ABSTRACT
In organisations around the world there has, since the 1960s, been a growing focus on the leadership and management of workforce diversity. As globalisation has increasingly impacted on economic systems, enabling both the rapid growth of global organisations and increasing the reach of nationally based markets, human workforce mobility has also increased. Many nations have proactive migration programmes designed to attract skilled labour and everywhere people are moving around the globe looking for improved fi nancial opportunities for themselves and their families. In this same period, previously nationally based organisations and industries have expanded to become global in their reach, taking their organisational cultural expectations into new places, creating a demand for new skills and attitudes. Domestically, in economically developed nations, the available pool of skilled labour has changed dramatically, as predicted by analysts. The demands by women, minorities and immigrants for right of access to work in what had been relatively homogenous white male enclaves shifted dramatically into a need for the previously excluded to come into the workforce to enable organisations to meet the challenges of a rapidly globalising world. The consequence of globalisation is that workforce supply and demand systems have experienced dramatic change. The requirements of global capitalism, and its sheer diversity, have caused many organisations to rethink human resource planning and training.
