Discrimination Against Women in Banking Sector - Term Paper Example

INTRODUCTION This report is about the ethical issue related to discrimination against women in banking sector. An ethical theory will be used to relate to the issue defined in the case. A course of action for dealing with this issue in the bank will be recommended and appropriate tools for implementation will also be discussed. The report will be concluded with the limitations of the corrective mechanism. OUTLINE OF THE ETHICAL ISSUE In the past few days, many reports have pointed fingers towards the banking sector for the discriminatory practices the banks engage in against women. Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has mentioned in their recently published report that the financial services sector is prominently male dominated. The report also points out the male dominant culture in the sector is a barrier for women who want a long term goal of achieving a management position in a bank or some other financial service provider. Quite a few number of women remarked that they were excluded routinely from informal meetings and round-table conferences in which important decisions were taken. The main reason for this was that most of these meetings and conferences were held in places which are “no go areas” for women, like strip-clubs and hostess bars (Robert, 2009). The financial institutions have also been blamed for sexism where the male workers receive up to 5 times more bonuses than their women co-workers. The women are forced to work in segregated conditions which prevent them to secure a higher pay (Robert, 2009) or a promotion. The disparity in the financial sector between the pays of men and women is higher than other sectors of the economy (Robert, 2009). The women are also found to be present in a very few numbers in senior managerial positions in banks. Women have also reported that they have to listen to sexist remarks by the management and co-workers. The banking institutions have also been found to be lenient with men with regard to paid leaves and bonus policy, while the women have to face threats of redundancy. Although our bank has not been specifically mentioned in the reports released by the EHRC, but these issues do exist in our bank. This report, therefore, will specify some of the recommendations that the banks should adopt in order to stay away from these ethical issues. Ethics of Right protects the rights of each human being (Velasquez, 2009). According to this theory, people should be treated fairly and provided their right. In the case we can see that the women are not treated fairly as the men are. The people, whether men or women should avoid discriminating or treating people differently who are in a similar position. COURSE OF ACTION FOR THE BANK A high ethical stance of an organization can be of no great defence against criticism of public, and sometimes it may even attract them. However, the companies cannot leave themselves to the public’s eye for criticism and hence some instruments or policies are needed to be implemented to ward them off. The management of the bank should be local to the high proportion of worker (Jacobs, 2001). This will help the employer to be carefree of the welfare of the employees as the management will act socially responsible with their community workers. The banks need transformation where the human resource department should be instructed to hire new people on the basis of their skills and required background rather than on the basis of sex. For a more open approach, the bank should not ask the gender of the applicant in the application of job. This will enhance the image of the bank at a national level where the public will be convinced that hiring in the bank is not discriminatory against women. Currently, the salaries are also set in the financial sector according to the sex of the new employee. The women receive less compensation and the men receive higher. The compensation of basis should be changed to the performance of the employees. Performance based compensation will be beneficial for the bank as well as the employees also. This will require the management to assess the performance of the employees through appraisal. The compensation and bonuses should be directly related to the performance of the person and the number of hours worked rather than on the position of the person and gender. Performance based compensation will not only remove discrimination from the organization but will also help the bank achieve its strategic goals. The key to removing the disparity between genders in the financial institutions is that the women are allowed to take up senior positions. The women should have equal opportunities as men when a senior position is vacant. A certain requirement should be set for each new vacant senior position so that there is a fair system of promotions in the bank. The person who is able to achieve his/her goals in the organization should be considered for the senior position. However, the main point here is that once the women are able to secure the senior positions in the organization, then automatically discrimination against women in the organization will diminish. Each employee should be taught to be socially responsible when taking decisions in the organization. There are a number of ways to teach the employees to act this way. One way is to print pamphlets or a handy guide which discusses the social corporate responsibility of each employee. The alternative to this is the rough way; i.e. the employees should be fined whenever they are caught acting socially irresponsibly. The employees should be motivated in this program by training sessions which tells them how to be socially responsible and how to improve working conditions for the women. The women should be empowered in the organizations to attend meetings and to call meetings with the clients and the colleagues. The bank should introduce a policy of keeping all the meetings with the clients and colleagues inside the organization and not in strip clubs and lap-dance bars. All these policies and actions will enhance the image of the bank in public’s eye and the bank will not be a target of criticism. To ensure that the CSR tool is working well, auditing should take place with social accounting (Proving and Improving, 2009). In this activity, the corporate social activities should be audited for each employee. LIMITATIONS OF THE COURSE OF ACTION As we all know the financial services organization are dominated by a “laddish” culture, where the women do not equal opportunities to advance in their field. This culture has been present since many years and hence would be very difficult to change. To bring about the changes recommended in the earlier part of the report, the management’s support is very necessary. There is currently only a single woman in the board of directors. It is necessary that these recommendations are approved by the other board of directors to be successfully implemented. The management and the board of directors may not see this ethical issue as an essential issue for the organization. This will cause these recommendations to remain just as apart of this report and not implemented. The recommendations can only be realistic is the upper management and the board of directors are willing to bring about the change in their culture. The management may be hesitant to bring about these changes in the workplace because a high risk of failure is involved. Another limitation is that the bank might not have budget to invest in the social corporate responsibility training program. CONCLUSION This report will be concluded with the review of the ethical theory mentioned earlier and its relation to the consequences of the course of recommendations. The theory suggests us that each person should be justly treated and the recommendations are placed here to treat the women justly. Therefore the consequences of the course of action will be corrective and the women will be treated more justly in the bank. BIBLIOGRAPHY Velasquez, M. (2009). Rights. Internet. Available from http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/rights.html [February 11, 2010] Robert, V. HOME AFFAIRS EDITOR. "Sexism in the City still rules OK." The Independent. 7 Sep. 2009, ProQuest Newsstand, ProQuest. Web.  February 11, 2010. Jacobs, G, B. (2001). “Best Business Practices for Corporate Social Responsibility: Management tools for implementing the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.” Conference organised by the European Commission May 10, 2001, Brussels. [February 11, 2010] Proving and Improving. (2009). Social Accounting and Audit. . Internet. Available from http://www.proveandimprove.org/new/tools/socialaccounting.php [February 12, 2010] Read More