A Compelling Business Case for Diversity

Question: Analyse and evaluate the role and limits of key aspects of legislation as they relate to the management of diversity. Answer: Introduction Continuous gender discrimination in job places has added fuel to the debate of diversity and equal opportunity. The most potent victim of such practice is basically the women. Although they are getting placement in various private firms but unlike their male counterparts female employees are hardly considered for promotion in various high ranking posts. In addition to that, they are not adequately represented in private companies and so they always have to encounter the dominance of male employees. They are often excluded from Board meetings and other official conference of the companies and so there is no scope for them to exhibit their talents as well as giving voice to their concerns and opinions. Though various legal provisions have come in to force but there is no end to the misery of female workers in private organizations (Pearn Kandola n.d.). According to Binna Kandola, this systematic approach of exclusion and diversity prevention will ultimately affect the growth and prosperity of such organizations. He is of opinion that firms must accept the importance of gender diversity and should recruit male and female in equal proportions. He also suggests them to accept the issue of biasness for adopting a concrete framework where it can be permanently eliminated. He emphasized that the goal of diversity can only be achieved when there shall be an overall transformation in attitude towards women in workplace. Once they begin to feel psychologically secured like their male employees then they can give their best performance in a real sense (Commission. 2005). The term diversity primarily means difference. But when it comes for comparing qualities among the worthy group of employees including females the expression assumes a neutral tone. The emergence of this term in relation to organization dates back to the year of 1990. This terminology has been designed for tracking similar connection as used in various aspects of human life and environmental activities. But in case of organizational aspects, it is based on the idea of equal opportunities (Anon. 2007). For various companies, the concept of diversity bears different meanings and understandings. But these interpretations are same in certain aspects that include: recruitment of suitable candidates harnessing talent innovation and creativity Establishment of a culture where people can feel to offer best performance where their talents, opinions and views shall be respected. The term opportunity according to Binna Kandla is not restricted in offering similar benefits and facilities to women but also stresses the necessity of their inclusion in different organizational teams for enabling them to be play a significant role in the progress of any organization. It has become synonymous with the term diversity as it stresses the elimination of biased approach and seeks active participation from members of vulnerable community to achieve the highest ladder of success in employment sectors (Pearn Kandola n.d.) Even after the enactment of various Federal laws like Civil Rights Act, 1964 and Equal Pay Act, 1963, women are still experiencing discrimination and deprivation of legitimate opportunities in the workplace. The overall impacts of such approach mainly include the following: Loss of Productivity: Women who often suffer from gender discrimination ultimately lose their morale and essential motivation of performing their job effectively. Factors that can play a direct role in this regard mainly include cracking crude jokes of sexual nature for highlighting the vulnerability and inferiority of women. Through such jokes women employees are compelled to believe that their work standard and capacity is much below than of the male peers (BusinessLink n.d.). Denial of promotions: Biased and stereotypical gender views can encourage supervisors to involve in the unethical practice of recommending individual for promotion to higher post on the basis of gender. In such cases it is the women who are mostly deprived from the opportunity of high ranking promotions (Pearn Kandola n.d.). Though it may happen in case of male but it is the tendency of supervisors to bypass women when it comes to promotion because of the preconceived notions regarding their abilities and roles. Unequal Payment: It is the most common form of gender discrimination in any private organization. The practice has been going on for a long period of time due to less representation of female workers in every organization. Even after putting up a brilliant work performance they are still subdued through paying lesser wages than their male peers (Personnel Today 2009). The problem is not restricted to women employed in low position but also to those working managerial position. Situation reaches to such an extent that women often have to compromise their self-dignity to get higher payments. Negligence in Family Responsibilities: It is the usual tendency of the management of an organization to avoid promoting women who are either pregnant or having child to look after. The management is of the opinion that such women will not be able to concentrate on job due to family related commitments. So they normally recommend male employees for such position. Even if any female employee is able to convince the management then also she is given reduced job responsibility which is incompatible with the job designation (Chron n.d.). These forces women to neglect their family related obligations and to spend much time on job performance so as to fight for their right to promotion in the organization. It is due to the fear of promotion denial that women are undertaking the path of abortion for making their case of promotion strong and effective. With the adoption of various anti-discrimination laws and conventions, many organizations are moving towards the direction of promoting increased number of women in high ranking positions for avoiding legal summons and penalties. Many such organizations are now having separate grievance redressal cells where any employee especially women workers can file their grievances against the company management. Besides, it has become mandatory for every organization to have a separate board for addressing cases of sexual harassment against women employees. Such board must comprise of sufficient number of women to prevent discrimination and biasness against the victim. Organizations that have made tremendous progress in this regard mainly include Canadian Pacific Railway, TD Bank Financial Group and Manitoba Lotteries Corporation (Times Higher Education 2012). For instance, Canadian Pacific Railway for the purpose of retaining its women workforce has adopted various policies and programs that focus on providing flexible working hours, accommodation in the workplace, child care service with a specially designed employee assistance program and so on. Apart from these measures, the firm is now offering various informal and formal mentoring to women employees to increase their representations in senior management level. It is also sponsoring two women based forums in track maintenance and engineering departments where they have the opportunity to participate in panel discussions for expressing their job experience and to have interaction with female management leader (PWC 2014). The approach adopted by Manitoba Lotteries also deserves in the field of diversity and equality also deserves admirations. The senior leaders of this firm in the year of 2001 had adopted a specific competency model to acquire fresh talents on the basis of competency level. The result has yield fruits as it has been able to tap the services of talented group of women working in the managerial berths of the organization. It helps the firm to shed out its attached tag of discrimination and to focus more on talent and capacities. Its new model has also been successful in securing the services of eligible male employees as well. Business case in relation to diversity primarily comprises of eight drivers namely: Demography Legislation Selection and recruitment Team creativity Retention Talent management Brand reputation and Flexible working Many policy makers basically focus on the enactment of various anti-discrimination laws when it comes for ensuring diversity in the workplace. They argue that these legislations will help the deserving women to reach the top managerial post without any sort of compromise. But they have failed to realize that these legal frameworks are in reality the feeblest tools. It is because the prosecutors have to provide sufficient evidence of discrimination before the court of law without which no action can be taken against the culprits. Though these legislations are now being implemented under various pressures but they have failed to contribute positive progress in terms of diversity as they can only be used in case of right violation and not for engineering changes in the outlook of the society (FT 2014). Similarly there are certain drawbacks on the business case related to demographics. Though the concept has been mainly devised for serving the targeted community of people but in reality it is promoting discrimination to a great extent. The discrimination is visible when it comes to employing people who belong to different communities. Although it mainly focuses on serving the specific customer base but many organizations flout this norm as they normally prefer to employ male candidates from white community. In reality both demographics and legislations have been failed to achieve the ultimate objective of diversity. It is because both of them are fragile and defensive when encountered with opposing forces. For example, the enactment of Equality Act 2010 and Equality scheme only seeks to serve the interests of the firm owners particularly during the time of recession as it gives them much choice to retain male employees compared to females. Team diversity has its own benefits when it comes to creativity and idea generation as well as handling of novel or complex problems. But it also arrives with two negative impacts for hampering diversity. These mainly include increased conflict based on relationship and task as well as internal communications. Conflict based on task usually involves testing assumptions and critical analysis. The conflict is also associated due to variations in levels of performance among teams. The team can experience relationship conflict as well which only hinder but also stalls solution implementations. At the same time if the organizations follow transparent approaches in selecting and recruiting candidates irrespective of gender and other factors there is the chance of ushering maximum diversity. They must not tweak the relevant yardstick when it comes to selecting candidates from ethnic minorities. It is the most essential condition otherwise candidates from ethnic community will hesitate to fo rward their application in such firms. In a recent study which was conducted in UK most students belonging to ethnic background had voted for organization that provides equal opportunities A recently conducted survey report shows that flexible working conditions do not affect the performance of an organization. It is the main reason why companies are embracing it as they believe that it will ultimately lead to positive impacts in terms of performance. With the emergence of the concept of twenty four hours banking facilities, Llyods TSB identified the relevance of suitable employment policies for retaining and attracting talented people from the vast pool of job applicants. For that purpose it had adopted an inclusive approach for drawing employees irrespective of gender, disability and race (Insights n.d.). Though certain provisions focused exclusively on providing certain benefits to female and male employees separately but the major policies are entirely formulated for every employee. The company grants requests for flexible job durations only after assessing the business impact but not due to any sort of biasness towards employees. With introduction of such flexible employment package there is a tremendous rise of sincere and dedicated employees of fifteen percent. This has also enabled women working in managerial position to apply for flexible working hours and their number rose to twenty two percent. Another area that deserves special mention in relation to business case is the brand reputation. Firms spend large amounts in branding with the ultimate purpose of differentiation of products and services from their rivals. This ultimately paves way to diversity for ensuring higher profits in the long run. It is the diversity that helps organizations in acquiring corporate reputation among local community. Recent survey suggests that thirty eight of the firms have cited branding as the most beneficial element of diversity in terms of profitability and customer loyalty. From these instances, it is clearly evident that negative and positive practices of diversity can have tremendous effect on the reputation of an organization. Conclusion and Recommendation Equal opportunity and status is a widely spoken topic across the world. It ensures that there are no partiality and right people are offered the right opportunities. However, it needs to be mentioned that the policies and ideas appear to be great but each of them need a proper backing. MNCs can find it easier to implement their policies, but implementing in a general scale to all levels of operations and business sizes will take some time. However, there has been a substantial improvement that has been made in the last decade and it seems more is about to come. As discussed above with regards to the theory proposed by Binna Kandola, systematic approach of exclusion and diversity prevention will ultimately affect the growth and prosperity of such organizations. If this is avoided and proper practices are followed where everyone is treated equally and as per their merits, the effectiveness and efficiency levels of work within organizations would multiply manifolds. It is a difficult proposition, but trends seem to be changing. There are many organizations which are headed by women and are doing quite well. Although, limited, they are prime examples of the possibilities and the things that might be possible if equal treatment is offered at large. References Pearn Kandola, Pushing for Diversity, accessed on 18th March 2016, https://www.pearnkandola.com/images/VoD_Excerpt.pdf Commission. 2005. The business case for diversity: Good practices in the workplace. Accessed on 18th March 2016, https://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/fundamental_rights/pdf/events/busicase_en.pdf 45 Anon. 2007. A compelling business case for diversity. Bright Ideas. Available at: https://www.bright-wave.co.uk/01-01-25-a-compelling-business-case-for-diversity.htm Pear n Kandola, The Intention of Difference, viewed on 18th March 2016, https://www.pearnkandola.com/inventionofdifference/ BusinessLink. Widen your choice of employees to improve competitiveness: The business case for diversity. 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