The Glass Ceiling in the Modern Workplace - Essay Example

?Critically assess whether the glass ceiling still exists in the modern workplace. Immense competition in the modern workplace and also the marketplace at national and international levels is necessitating the requirement of enormous knowledge and talent workers across all levels. To achieve this, organizations are implementing various human resources practices like diversity management, antidiscrimination practices, human resource practices etc. Yet, these practices are either not being embraced by all to the full extent, or are leading to other issues that are further hindering employee advancement within the organizations. The most appropriate pattern in this situation is the formation of glass ceiling within organizations that hinder the growth of specific group of individuals. First quoted by Gay Bryant, glass ceiling refers to the barrier faced by specific groups in an organization from moving up the management cadre. The United States Labour Secretary, Lynn Martin, defined ‘glass ceiling’ as ‘Those artificial barriers on attitudinal or organizational bias that prevent qualified individuals from advancing upward in their organization into management-level positions’ Bollinger and O’Neill, (2008) p.10. The following discussion critically assesses practices adopted by organizations to eliminate glass ceiling effect and attached implications. In spite of various diversity management practices, evidences indicate that organizations have not been successful in eliminating the glass ceiling at various levels. Reasons and implications of glass ceiling have been briefly discussed hereafter. Employee and labour relations studies as well as organizational behaviour reveal that various practices introduced to counter the glass ceiling have been quite effective in many ways. Glass ceiling effect is seen on different economic and organizational aspects. From an economy perspective, the number of female employees has significantly risen in many parts of the world in recent years. Also, organizations are consciously adopting various diversity management practices in order to enhance their performance and also abide by the human rights constitution (Mor-Barak, 2005; p.372). These practices are specific initiatives to bring about a balance in the labour economy. This need has arisen because of various reasons such as increase in number of immigrants into foreign countries; increase in amount of knowledge and technology-driven work; changing life styles; and, increasing costs of living driven by changing businesses and globalization. From an organizational viewpoint, organizations are hiring more women at various positions and are employing distinct diversity management practices to provide opportunity to people belonging to various races, ethnic and social groups. Yet, evidences through reports, researches, news articles etc indicate that women continue to face discrimination issues at workplace. Moreover, blocking the advancement of specific groups to move up to higher management positions will hinder organizational growth to a significant extent. Breaking the glass ceiling helps organizations to harness valuable talent possessed by, women in particular, and all people, in general, at lower levels that belong to diverse groups. Impact of glass ceiling is varied in different parts of the world. In some regions, the glass ceiling is very obvious and others it is discreet, but still exists. For instance, glass ceiling is more pronounced in single-culture dominated regions like the Islamic countries, South African nations and parts of Asia. In these countries, though constitutional rights are provided to minorities as well as women in terms of work and employee relations, yet discrimination and obstacles confront individuals because of sociocultural customs and practices. Its effect is lesser in the United States, European Union, parts of Asian and Australian regions. Most of these countries are multi-cultural, multi-social and pluralistic nations, which is the reason for subtlety of glass ceiling effect in organizations. People in these nations do not experience pressure from sociocultural practices and are more open to other cultural beliefs. For example, Latinos, Africans, Hindus, and Islamic women receive good education as well as better opportunities to work in the Western nations compared to their native countries; this is because of the changed viewpoints of their family members, opportunities in the marketplace, and conducive policies. However, absence of glass ceiling even in these countries is not guaranteed. According to Kreitner (2007; p.42), studies in the United States during 2006 revealed that women were paid less compared to men; one study including 69 male and female employees of a multinational financial institution revealed that though men and women earned the same pay, stock options given to men were higher than what was given to women. Besides pay, number of women at the top is very few. The glass ceiling that hinders women’s progress in the management level can be formed due to different reasons. In 2005, The Economist reported three main reasons for lesser women at top corporate jobs. “The gist of the article is that the reasons vary from not having enough women on track to become upper-management to women withdrawing to care for family members to women not being able to be part of the old boy’s club and able towine and dine clients quite the same way men have been doing so for years” Bollinger & O’Neill (2008) p.15. Researchers have found that the exciting opportunities for women that enable them to take up good positions and careers are not equally available to all groups. Some ethnic groups tend to engender specific occupations as good and/or bad. “According to this criterion, childcare and infant-school teaching would have been at the top of the ‘good-job’ list” Mohammad, (2005) p.197. For example, feminized occupations such as teaching or childcare are regarded as ‘good’ in the Muslim community; hence, Muslim women do occupy the top positions in such occupations. Otherwise, occupations that require constant interaction with men are regarded as ‘bad’ and are avoided. Evidences have pointed to attitudinal issues in creation of glass ceiling in modern workplaces that adopt distinct human resource practices and diversity management policies. A study conducted in Swedish multinational to identify reasons for very few female expatriate managers has revealed different facets to the glass ceiling. This study revealed that an unconscious tendency of men choosing other men exists; male networks impact the choice of expatriates. Gendering work based on its nature also hinders employing or choosing women for specific roles. For women, this study pointed to dual-career and family issues as reasons blocking their expatriate roles besides other reasons such as lack of female role models, mentoring and networking (Styven & Meijer, 2002). Antidiscrimination policies and diversity management practices have been quite effective in modern organizations to a large extent. In order to incorporate more women in their workforce, many organizations have adopted different initiatives like flexible work timings, part time jobs, and contractual jobs (Dulk, Peper & Doorne-Huiskes, 2005). However, these practices are also forming the bases for hindrances in women’s progress up the management ladder in many ways. Although the flexible work practices are meant for everyone irrespective of gender, race or group, these are more often adopted by women because of their personal commitments. Hence, women are left behind most of their male counterparts that eventually gain better experience and become the more preferred ones for greater responsibilities and thus promotions. In this manner, practices that are meant to encourage more women participation in employment are, otherwise creating glass ceiling for women, in specific. Women who are qualified to take up specific jobs, like finance, may not be able to take up jobs in the banking or finance industries because these sectors rarely provide flexible work opportunities (Mattis, 2002; p.337). Organizations are employing a diverse workforce and practicing antidiscrimination. Yet, glass ceiling is being experienced by minority groups at workplace because of the impact of historical and cultural aspects of the population. This is evident in most of the developing nations, for example, the Public Services sector of South Africa has very low representation of the previously disadvantaged people in spite of the constitutional legislation supporting equal opportunities (John-Mary, 2002). The historical factors contributing to this status are discrimination against Black people in education in the past. Lower socioeconomic status offered very little educational opportunities for the Blacks. Both these factors resulted in lack of necessary experience and advancement into certain types of occupations including the high-end technical and top managerial jobs. In summation, the concept glass ceiling refers to the unseen barriers that hinder the advancement of specific groups of people within an organization to higher positions. Organizations and government have been taking various steps to provide equal opportunity for growth and employment to all people based on their skills and qualifications. Yet, this is being disadvantaged by different issues related to opportunities provided to women in terms of education, work-life balance, career orientation, and acceptability; for minority groups the factors creating glass ceiling include opportunities for acquiring education, stereotyping, and general attitude and acceptability. It may be concluded that immense efforts made by organizations and government to eliminate discrimination in any form and enjoy all employment rights are being defied by issues related to attitudes, sociocultural beliefs, customs, and stereotypical images. In order to make these efforts successful, more efforts would be required in terms of educating the masses, mentoring the minority groups, and encouraging women, in specific, to take up newer challenges by providing support to create work-life balance. Number of words: 1502 References Bollinger, L and O’Neill, C. 2008. Women in media careers: success despite the odds. University Press of America: Maryland. Dulk, L, Peper, B and Van Doorne-Huiskes, A. 2005. Work and family life in Europe: employment patterns of working parents across welfare states. In Flexible working and organisational change: the integration of work and personal life. Edward Elgar Publishing: United Kingdom. (pp: 13-38). John-Mary, K. 2002. Managing Diversity in the Public Service: one of Africa’s least tackled issues: (lessons from South Africa’s experience). Presented during American Society for Public Administration. Kreitner, R and Kinicki, A. 2008. Organizational Behaviour. 8th Ed. McGrawHill: New York. Mattis, M.C. 2002. Best practices for retaining and advancing women professionals and managers. In Burke, R.J and Nelson, D.L’s Advancing women's careers: research and practice. Wiley-Blackwell: Oxford, UK. Mor-Barak, M.E. 2005. Managing diversity: toward a globally inclusive workplace. SAGE: California. Mohammad, R. 2005. Negotiating spaces of the home, the education system, and the labor market: The case of young working class, British Pakistani Muslim women. In Falah, G-W and Nagel, C’s (Eds) Geographies of Muslim women: gender, religion, and space. Guilford Press: New York. Styven, M and Meijer, P. 2002. Female Expatriate Managers- Why so few? Social Science and Business Administration Programmes. Read More