Diversity Management Policies - Essay Example

Diversity management policies to promote equality in organisations have been widely adopted worldwide, in compliance to legislation and alsoto derive better business results. However, the results are not uniform across all nations and across same organisations in different regions of the world. Various factors attributing to distinct results and impacts of diversity management policies point to the differing perceptions, attitudes, social behaviours, and interpretations of policies. This paper outlines the major contributing factors to the grave and distinct consequences of diversity management policies across organisations and countries. These have been studied from different perspectives, such as gender discrimination, HRM, performance management, cultural dimensions, and best practice implementation resulting from diffusion process, with specific examples. Critically discuss, with examples, the contributions that ‘Managing Diversity’ policies can make to the promotion of equality in organisations. In the era of globalization, managing diversity promotes organizational effectiveness to a large extent. Diversity management is said to have originated in the United States with the Civil Rights Act, 1964 promoting equal employment opportunities (Mor-Barak, 2005). Realization of importance of diversity management through policies and legislation is a more recent affair in most of the countries. The main prerequisites of diversity management are said to be equal rights legislation and affirmative/positive action policies in order to create social, legal and organizational environment conducive for diversity management. The benefits of globalization have lured many organizations to become multinational and also adopt diversity management practices. Diversity management is now being used as a tool in management to tackle discrimination at workplace (Wrench, 2005). This can be best evidenced by the Kosek and Lobel’s model (1996), cited by Mor-Barak (2005), of diversity management approach through diversity enlargement, diversity sensitivity, cultural audit and strategies for achieving organizational outcomes. With the legislative policies related to equal employment opportunities and antidiscrimination laws being introduced, most of the organizations started hiring people belonging to distinct groups and nationalities, incorporating a diverse workforce. The various activities used in organizations to manage this diversity include training and development for all employees, employee involvement teams, links with the community, different work hours and workplaces, benefits, affirmative action programs, top-management attention, public relations efforts, alternate careers, antidiscrimination and code of conduct policies and others. However, the activities used need to fit the culture, the environment, and the needs of each specific organization to achieve the goals (Ferris, Rosen & Barnum, 1995). Gender equality is seen as one important contributing factor for organizational profits, which is proven by the high employment rates of women in most of the European organizations. However, huge differences still exit in gender pay gap and the positions occupied by females. Scheele (2008) attributes this factor to the lesser working hours in weekly terms and also across the life course, which further affects women’s job opportunities and career development. This issue of differences in pay, according to Article 119, Principle of Equal Pay, does not conform to the policy. Very often, part time workers are paid lesser than the full time workers in order to promote full time work. As seen in case of J.P. Jenkins Vs Kingsgate’s case (Clothing Productions), most of the part time employees were women. It is a mere coincidence that more women were part time workers, and that the stereotype, gender-inequality, came into picture (Larson, 1996). Although, in many nations, legislation barring discrimination on grounds of gender has been formulated, gender inequality still exists. As Hearn (2001; 2) identified, ‘resistance to involvement comes for men for a wide variety of reasons: : patriarchal practices, sexism, maintenance of power, complicity in current arrangements, definition of gender equality as ’women’s business’ and not the ’main or most important issues’, preference for men and men’s company. As a matter of fact, the issue of gender equality is to be addressed in personal, local, national, regional and global arenas. Various legislative policies such as the sex discrimination law, equal opportunities law, and others have, in the present day, transformed men’s position in the social context. For instance, boys’ underachievement, rapid transformations of capitalism, huge losses of men’s manufacturing jobs and growing service employment have occurred. In the family context, separations, divorces and remarriages have increased. These changes, in one way or the other, continue to impact social life, including education, class, work, employment, race, sexuality, violence, the family, childcare, the state, personal and private life, sport, care, health, illness, ageing, birth, death, the body, and so on. The best quotable example of managing gender discrimination in the contemporary era is that of opportunities lost by women in sports arena. A recent report in Times online quotes the sports field as, ‘a macho culture inhospitable to working mothers, a lack of champions at the top and discrimination at the grassroots through stereotyping and inadequate facilities are all barriers to women landing the most senior jobs’ (O’Connor, 2009) The news article identified that absence of women in the senior leadership boards of many sports was the prominent factor disabling opportunities for women to showcase their caliber. The ‘diversity management’ policies, in spite of the distinct legislation, are not much effective in certain areas. The ‘Trust Policy’ of National Health Services, UK, on equality and managing diversity states, ‘an Equal Opportunities and Managing Diversity Policy (2009) will not be successful or credible unless it is ‘owned’ by the people who can make it happen. It will continue to be a key element in the trust’s business plan and long term strategic direction.’ From a business perspective, Kaler (2001) argued, cited in Kirton and Greene (2005), at organizational level, diversity management is adopted for optimum organizational effectiveness. Here, this concept is business-oriented than emphasizing the promotion of social justice. Thus, promotion of equal opportunities policies becomes more of business value than adding ‘real’ social value. This is mainly attributed to the procedures used to implement equality and manage diversity at organizational level. Kirton and Greene’s (2005) critical examination of diversity management in organizations point to the weakness of legislation and procedures. Failures of impact of legislation has been evidenced, and have been attributed to the weaker political intentions, the institutional weakness of the personnel and human resources managers in the organizations, and lack of support from senior management for equality initiatives. From the procedural perspective, the liberty of managerial discretion has received much criticism from subordinates pointing to some form of discrimination or the other. In the radical approach of diversity management through equal opportunities, Cockburn (1989, 1991), cited in Kirton and Greene (2005), points out that the schemes or initiatives undertaken to help certain social groups to improve their position in an organization are rendered as ‘special treatment,’ thus spreading negative messages of biasness and feelings of fear from the dominant groups. 121. Thus, an effort to encourage the prospects of particular groups may lead to suffering of the excluded ones. As a diversity management policy, most of the organizations worldwide have opted for equal representations of populations of different ethnic and other groups, age, sex etc. In order to abide by the policy and meet the target numbers, as a recruitment strategy, management may employ workers only based on their membership to particular group. This can eventually perpetuate discrimination and challenge the organizational performance and future prospects. To address and/or eliminate this feeling of ‘special treatment’ among both the dominant and minority groups, most of the corporate organizations have adopted various strategies. One such successful strategy, as evidenced in Deloitte is the recruitment strategy; firstly, it hired people from various backgrounds, ethnic and social groups, genders, and ages. Secondly, it encouraged its employees to refer candidates from their groups or networks (Campbell, 2008). Thus, promoting equality as a best practice, rather than complying with a rule, can be much more effective. This makes the ‘ownership’ concept for diversity management so much true. One more important factor contributing to the failure, to some extent, of diversity management policies in promoting equality in organizations is the impact of historical and cultural aspects of the population. This is very evident in most of the developing nations, for example in the Public Services sector of South Africa that 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; lack of necessary experience and advancement into certain types of occupations including the high-end technical and managerial jobs. Gender discrimination that prevailed in the past has limited women from acquiring higher education and also higher and critical positions in jobs. Predominance of males in organizational settings in the past also contributes to pulling back women and not being considered equal by men (John-Mary, 2002). No matter what policies are made and documented, these historical and cultural factors seem to have taken stronger stay in organizations, thus making the diversity management policies less permeable into organizational culture. Working in teams to produce greater results is the approach in almost all the organizations. Gratton (2009) identifies that great teams are built on diversity, and she quotes, ‘innovative teams have different mindsets brought by taking men, women, and people from different age groups and nationalities’ (Ford, 2009). However, in such a setup, a shared outlook forms the base of high performance. In the absence of a shared vision, group thinking can be dangerous for the organization. Also, Kosek and Lobel (1996) expressed (cited Mor-Barak, 2005; 213), ‘the approach in multicultural teams is motivated by compliance to laws and public expectations of political correctness rather than a deep understanding of the business need for diversity.’ Although diversity management policies get implemented successfully, they may not be able to produce the desired results. The contemporary trends of globalization and multinational organizational culture are more challenging for organizations to promote equality through diversity management policies. As explained by Professor Hofstede (in 2007) about the interrelations between corporate cultures and national cultures, and their link to the personality traits and national cultures in an exclusive interview with Fink, organisational cultures within the same area differ from national cultures in great proportion and had no pattern of correlation with any culture. One of the challenges in the multinational setup is the principle of sharing national culture and values of the country they represent in order to gain trust of their own people (Hofstede & Usunier, 2003). The core components of national culture are values which are preferences of individuals, with their roots embedded in their background, upbringing, learning, education, societal norms, traditions, and customs; and hence, the inherent character of values that exist cannot be influenced or easily adopted, either, by people of different set of values. Other set of national culture are the habits or rituals, ways of behaviour and are more inclined towards feelings, and have the scope of adoption. Other than national culture, ‘professional culture’ component is said to exist in international organizations and their negotiations. The professional culture includes the common symbols learned and understood by all parties involved, and are more superficial. These form a ‘requirement’ in the negotiation factor in order to progress, and vary with the discipline involved such as for diplomats, bureaucrats, politicians, business and media persons etc. (Hofstede & Usunier, 2003). Differences in leadership approaches can have a significant impact on promoting equality in multinational organizations owing to the cross-cultural differences. Much research has been carried out to assess the various management and leadership competencies across different nations, with one such research being that of James Hunt’s, explained in his paper, ‘a comparative analysis of the management & leadership competency profiles reported by German, US and Australian managers,’ (Connell, Cross & Parry, 2002; 141). This research revealed that the US and Australian leadership was more inclined towards motivation and team-building than to managerial functions such as short-term planning and establishing control systems. Conversely, sensitivity towards national differences and avoiding spontaneous decisions where appropriate, were more highly regarded as central to managerial effectiveness by German executives. These variations in leadership were assumed to be adopted from the inherent national culture that had been deeply rooted in their values. Applying these styles and competencies while implementing diversity management practices and policies in cross national organizations can result in undesirable consequences. For instance, implementing flat organizational structure, which is characteristic of the western multinationals, may not be welcomed by people in Asia-Pacific organizations. In these organizations, impacts of societal culture on management in Indian contexts can be seen on functions such as staffing, communication, leadership, motivation and control. Staffing for top managerial positions, especially in private sector, is generally from familial, communal, and political considerations (Budhawar & Sparrow, 2002). From HRM perspective, cross-national organizations have achieved little or no desirable results in subsidiary companies in other countries due to the different values and culture. For instance, Warner (1998) pointed that researches on Japanese management system (Sano et al, 1997), HRM in Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea (Rowley, 1998), aspects of Chinese management (Warner et al, 2002) have all revealed a need for standardization of HRM practices and policies coupled with redefining these policies and practices with respect to personnel management and industrial relations specific to that nation and/or culture. The impacts of forward diffusion and reverse diffusion on diversity management, that captured most of the manufacturing and service industry practices, cannot be ignored. Ortiz’s (1998) extensive studies involving the world’s major manufacturing and service industries have given substantial evidence of the effects and implications of the two-way diffusion of practices and policies (Edwards & Ferner; 2004). With respect to HRM practices and policies, most of the practices have been beneficial in improving the businesses. For example, the adoption by US motor manufacturers of Japanese forms of production organisation in the form of ‘lean production,’ a pattern of transformative diffusion, have, indeed, lead to great improvisation and profits for the industry. On the contrary, there are, also, evidences of resistance by employees in some of the British and Spanish car manufacturing organisations, of adopting the ‘team work’ concept. Reasons for this resistance are attributed to the loss of existing status quo of the shop stewards’ traditional workplace role. This depicts the importance of relations of power and influence between the main company and its subsidiaries. Returning to the HRM perspective, three main roles of HR function in any organisation have been identified: firstly, to identify the roles HR function needs to carry out against the ambiguity and tension given by other departments to HR department; secondly, to strike a balance between centralized and decentralized processes; and thirdly, to explore newer avenues of operating in international firms while adding higher value to their function. In the context of diversity management in multinational organisations, the role of corporate HR function in supporting globalizing strategies, as recognized by Ghoshal and Bartlett (1990), included recruitment, training and management. Development of managers is crucial to MNC success, and to infuse organizational culture. For diversity management and to promote equality among the masses, talent management, management through global networks, development of intellectual integration through the management of knowledge, and global e-enablement of HR Processes have a crucial role to play (Stiles & Trevor, 2006). International management also emphasizes development of senior management teams with international experience as a prime responsibility of the corporate HR, who will then be able to drive a similar culture among the people. Having people with international background at the top may pose the challenge of acceptability from the native employees. Also, finding native people with international experience at senior management level may be extremely difficult. One important diversity management practice employed in organizations across the globe is performance management and feedback mechanism. More successful large companies are beginning to tie compensation directly to employee performance to drive incredible business results. A well-structured performance management system is believed to bring about appropriate goal alignment, increased motivation, improved retention, and cost savings in terms of repeated recruitment and training. This system promises to inspire employees belonging to any group or class, owing to the ‘rewards’ and ‘money’ factors involved. However, performance management has to be linked to feedback mechanism in order to bring out the best in employees. In a multinational setup, implementation of global performance management system is difficult as it depends on factors such as nature of overseas job, support from and interaction with the parent company, nature of environment, and degree of expatriate and family adjustment. It is a proven fact that culture has its impact on people’s social behaviour and their actions. It has embedded assumptions that in turn influence thinking, emotions and the actions without their knowledge. For organisations and nations who fail to recognize and appreciate this fact, international business would be disastrous. The two important implications and patterns of variations present in the differences of culture are goal setting and reward systems with respect to individual versus team-wide or organisation-wide, and communications with respect to gestures, eye contact and body language in high-context cultures versus precision with words in low-context cultures. Though the communications aspect cannot be defined in diversity management policies per se, appropriate training and awareness on these aspects have to be provided to the managers doing performance management and feedback activities (Cascio, 2006). Studying these variations, Cascio (2006) has made a few interesting propositions- managers in individualistic and collectivist cultures find excuses for poor performance; Individualistic and Collectivist cultures prefer individual goals and rewards and team goals and rewards, respectively; participative approach in performance management is more common in horizontal culture than vertical culture; methodology of performance feedback will be different at different levels, though the frequency may be the same. For example, some cultures (in India) view it disrespectful to question one’s supervisor’s decision. Self-appraisals were used more frequently in Western than in Eastern cultures. Though self-appraisal systems have been introduced in many multinational companies in the East, their validity considered to be lower in Eastern than in Western cultures (Cascio, 2006). Cascio (2006) further elaborates on performance feedback, which is another important aspect of performance management, and is undoubtedly influenced by culture. While, a two-way performance feedback is given high importance in individualistic cultures such as US, UK and Australia, collectivist nations such as Korea, Guatemala, and Taiwan treat it as an unacceptable behaviour and they use indirect methods such as communication through intermediary source to deliver feedback. A high level of sensitivity has to be applied to the process of performance management and feedback by understanding local customs and appropriately using the methods suitable, and this is a challenge for the parent company as it would involve many modifications and adjustments from their end for implementation of these processes. From a corporate point, the corporate principles and core programme should be reflected in human resource management practices throughout the company but with adaptations depending on local culture and institutions. Concluding the argument based on the above mentioned factors, on diversity management as an effective tool for promoting equality in organisations, organizational success and growth requires, besides implementation of equality and antidiscrimination policies, strategic recruitment, employee relationship management, diversity training, communication, and leadership. In this regard, the cross-cultural influences, social behaviours based on historical grounds, perceptions of different people belonging to different countries, groups or sectors would require special significance while framing diversity management policies and practices at an organisational level. The strategies and practices employed should be able to select, retain and manage a diverse workforce. The best practices should value people; be able to cultivate an environment where cultural awareness, sensitivity, fairness and integrity thrive; and instill motivation and inspiration among employees. The diversity management strategies should be integrated into HRM and business strategies, ongoing and be measured on a periodic basis to check for viability. Recommendations in the category of successful implementation of diversity management policies include appropriate training for all employees on organisational culture and business communication. Intercultural communication involving different nations and cultures should consider differing perceptions, attitudes and interpretations. Integration of employee development processes and career paths into performance management and feedback mechanisms can boost employees’ ‘feelings of importance’ and eliminate the ‘special treatment’ concept. 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