Section Twolegislation. A second caveat is that much of the past research
on racial diversity has focused on blacks and whites but has not
devoted much attention to Hispanics. As will be discussed later
in this section, Hispanics are the fastest growing segment of
the workforce. Thus, managers need to be sensitive to diversity
issues for all races and nationalities as well as gender and other
forms of workforce diversity.^44
Work Teams
Work teams have been of increasing interest to managers in a
number of leading companies, such as Procter & Gamble,
Eli Lilly, and Motorola. These companies have developed
substantial expertise in the utilization of teams.^45
John R. Katzenback and Douglas K. Smith define work teams as
“a small number of people with complementary skills who are
committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and
approach for which they hold themselves mutually
accountable.”^46 A number of benefits have been attributed to
the use of work teams as an organizational form. These include
improved decision making, improved performance, improved
quality, and increased flexibility afforded by the ease with
which they can be created and disbanded. The use of teams
may also lead to reduced labor costs, lower employee turnover,
greater service efficiency, facilitation of change resulting from
reduced individual threat, and shorter product development