week 4 Flashcards
Organisational approach Identify conscious structures
Identify conscious structures: those that explicitly and formally include demographic group identity in HR decisions
Organisational approach Identify blind structures
Identify blind structures: those that do not explicitly include demographic identity in HR decisions.
Contemporary Issues for Women and Men in the Workforce 3 (3
Demographic shifts in the workforce have changed how women and men view their roles at home and work.
Expansion of gender roles is attributed to dual-career families (Doucet, 2004).
Exodus of women from home into the workforce (e.g., dual earners and female breadwinners)
Work−life balance (Powell & Greenhouse, 2010)
Equilibrium between the amount of time spent on work and non-work related activities
Female and male workers want more autonomy over their work to better accommodate their personal lives
Contemporary Issues for Women and Men in the Workforce Work−life Balance Initiatives:
Aim is to enable employees to manage work and care-giving responsibilities (Kossek, Lewis, & Hammer, 2010).
Initiatives consist of flexible practices and family-friendly policies.
GENDER IDENTITY AT WORK
W/M
Women are an integral part of a diverse workforce:
Supplementing family income
Pursuing careers in predominantly male professions
Men are exploring new work-related options and rethinking conventional gender-role stereotypes (Perrone, Wright, & Jackson, 2009).
Women and men continue to confront inequality due to gender bias (Meyerson & Flercher, 2000; Reece & Brandt, 2008).
Gender Discrimination in the Workplace
Historically, pay gap was distinguished by level of education and physical prowess.
Men earned more income than women (Fry, 2009).
Today, women have more access to higher education, increasing their opportunities to earn higher income.
Equal Pay Act (1963) seeks to address wage gap disparities.
Organizations are based on norms and beliefs more accommodating to men than to women (van Vianen & Fischer, 2002).
“Good old boys” network depicts men’s social closure on male occupations (Levine, 2009).
Progression of women to senior-level jobs is increasing but at a slow pace.
Glass Ceiling Effect
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First Female Chief Executive Officer of a Fortune 500
1999: Carleton Fiorina appointed as CEO of Hewlett-Packard
Women have “cracked” but not shattered the “glass-ceiling.”
Glass Escalator Effect
Men ascending the career ladder at a faster pace than women in female-dominated positions, e.g. nursing, librarianship, social work, and elementary school teaching (Williams, 1992).
why is glass ceiling problematic
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Glass ceilings are problematic from an organizational effectiveness perspective – Limiting the pool of talent is an unwise human resources practice in case of promotions into and within managerial ranks on the basis of a job-irrelevant personal characteristic viz.,candidate sex
Glass ceilings are problematic from an ‘organizational justice perspective’. Organizational justice theories (Greenberg, 1990b, 1996) suggest that employees are concerned with both procedural justice and distributive justice
Glass ceilings are problematic from an organizational impression management perspective. It is important for organizations to be seen as fair in their personnel procedures and outcomes (Greenberg, 1990a). Fairness perceptions influence employer branding, which in turn influences the attraction and retention of talent (Ambler and Barrow, 1996).
Temporal flexibility 6
The most common ‘equity’ policy reported by organisations has been temporal flexibility – allowing both women and men to remove themselves from the workplace for family reasons (but this has been most commonly taken up by women) including flexible work arrangements
Intersectionality 5
The connections and interconnections between different identities and experiences of discrimination that may be assumed by an individual, and the multiplicative effects within intersections\
It seeks to understand the connections between various dimensions of social difference for example: race/ethnicity, religion, sex, social class, age, etc.
Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 4
Responsible for reviewing employers’ compliance with the gender reporting requirements in the Act, among other functions
Some large companies are already leading the way in publishing their gender equity reporting data publicly
Organisations like National Australia BankandMirvacare listed as key examples, among others publish gender equity data in terms of pay and other conditions.
The key now is to raise awareness among other businesses, both large and small, of the benefits of making their pay gap more public
Jenson’s (1998) framework of social cohesion 5
(1) Belonging: referring to the sense of connectedness to and/or pride in “the community” or the nation (Markus, 2010)
(2) Inclusion: having equal access to resources, including education, employment, health care, and housing
(3) Participation: covering political/civic participation and social/community participation
(4) Recognition: including the extent to which there is mutual respect and tolerance (Markus, 2010)
(5) Legitimacy: reflecting more-formal, institutional-level matters, such as policies relating to pluralism, and also public confidence in institutions such as the political system, government departments, and unions
Key barriersthat are locking out Asian talent in Australian organisations include:
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Cultural bias and stereotyping: Only 18% of Asian talent feel their workplaces are free of cultural diversity biases and stereotypes. Many regularly experience bias and stereotyping, including about their cultural identity, leadership capability, English proficiency, and age. Women from Asian backgrounds experience a ‘double disadvantage’.
Westernised leadership models: 61% feel pressure to conform to existing leadership styles that are inherently ‘Anglo’, e.g. over-valuing self-promotion and assertive direct communication, while undervaluing and misinterpreting quiet reserve, deference and respect for seniority.
Lack of relationship capital: Only one in four has access to mentors or professional networks and even less has access to sponsors; similarly low levels feel included in workplace social activities.
The case for culture not understood: Only 15% strongly agree their organisation leverages its workforce cultural diversity to better service clients. Organisations often fail to fully grasp the strategic value of Asian markets, capabilities and talent for Australian organisations operating in the Asian Century
