Shifting Populations–Diversity only growing

This probably is not a surprise to anyone, but the California Public School System is now for the first time over 50% Latino.  Demographic shifts like this, when combined with the fact that millenials will make up over 40% of the work force within the next four years mean that as organizations recruiting and employing people, our profiles of our incoming staff will be much different than they were even five years ago.   The most immediate question is of course "How do I attract the best people in this group?", but the immediate following question is "How do I retain them once I hire them?"  Again, these are not new questions, but when you overlay these demographic changes on them, the texture becomes much different.

In addition, looking outward from an organization, how does this impact the products and services that I offer to this new work for?  These will be the consumers of tomorrow (they already are today, of course, but to a larger extent in the future), how do I make certain that what I make is relevant to them?

One practice that I enjoy incorporating in my staff meetings once each month is to distribute trend data to people in all sorts of areas (demographic changes, consumer spending, environmental factors), and spend about an hour brainstorming on how these different factors could impact our core functions.   Not only is it a fun exercise, but we always derive value from it as an organization and it has become a source of some of our key initiatives.  It may be something that you may want to try at some point.

--Danny