Diversity Management in David Jones Company - Essay Example

Managing Diversity Name: Professor: Institution: City and State: Date: Managing Diversity David Jones Company Introduction David Jones Company started in the year 1838. It is one of the oldest department stores still working under its original name. In 1906, David Jones became a public company and enlisted at the stock exchange in 1920. It continued its expansion by employing innovative strategies to what it is at present. The corporation is currently amongst the finest retail outlets in Australia and increasingly provided to its customers the required goods and services. In the year 2000, the company entered the Western Australian Market and David Jones shareholders reward program and launched the David Jones website. This made it the most current stores in the world for the year 2000 (David Jones 2000). David Jones is currently one of the largest departmental stores in the Australian retail industry with approximately about 10,000 employees. Data gathering According to the United States government accountability office, Diversity Management is a way anticipated creating and maintains a positive work environment where the comparison and differentiation of individuals are appreciated, so that all can achieve their potential and capitalize on their contributions to an organization’s premeditated goals and objectives (Day and Greene 2008, p.652). The companies have the liability to set their own appraisal objectives regarding the various available diversities. They should also ensure that the set up guidelines to enforce the diversity policy and implement it to the utmost potential. These objectives should have a preset way of measuring the diversity; it should also have a distinct internal review system, to assist in appraising the effectiveness of the said policy at hand (United States Government report, Jan. 2005, pp. 1-3). According to “ASX Corporate Governance Council Corporate Governance Principles and Recommendations summary of 30th June 2010 Amendments, principle 3.2 (p.3) companies should establish a policy concerning diversity and disclose the policy or a summary of that policy. The policy should comprise; necessities for the board to institute assessable objectives for realizing gender diversity and, for the board, assess both the objectives and progress in achieving them annually.” Diversity management does not only refer to groups that are discriminated against or those different from dominating or fortunate groups, but to “the mixture of differences, similarities and tensions that can exist among the elements of a pluralistic mixture” (Thomas 2005, p.93). Research show that groups composed of people from different surroundings bring with them divergence, that result in greater ingenuity and problem-solving capability. These capabilities stem from the different life incidents, education and language capabilities that groups composed of varied members have. Empirical research supports the thought that diversity affects performance, creativity and innovation positively (Bell 2011, p.18). In retail business, the organization serves people of different characteristics in terms of sexual orientation, race, gender, ethnicity, cultural background, educational background and age. As a result, the companies should portray these characteristics in their workforce to achieve high sales and growth and David Jones is no exception. Being in a service sector, this is easily possible for David Jones since groups with limited mobility like disabled people can be employed unlike construction industry for example. Although David Jones doesn’t have a diversity management policy, it has taken significant strides in making its workforce diverse. This is shown by the increase in the number of women staff and on the board of directors. Non-discrimination in employment has led the company to focus on merit and skills rather than ethnicity, gender and race. This recruitment culture has led to the current diversity of employees in the company. David Jones has changed its view on its employees tremendously over the years. Whereas in 2001 they viewed employees as a means of achieving their goals, all the focus being on the customers, they have changed that in 2011 where are employees are viewed as an integral part of the company whose welfare should be taken care of. Its in 2011 that the company has refreshed its policies on harassment, Discrimination and resolution procedures and implemented face–face briefings with all employees on the code of ethics and conducts (David Jones, 2011). The company has been able to grow and expand over the years because of its diverse workforce, which has made the potential customers embrace it due to inclusion of different cultures in its workforce. The company’s image has also been boosted in the public eye both locally and internationally. David Jones is focused on women set up a section in its departmental store especially for women; it stocked numerous items uniquely for women and this increased the number of women customers to the stores over years (David Jones 2010). The main characteristic of David Jones is that it can employ all kind of staff making it possible to incorporate diversity management. Analysis: Diversity at David Jones Female workforces who make up to 79.5% of the company’s employees (David Jones 2010) conquer gender diversity in David Jones Company. This is because most of its employees and customers are women, but it was controversial because David Jones has only two women in the board, with the ration of seven men (Blau, Ferber and Winkler 2006). Most of the management position of the company comprises mainly of women and the retails department store holds 66% of its position to the women. The achievements in gender diversity throughout all levels of the company’s management, is pompous of its achievements, and will continue to set more motivations in this sector (Klarsfeld 2010, p.11). The Company is dominated by female staff and is a place to meet all the necessities of its female customers. In the previous year’s, that is 2001 and 2002, the board of directors had only two female directors’ visa vie 6 male directors gender diversity was not a priority of the company then (David Jones 2001, 2002). According to the David Jones Annual report of 2010, the Company management committees comprise of four female employees, which indicates that there is gender balancing in the company. As seen in the reports, the demographic pattern of David Jones has changed significantly in the past 10 years and this has brought its own challenges. People from different backgrounds need time to gel together and get accustomed to each other and this might affect business performance. In as much as they have different ideas, they will delay the process of decision making and implementation. The needs of their various needs might prove costly to the company in terms of time and resources. The company has incorporated mandatory ASX principles and recommendations and made the available online so as to avoid legal liability and circumvent legal remedies. The refreshment of its policies on harassment and discrimination is also meant to reduce the occurrence of its stakeholders finding legal remedies in courts, especially after the former chief executive’s saga. The company has also gained on its industrial relations by embracing diversity management in its recruitment policies, code of ethics and conduct, harassment and discrimination policies and the resignation of the former chief executive on mutual consent after the allegations leveled against him. Harassment, biasness, and bullying are sensitive issues to the David Jones Company. Harassment is not condoned at David Jones Company. The harassment of the female employee by the former Chief Executive, led to the firing of Mark Mclnnes for performing in an approach that is not obligatory of a Chief Executive with a female employee, this led to the Appointment of Paul Zahra as new Chief Executive. Gender diversity is equated to equality in most organizations (David Jones 2010). The sexual harassment issue occurred when the company had not set its policies distinctively, concerning sexual harassment; the Company has currently set its policies to ensure that no harassment can ever occur in the Company. The Code of ethics and conduct policy had ethical standards that employees adhered to. These are; “Maintain fairness in dealing with all stakeholders, Avoid conflict of interest, do not accept gifts from third parties on behalf of David Jones, Do not steal, or misuse, property belonging to David Jones, Comply with the Company’s guidelines outlined in the share trading policy” (David Jones Code of Ethics and Conduct p.10). The directors requested the employees to report in time whenever harassment occurs, or someone violates the set code of ethics (David Jones 2009). According to the Code of ethics of David Jones, fairness is considered when dealing with staff, customers and local community. Employees are to have equal rights and treated equally in all aspects of work including; Job upgrading, work relationships and incentives to employees. This ensured that there is No biasness in the Company (David Jones 2001). Diversity research indicates that David Jones is highly committed to cultural diversity and is currently making reasonable measures to attaining the set up goal (David Jones 2007). The Company workforce is highly diverse and values the numerous gains it achieves throughout the cultural diversity (Pitts et al. 2010, p.76). This is revealed in the fact that the company has employed staff from different cultures and work together efficiently with the main aim of achieving the given target. The Board comprises of members from different resident; like Robert Savage, is from Sydney and has worked in the United States, Asia as well as Australia. Mr. John Harvey is a resident of Melbourne and Reginald Clairs, Brisbane, with their past working experiences and being from different places, they learnt a lot from each other (David Jones 2010). In the previous years, the Company had employed indigenous Australians; this significantly affected cultural diversity, because it was dealing with people with the same culture and beliefs, and affected the decision made by the staff especially in the top level (David Jones 2003). Currently employees are from diverse culture and background, thus making knowledgeable decisions for the benefit of the company (David Jones 2011). Cultural diversity enables competition in the business and enables better alignment of both cultural diversity and business strategy (Ozbilgin and Syed 2010, p.14). Diversity identify ways to recruit members from different cultural background this will enable the company achieve cultural diversity, which is a crucial factor of the David Jones company (Pitts 2005, p 627). Australia has a multicultural community, and a diverse organization operates more effectively. Communication is enhanced with global law enforcement associates, through appreciation and admiration for diverse cultures (Pitts et al. 2010, p.77). In 2002, the company extended the succession planning assessment process to include every manager at David Jones. This has a focus on further development on the company’s people and ensuring that everyone has a clearly mapped out a career path. A new performance and development review process was to be implemented. All these were to strengthen diversity management in the company and increase diversity attraction and retention (David Jones 2002). David Jones, in relation to corporate and organization communications diversity, like any performing business, relies on vibrant personnel with the indispensable ability, multidisciplinary comprehension and modern skills to ensure that it attain its goals and achieve its mission. Communication diversity made David Jones open its door to diverse cultures by publicly advertising of jobs. This enabled it to attract large applicants both internally and externally. The company would also place announcements to their customers by having various announcements through the press and billboards, columns in newspapers of their new ideals and products that all available to them. The setting up of the website in the year 2000, by the company, ensured that more information is available to customers at a click of a button (David Jones 2000). Employees are able and highly motivated to contribute continuously to more learning, improvement and mission accomplishment (Groschl 2011, p.73). The company draws on the potency of workforce at all levels and all backgrounds, having an approach towards its workforce, which is inclusive (David Jones 2004). Diversity shows how the organization is supposed to be considering its functionality and the way of doing things (Robert 1995, p.10). David Jones Company has streamlined its policies, especially after the scandal of the former chief executive, to ensure that there are no avenues for any discrimination or biasness. The demographic nature of Australia has also forced the company to ensure that its demographic pattern is similar. This is shown over the years, from the reports of the last ten years, where cultural diversity has been witnessed where the indigenous people have experienced increased representation in demographic setup of the company. This has enhanced indigenous people diversity. The company has drastically reduced its legal liability posed by discrimination and biasness by setting a code of ethics and conduct policy and also recruitment policies which focus on merit and qualifications. Evaluation: Diversity Management Diversity improves working relationships, is an excellent tool of management, and ensures it removes discrimination (Bell 2011, p.26). Diversity also; enhances the code of ethics, improves Company growth, aids in decision-making, is customer focus and maintains gender equality in David Jones. Managing diversity matters significantly in David Jones as it aids in achieving the above concepts as shown below: The organization’s model is not the best because it has majorly concentrated on two aspects of diversity, namely, Gender and Culture. This is shown through the employment of more female staff and having a section of stores significantly for women. This case should apply to both male and female in order to improve on its customer’s needs. About culture, it has incorporated indigenous people of Australia and persons of diverse cultural backgrounds. For David Jones to Improve on its diversity model, they should also consider; age, race, abilities, and religion. 1. Improve Working Relationships and Removes Discrimination Discrimination at the workplace was reduced by the warning from the Chairman of dismissal or disciplinary against the culprit. The Chairman also issued a hotmail number (1800 689 602) to report on unethical matters. The Staff was required to report on any unethical behaviors depicted by their fellow employees, this enabled David Jones eliminate discrimination as staff started behaving cordially (Skrentny, J. D., 2001 p 330). It enables staff to respect one another’s privacy and confidentiality by the introduction of the Privacy Policy to the company (David Jones Code of Ethics and Conduct p.8). David Jones is highly involved with the issues affecting the local community. In 2009 alone, the company was able to donate a sum of $1,181,800.000; this was channeled to help the indigenous Australians through charities, gifts, staff time and cash donations. They were involved in the Victorian Bush Fire, National breast cancer foundation, and talent development. They were also involved in children health by donating a sum of $125,000 to the Children’s Cancer Institute of Australia (David Jones 2009). 2. Enhance the Code of Ethics There exists, in the company, a code of ethics and code of conduct, presented to all employees and accessible on their website, which entrenches strong diversity management in the organization. There is also a regular training course relating to the code applying to all employees. The code has a requirement, among others, to make certain equal opportunity for all employees and treat all the staff in a fair and professional manner, ensuring that the workplace is discrimination free. The board assumed the policy in 2004, and it ensured that there was no bullying in the workplace. They ensured that use of abusive languages; improper comments and vocal jokes become outdated in David Jones (David Jones Code of Ethics and Conduct, p.9). This policy was to apply to all aspects affecting the company’s employees. These are promotion, recruitment, selection to panels, and transfer of staff, salary increment, development, training and demotion. Following the conduct of Kristy Fraser-Kirk, David Jones set up a commission to review Code of Ethics and conduct that was adopted in the year 2004. In his speech, the chairman stated, “as a result of this, we commissioned an independent third party review of the Code of Ethics & Conduct and related practices and process. We are delighted to account that this four-week evaluation concluded that the Code of Ethics & Conduct and its implementation are sound. However, all recommendations suggested by the report will be implemented.” The ASX corporate principles and the recommendations that David Jones has complied with includes; Principle 1.2 – Companies to reveal procedure for assessing the performance of the senior executives. Principle 2.1 – Greater part of the board must be independent directors. Principle 2.2 – Chair is an independent director. Principle 2.3 – The same person should not perform the responsibility of the chair and chief executive officer. Principle 2.4 – Nomination committee is set up by the board. The set up principles strive to establish a well laid management diversity in relation to the staff code of ethics. The issue of performance is stressed enough in these principles, and David Jones having adopted them shows that they abide by them. Principle 1.2 reduces or minimizes instances on discrimination and biasness by requiring companies to have, use and show a procedure of assessing performance of senior executives. It involves open performance expectations, clear performance criteria, suitable and dependable measures, normal performance response, and steady appliance of these principles across staff (Roberge et al. 2011, p.13). This will make the company use the same procedure for all other employees to create uniformity in the organization, and this enhances diversity in the business, both in the short and long-run as the emphasis is on performance and not age, race, color, background or any other issue that suppresses diversity in the organization. Having different individuals holding the different positions (Principles 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3), brings diversity of thought to the organization as it increases chances of diversity to the board. Therefore, the policies of the company will favor diversity as the board members are from diverse backgrounds (David Jones 2010). 3. Good tool of Management As a management tool, the manager was able to use diversity to ensure that the employer's leadership skills are developed and to provide support services to their customers (David Jones 2010). Diversity management schemes can defy ethnicity in organizations, which frequently are supposed to restrict or prohibit occasions for distinct sorting of workers, for example, racial minorities, disabled or females to get sophisticated designations. Managing diversity will assist in maintaining the subtle balance among organizations obligations for industrious personnel. (Australian Centre for International Business 3.7 – 3.9). It will also bring about the growth of an organization’s position and its potential to draw and hold on to the excellent workers (David Jones 2010). Diversity management assists in the reduction of non attendance and employee turnover; it also amplifies employee job satisfaction, while enabling the organization achieve its maximum aims in guaranteeing that the employees of the Company are skilled and well qualified personnel who meet their set targets maximally (Australian Centre for International Business 3.7 – 3.9). According to the 2000 annual report, we see the growth in the company’s sales and profits from 1997 to 2000. The growth achieved yearly because of improved policies and regulations of the company with the set years. The growth was highly motivated by the business diversity adopted by the Company thus enabling growth and more sales made by the organization (David Jones 2000). 4. Improves Company growth The profits moved even further more to the year 2011, proper analysis, indicate that the company’s adaptation to the Governance principles enables its growth. This is due to the diversities adopted by the company current. The board has significantly improved management principles in the company by ensuring that each employee view is considered essential despite your managerial level. The recent years and from these statements, it indicates the organization has been growing positively in the current years, and thus making it amongst the top ASX listed companies in Australia. It is amongst the top retail shops in the country (ASX 2010). 5. Aids in Decision Making Human resource management perspective highlights the advancement and implementation of business initiatives that raise the statistical representation of previously excluded groups. It empowers a diverse staff, once it is in place, to contribute fully in decision-making and ensure their addition in every facet of the life of the organization (Konrad, Prasad and Pringle 2006, p.53). In relation to Diversity in business, David Jones Company has well laid responsibilities of the Chief Executive, this includes; day to day management and administration as directed by the board and will be given a lending hand by the Management Committee. The Chief executive manages the company following the set strategic plans and delegations by the David Jones board. In compliance with the ASX regulations, the company has ensured that the Board Charter is available in the David Jones website in the section of Corporate Governance. The company has set up roles of the chairperson, after selection by the board he will take up the task, which are, be the leader of the board and David Jones Company. To monitor the performance of the board yearly, chair the stakeholder meeting by guiding the agenda at hand and be the one to conduct the board meeting of the David Jones Company. The chairperson will be the one to ensure that the relationship amongst its staff that is directors and board is cordial and is suitable in respect to working. This is because it researched that cognitive and affective processes arbitrate the connection between diversity and group performance (Martin-Alcazar., Romero-Fernandez and Sanchez-Gardey 2012, p.523). The relationship between the board and the staff will ensure that business diversity is maintained. New ideas from the staff of lower level will be easily aired out, and thus new ideas will be in place thus improves the business. 6. Customer Focus David Jones has a people’s commitment where it invest in its people and providing a job setting where all its people are supported, recognized, rewarded and given every chance to attain their full prospective. They are kept occupied and given best incentive to see David Jones as the most excellent place for employment. They focused their investment on ensuring that their staffs feel that they are supported in their roles and recognized for their work. It demonstrated this support and recognition by developing new training programs and introducing benefits that acknowledge their hard work and input in helpful and meaningful ways (David Jones 2010). They came up with a recognition plan, ingrained in their culture, of recognizing and rewarding the contribution that employees make towards achievement of the company’s performance and results. These include annual company awards, which are bestowed on high achievers, and these create a healthy competition between all employees, which is suitable for the company at large. They also introduced new benefits to all permanent employees on equal terms; the first one is obtainable through an autonomous rewards company and the other one internal (David Jones 2008). In doing this, the company minimizes the occurrence of the costs of discrimination and diversity, which are in three issues; the cost to the person, cost to the organization and penalty for noncompliance with legislation (Daniels and Lynda 2005, p. 20). This will enable the company to serve its consumers better because of the interrelationship amongst staff. 7. Gender equality David Jones culture of governance should be able to embrace diversity with the intention of female participation. This culture has led to the female gender outnumbering the male gender and the company ought now to consider revising this, so that no one gender should have more focal point than the other (Day and Greene 2008, p.653). This is to allow for natural balancing. Research has associated increased diversity on gender with exceptional performance on finance and numerous other importance. Conducted research and proves that increased female participation at all levels in the work place positively influences the economy (Ali, Kulik and Metz 2011, pp. 1464-1467). Data of diversity in the organization should show relative participation of all the diverse groups present in the organization. This will help accrue the earlier advantages of diversity management. Diversity in an organization brings in new ideas, which might be exotic, from diverse backgrounds and they offer different perspectives when confronted with problems in the daily business of the company (David Jones 2011). This made management make focus and well-debated decisions. Conclusion and Recommendations In conclusion, David Jones as a company has tried significantly to implement a diverse management policy and has introduced the necessary structures to make it successful. The company is an equal opportunity employer in line with its culture and policies, and this is in conformity with national legislation on diversity. The company has accrued many benefits from employees’ diverse backgrounds, talents and experiences bringing new and inventive responses to issues and challenges. The company not only aims to fulfill all relevant government legislation, but it recognizes that diversity is not just about linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds, but also about age, attitude, gender, sexual orientation, attitude and differences these bring to effective policing. Gender diversity embraced fully as an indication of diversity management concept. It is a tool to enable growth in the organization, and ensures it spread its wings to reach every potential customer. The future of David Jones Company is highly bright and will soon be able to open branches all over Australia. Although David Jones has done much on diversity, it should incorporate a diversity management policy that will deal with or manage all pertaining diversity. The management, from the board to the middle management, should also be fully involved in making recommendations, policies and taking a significant part in the implementations of those policies. The employees should be incorporated in each step so that they can be able to own the processes and easily accept the recommendations. It should also consider the age demography and the disability aspect in the proposed diversity policy. The company should find a way to attract both the aged and the young so as to achieve a healthy blend of experience and fresh new ideas and energy. Employing the disabled will not only help the company have a diversely rich workforce, but also to seal legal loopholes that might arise due to unemployment of the disabled people in the organization. Group that fight for the rights of the disabled might lodge complaints if disabled people are not employed by big organizations and yet they are fully qualified. They should hire staff from different religious backgrounds to bring religious diversity to the Company. Diversity in David Jones is not well reflected in the senior management and the board in terms of culture and geographical background. For example, most members of the board are from Sydney. The company should strengthen diversity in its upper echelons, for it to implement successfully across the whole organization. Reference List ASX, 2010. The Principles. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 31 May 2012]. Australian Center for International Business, n.d. The Knowledge Firm Business: The Case of Diversity Management. [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 6 June 2012]. Bell, M. P., 2011. Diversity in Organizations, Cengage Learning, Cincinatti USA, p.26. Blau, F. D., Ferber. M. A. and Winkler, A. E., 2006. 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T., Metz I., 2011, ‘The gender diversity-performance relationship in services and manufacturing organizations.’ International Journal of Human Resource Management; Apr 2011, Vol. 22 Issue 7, pp. 1464-1467. Read More