HR Practices in Gala Coral Group - Essay Example

Table of Contents Table of Contents 1 Introduction 2 Major Issues 3 Group’s marketing campaign tactic 3 Pay gap 4 Discrimination at work 4 Occupational sex segregation 4 Approaches to the Issues 5 Actions to promote gender equality 5 Policies to promote gender equality 5 Programs Promoted by Gala Coral Group 6 Change management 6 Diversity in the workplace 7 Major Success 7 Conclusion 8 References 9 Introduction Gala Coral Group is a casino operator having its Headquarter in England and operates in the Gaming and Betting industry (Galacoral, 2015). The Group, through the developments and acquisitions have more than 1800 Betting Offices which are licensed. In terms of US dollar, the total revenue of the company was $1958.3 million in 2013. Total number of workforce employed by Gala Coral Group was 19,174 in 2012. In the fourth quarter of 2014, the Group reports turnover of £1239.3 million (Bloomberg, 2015). Their goal is to maximise the revenue and to place significant value on the employees’ involvement which will improve the performance of the company (Annual Report, 2014). The strategies of Group include developing and applying the most excellent technology structures so that their customers get the finest products in well-organized way possible, delivering market-dominant multi-channel facilities, so that their customer could assess the exhilarating products, continuing to build up exclusive and innovative product, and focusing on better locations for their retail shops, thus delivering augmented profitability. Gala Coral Group serves customers mainly in the Italy and United Kingdom which are the largest regulated markets of gambling in Europe (Galacoral, 2015). The objective of this paper is to focus on one of the social problems such as gender inequality issue of Gala Coral Group. It will lay emphasis on the major issues of the company such as pay gap, discrimination at work, occupational sex segregation, etc. Various approaches to these issues will be also taken into consideration which will consequently lead to the success of the company. Major Issues The company is facing some gender issues as all the Board member or directors are male members. The company does not have any female member on the director’s position. For their marketing campaign strategy also, Gala Coral Group have male brand ambassadors to carry out the required activities (Annual Report, 2014). So, the major issue of Gala Coral Group is the gender inequality issue. Gender inequality is the biasness based on the gender that supports sex stereotypes of communal roles. It is most frequently used in regard to unfairness against women, though men could be differentiated against as well. Women are frequently supposed to be submissive and passive, whereas men are normally supposed to be aggressive and self-confident (Indstate, 2013). However, at many occasions in the workplace women give better performance than men, then also they lack appropriate support from the managers. When it arrives to anything significance of great credit or challenging positions, women are downsized and ignored in the place of work. Since long time it has become the human tendency. The gender discrimination in the place or work has resulted to severe consequences in the companies. It takes place at the very beginning during the process of hiring when men are employed in spite of women for definite job positions (Tridiversity, 2013). Group’s marketing campaign tactic As part of the Group’s marketing campaign tactic, the company is involved in ‘Run 4 It’ drive, entailing male brand ambassadors who are dressed in brand robber costumes in order to actually steal the customers from opponent bookies. During this campaign of three weeks, customers were encouraged towards changing their gambling practices with lure of an assured win loyalty certificate and then walked through the male ambassadors or representatives to the nearby Coral. This campaign witnessed a seven percent conversion rate as well as 2,447 customers were actually stolen from nine hundred bookies. Pay gap At Gala Coral Group, there is a gender pay gap because it is supposed that for every year women are not present at the workplace because of the maternity leave. Most of the female members who are doing part-time in the company were found to be in employment below their potential (Galacoral, 2015). More or less, 70% of individuals in nationwide minimum wage occupations are women (Ukfeminista, 2015). Discrimination at work The directors of Gala Coral Group are only the male members (Annual Report, 2014). Stereotyping is identified as the main hurdle which the women are facing at Gala Coral Group. Due to the pregnancy issue the women often lose their chance of getting promotion (Galacoral, 2015). Occupational sex segregation Women and men tend to concentrate in different occupations in the workplace, with men in profession deemed as masculine and on the contrary women are deemed as feminine. This result in the limited opportunities of employment for both genders, however women are more pessimistically affected because the works associated with them generally carry less rewards and prestige and women are reserved into these occupations. Approaches to the Issues Actions to promote gender equality Training to management personnel: Training has been provided to the management personnel on the gender equality. Managers are educated in regards to both the subtle and obvious discrimination that occurs in the company. They are trained how to recognize biasness when it occurs among their employees and how to manage the situation as well as averting it from taking place in the future. Showcase successful women of the company: Gala Coral Group has adopted the approach to promote equality among the employees regardless of their gender, whether they occupy the board position or are the middle or lower level employees. Publicize the efforts: Gala Coral Group has publicized their efforts towards promoting the gender equality. They have done it through advertising it in the newspaper, editorials, and websites in order to make it known to their vendors, local workforce, and the opponents about their dedication to fairness or equality in the place of work. In this way, Gala Coral Group can become an example of how to promote equality for other companies (Galacoral, 2015). Policies to promote gender equality Gala Coral Group has established a policy that ascertains that women and men are remunerated equally for doing the similar work. Beyond equal compensation for equal effort, the policy also ascertains that both the genders are equally treated in training, recruitment, and promotion. The company has formulated a policy that permits both women and men to balance their job with their private lives. This guideline guarantees that management of Gala Coral Group supports pursuit of employees of further learning to progress their careers that help the workforce in maintaining positive and healthy relationship. Gala Coral Group established a policy which specifically and strictly forbids any type of sexual persecution. It is clearly described in the human resource policy or procedure, the results that will take place from the harassment. It means that they had provided the workforce with the warning that occurrence of such activity will lead to their retirement from the company. The company has created a policy that ascertains the unbiased policies which apply to the employees as well as top management of the company. Gender equality implies nothing in the place of work if it not pursued by the entire management personnel (Galacoral, 2015). Programs Promoted by Gala Coral Group Change management The change management program is designed to assist in surmounting compartmentalized, functional approaches of decision making and assist in taking advantage of the innovative opportunities. The application of change management program in Gala Coral Group helps them in developing relevant skills in producing a vision for change, executing change management model to promote gender equality and to increase the effectiveness of the company, managing expertise in competitive universal environment, and diagnosing the areas of trouble and opportunities within the company (Depaul, 2014). Diversity in the workplace Gala Coral Group recruits personnel from diverse group of candidates which helps the company to bring more qualified people. Diversity is very essential to the workforce because diverse employees in the company will aid to drive economic development as well as to capture more share of the market. An inclusive and diverse staffs helps the company to avoid the turnover cost of the workforce. Diversity fosters more innovative and creative employees. Bringing together staffs with dissimilar backgrounds, understandings, and qualifications are a solution to efficient trouble solving on the work (Pilbeam & Corbridge, 2006). Gala Coral Group also requires getting accustomed to the changing nation by becoming competitive in the aggressive market. It will be essential for the company in order to build a competitive market (Kerby & Burns, 2012). Major Success Gender equality draws top talent: A workplace with equally engaging men and women will provide Gala Coral Group access to the whole talent pool. Women are progressively more talented than men, so a workplace which is not attractive towards women has the possibility of losing the greatest talent to rivals. Gender equality reduces expenses: Replacing a retiring staff can cost more than seventy five percent of their yearly wages. As both men and women are more expected to stay with the company, they are viewed as generating turnover for the company thereby reducing the recruitment expenses. Gender equality helps to perform better: There is a connection between better performance of the company and the gender equality. Among the various factors, the main aspect is that the diversity brings with itself varied perceptions, generates a more holistic scrutiny of the matters the company faces as well as encourages greater support thereby leading to enhanced decision making. Gender equality improves competitiveness and national productivity: Empowering women signifies a more effectual utilization of a human talent as well as minimizing gender disparity augments economic expansion and productivity. It has been also observed that increasing number of female workforce by six percent has the likelihood to add approx $25 billion every year to Australian economy (Wgea, 2013). Conclusion The paper aims at focusing on one of the social problem for example gender discrimination issue within the company. Major issues of Gala Coral Group have been taken into consideration to explain the pay gap, occupational sex segregation, discrimination at work, and the marketing campaign tactic adopted by the company. The female members were found to be in employment below their potential. Various approaches to these issues has also been discussed which will consequently lead to the success of Gala Coral Group. Training has been provided to the management personnel on the gender equality. The company has publicized their efforts towards promoting the gender equality by way of newspaper and editorials. The change management program helps them to promote gender equality and to increase the effectiveness of the company. Gender equality will help the Gala Coral Group to reduce the expenses and to perform better by attracting top personnel around the globe. References Annual Report. (2014). Gala Coral Group: Annual report and Financial Statement 2014. Retrieved from http://www.galacoral.co.uk/~/media/Files/G/Gala-Coral/reports-and-presentations/quarterly-report/q4-fy14-accounts.pdf. Bloomberg. (2015). Gala Coral Group Limited Reports Results for the Fourth Quarter and Full Year Ended September 27, 2014. Retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=105918. Depaul. (2014). Leadership and change management. Retrieved from http://www.depaul.edu/university-catalog/degree-requirements/graduate/business/leadership-and-change-mangement-mba/Pages/default.aspx Galacoral. (2015). Gala Coral Group. Retrieved from http://www.galacoral.co.uk/about- us/our-business. Indstate. (2013). Sexism and Gender Stereotypes. Retrieved from https://www.indstate.edu/diversity/docs/Sexism%20and%20Gender%20Stereotypes%20Final1.pdf. Kerby, S. & Burns, C. (2012). The top 10 economic facts of diversity in the workplace. Retrieved from https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/news/2012/07/12/11900/the-top-10-economic-facts-of-diversity-in-the-workplace. Pilbeam, S. & Corbridge, M. (2006). People resourcing: Contemporary HRM in practice. Harlow: Prentice Hall. Tridiversity. (2013). Gender inequality in the workplace. Retrieved from http://www.tridiversity.org/gender-inequality-in-the-workplace/. Ukfeminista. (2015). Facts and Statics on Gender Inequality. Retrieved from http://ukfeminista.org.uk/take-action/facts-and-statistics-on-gender-inequality/. Wgea. (2013). About workplace gender equality. Retrieved from https://www.wgea.gov.au/learn/about-workplace-gender-equality. Read More