Capital plants, technological marvels, and financial wellsprings are empty vessels without men and women working in harmony to achieve common goals.   You will be in for a rocky ride if you don't adapt your policies, practices, leadership styles, and thinking in wholesale ways to the reality of shifting demographics.

Tough words.  Tough issues.

Do your eyes glaze over when someone says "demographics"?  Don't let them, for demographics is one of the most powerful planning tools you can have in your repertoire.  You can project within a few per cent the makeup of your workforce (and your customers) ten or twenty years into the future.   Try doing that for your sales and profits!

Why is it so easy to do demographic projections?  It's simply a matter of counting.  Everyone who will be working in the year 2000 is already alive.

The "shape" of the American workforce is changing dramatically.  It is aging and diversifying.  The good news about aging is your employees will be more experienced and steady, leading to greater productivity.  The bad news is they may be less adaptable to changing processes and technologies.

Tomorrow's workforce does not look like today's.  In 1985 white males were almost half the workforce.  Between 1985 and 2000, however, white males constitute only 15% of new entrants into the job market!  White females constitute 42%, non-white males 7%, and non-white females 13%.  Immigrant males (13%) and females (9%) account for the remainder.  Think of it.  Immigrant males and non-white females will each almost equal the number of white males coming into your workforce.  White females will be almost triple this number.

This shift in the makeup of the American workforce is not something that will happen; it already is happening!  These future workers are already in junior or senior high school or college.  They will soon cross the threshold of your company.  Are you prepared for them?

The United States remains the magnet for people everywhere.  Two-thirds of the world's legal immigration is to our shores!  Some 700,000 per year, immigrants account for almost 30% of America's net population increase.  In contrast to the waves of immigration earlier this century, the vast majority now come from Asia or Mexico, bringing with them different languages and their own rich cultures.  Many are highly educated (1/3 of adult Asian immigrants are college graduates, compared to our own 1/4).

Last year, for the first time in history, women founded more new companies than men, according to the Small Business Administration.  In addition, women-owned firms now employ more people than the Fortune 500!  Women-owned businesses are "diverse" from the very beginning and will be formidable competitors of older, less diverse companies in the attraction of new talent.

Simultaneous with the remarkable demographic shift to greater diversity is a shift towards greater diversity in the organization of work.  Project-based teams, right-sizing, and re-engineering are but a few examples.  So too are home workers.  Driven by changes in lifestyles, family patterns, and technological and communications tools, the number of home workers is exploding.  Last year they numbered 39 million, roughly one-quarter of the total workforce!  12.1 million run a full-time business from home (up 20% in only three years); 11.7 million are self-employed part-time (up more than 50%); and 6.6 million are telecommuters for companies or government (more than doubling).

Add to all the above the welcome increase of the disabled in our workforce, and you have a real challenge.  Managing your human resources was never a simple task.  It requires even more attention and sensitivity now to meet successfully the dual challenges of demographic diversity and organizational restructuring.

Managing diversity does not mean tolerating or ameliorating it.  It means actively supporting and nurturing it.  Talent is gender- and color-blind, and so should you be.  Creativity flourishes under conditions where there is diversity of viewpoints, not where homogeneity reigns.

While these profound demographic shifts are occurring and the educational requirements for jobs are rising, the educational attainments of new job entrants are falling.  In only ten states (Washington not among them) do 80% of our young adults graduate from high school!  National dropout rates are 18% for whites, 24% for blacks, and 44% for Hispanics.  If not addressed soon, the combination of increased job sophistication and decreased educational preparation will parlay into larger wage disparities in the workplace.  This should give you pause.

Let me suggest an excellent little book entitled Workforce 2000, written by the Hudson Institute  in 1987 for the U. S. Department of Labor.  Though slightly dated, it outlines the broad demographic trends and workplace challenges you con-front as you approach the turn of the Century.

What should your strategies be?  These need to be specific to your own situation, but let me suggest the following for starters.  Examine your recruitment habits to seek and welcome diversity.  Develop training programs and set expectations for all employees tailored to their individual talents and the company's needs.  Reward people for demonstrated contributions to company goals and attainment of expectations.  Foster rich communication networks within your firm and amongst everyone in it.

What's the bottom line of this brief excursion into demographic analysis?  Your human capital is becoming more important at the very time the "shape" of that human capital is changing more dramatically than in any period in history.  Your future co-workers will be more diverse in their makeup, in their work patterns and thinking, and in their contributions to your company .  Successful companies are responding with leadership styles and policies that welcome, nurture, and call forth the riches that only diversity can bring.