Biographical Characteristics
Biographical characteristics such as age, gender, race, ethnicity, and disability are some of the most obvious ways employees differ. Let’s begin by looking at factors that are easily definable and readily available—data that can be obtained, for the most part, from an employee’s human resources (HR) file. Variations in surface-level characteristics may be the basis for discrimination against classes of employees, so it is worth knowing how related they actually are to work outcomes. As a general rule, many biographical differences are not important to actual work outcomes, and far more variation occurs within groups sharing biographical characteristics than between them.
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