Managing Diversity Awareness Campaign - Literature review Example

BKK)Managing Diversity Awareness Campaign Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Literature 3 2. Awareness Campaign Material 6 Record 6 Poster 8 3.Critical Review of Awareness Campaign 10 References 13 1. Literature Modern-day organizations around the globe face continuous challenge of managing employees working in organizations, the effect of which has severe consequences upon the growth and existence of such organizations. Employees in an organisation are identified to vary on the basis of gender and demographic characteristics for which the employees are identified to be having their own personal and professional goals. An increase in the differences underlying fulfilment of the goals and objectives of the employees has led to an increase in the differences amongst the employees, especially when it comes to gender-related goals and issues (Konrad & et. al., 2006). One of the prominent reasons behind an increase in the differences amongst the employees lies with the inability of the managers or supervisors to manage the employees, resulting to gender inequality in the workplace. An important example of this can be the increasing tendency to develop and provide growth opportunities to the male employees in comparison to the females. Hence, there exists a need to develop several alternatives by which gender can be managed in the workplace, and which would lead to the establishment of a sustainable organization (European Union, 2008). Gender management is important, as it increases the scope of gender diversity and enables the employees to focus upon their respective goals. In this respect, the employees are able to perform their tasks as team members for effective attainment of organizational objectives (Powell, 1994). The diversity awareness campaign will be aimed at “Gender diversity in the workplace”, which is needed to be managed in order to prevent the emergence and development of differences with respect to employees. One of the most widely used tools to manage gender diversity in the workplace, which plays a crucial role in avoidance of conflicts is leadership. The diversity awareness campaign would focus upon a number of strategies to manage gender diversity in the workplace (UNDP, 2010). Leadership must be considered as the first priority of an organization, as it is regarded as an important driver of change. Leaders can play a lead role in facilitating gender diversity by providing quality training to the employees and ensuring that every employee works as a team and have equal opportunity to participate in the organizational decision making processes. Furthermore, a leader helps in establishment of gender equality through focusing upon formulation of gender equality initiatives (AHRI, 2012). ‘Focus’ is another important tool to ensure gender management in the workplace, since it aims at integrating gender quality with the pre-determined business strategies. This in turn ensures gender management for the integration of business strategies with the gender equality, which would act as a business priority, thereby enhancing the quality of the outcomes and achievement of higher benefits in future (Williams & Dellinger, 2010). The Awareness campaign also aimed towards ensuring accountability in the workplace. Accountability is yet another important feature that leads to management of gender diversity in the workplace. Employees majorly women, must be provided equal opportunities of growth and respect with an increase in their incomes, which would result to the generation of higher responsibility and accountability leading to managing gender diversity (Olgiati & Shapiro, 2002). Another important tool that will be focused by Awareness Campaign is to manage gender diversity in the workplace is the use of “woman-to-woman mentoring” technique. Woman-to-woman mentoring requires senior level women employees to provide quality training and mentoring to the junior employees for providing advice on future career, gaining a deeper understanding of the organizational policies and avoid situations of conflicts and isolation in the workplace (Commonwealth Government of Australia, 2014). The awareness campaign would also prioritize upon the development of “empathy vs. Advice”. Empathy vs. Advice can be regarded as another important tool for managing gender diversity. Women seek to show empathy rather than focusing upon retrieving advice from the male colleagues at the time of being engaged in conversation. Women need to seek advice from others, which would derive beneficial results (Paludi, 2012). In addition, the Diversity Awareness Campaign would focus on the utilization of anger management technique in the workplace. Anger management is one of the most widely used tools in the field of managing gender diversity in the workplace. Anger results from emergence of stressful situations, the effects of which can be harmful for the employees and organizations in the long-run. Hence, leaders have the responsibility to manage anger, so that employees are relieved from stressful situations and are able to handle the organizational responsibilities accordingly (Holmes & Flood, 2013). Working through problems is considered another important tool that ensures that gender differences existing in the workplaces are appropriately managed. Women can approach senior female colleagues to solve workplace-related issues, which would lead to the development of the workplace and would further ensure that women are able to meet their personal as well as professional objectives (Karsten, 2006). 2. Awareness Campaign Material Record Teacher (T): Hello everyone, today we will be focusing upon how to manage gender equality in the workplace. Let us begin the class with what is gender inequality in workplace. Students (S): Gender inequality in workplace refers to situations where there exist situations of conflicts in the workplace among the employees based on differences in genders. T: Why is gender inequality harmful for an organization? S: Gender inequality can be considered as an important element that can lead to the creation of conflicts, thereby, deteriorating the performance of an organization. Furthermore, gender inequality can lead to the inability of an organization to develop its prospects of growth and the inability of the employees to meet their targeted objectives. T: What do you think can be the reasons behind gender inequality in workplace? S. One of the reasons is the inability of mangers and lack of leadership qualities in managing employees. Another reason can be the increase in the number of issues associated with differences in job roles and future growth prospects amongst the male and female employees in workplace. Lack of adequate training and increased discriminations of women in workplace can be considered some other reasons behind the rise of gender inequality. T: What are the consequences of gender inequality in workplace? S: Gender inequality can lead to a negative change in feelings and perceptions associated with workplace, feeling of hatred and anger towards other employees, increased distraction and inability to focus on personal and professional objectives. Increased tendency to leave workplace because of job dissatisfaction, consequently, being unable to meet the organizational goals can be considered as some of the consequences of gender inequality. In extreme situations, gender inequality can lead to development of stressful situations, which can hamper the personal lives of the employees. T: Do you think that gender inequality can be managed? S: Yes, gender inequality can be managed through use of several techniques. T: Please specify some of the techniques that are utilized by contemporary organizations to manage gender inequality and diversity in workplace? S: One of the tools that can be used to ensure gender equality in workplace is anger management. Development of leadership style of thinking among the employees, apart from an increase in their job roles and responsibilities can be considered as another important factor that can lead to the development of gender equality. Advice and mentoring can be helpful in the field of managing gender inequality, which would lead to effective gender diversity in workplace. Furthermore, gender inequality can be made effective with the arrangement and establishment of a grievance handling system that would seek to eliminate the problems underlying gender diversity and would facilitate organisational growth in future. T: What do you think, which organizations are capable of utilizing such techniques and why? S: Organizations that provide equal opportunities of participation for the women employees and want to focus on future organizational development, can consider utilizing such technique in order to facilitate gender management in workplace. T: What are the benefits underlying utilization of the gender equality techniques? S: If leadership is used as a technique, it can facilitate an organization to develop leadership abilities amongst the employees. Furthermore, sharing responsibility and accountability would lead to greater satisfaction on part of the employees and would motivate them to work towards accomplishment of organizational goals. In addition, anger management would ensure that the employees, who are facing a change in attitudes and experiencing stressful situations, are provided the opportunity to develop themselves and are able to focus towards their work. Counselling and mentoring would facilitate development of employees through knowledge sharing, which would have a positive impact upon their abilities to handle gender diversity-related issues. Poster 3. Critical Review of Awareness Campaign Managing Diversity Awareness Campaign was conducted on the area of managing gender equality in the workplace. For this purpose, the campaign undertook various steps to share the knowledge of the aspect of gender inequality and diversity in the workplace. Furthermore, the campaign was also targeted towards allocating pertinent information regarding the various limitations and problems people faced in situations of gender management in the workplace. Moreover, the campaign focused upon the utilization of several techniques by the contemporary organizations, which can enable the organizations to cope with the problems of gender inequality and diversity. The awareness campaign will be successful, as it may result to bringing awareness regarding the need to adopt gender management policies in the workplace and selection of issues associated with gender on a priority basis. Furthermore, the awareness campaign may be able to share pertinent information regarding how gender management issues can be managed, the effect of which has been observed in modern-day organizations. Out of the various available alternatives, record and posters have been used as an awareness strategy, since they possess the capability to attract the attention of people and provide them knowledge regarding the importance of introducing gender management in organizations (Paludi, 2012). Conversations amongst the students and their teachers have been recorded and findings will be suggested that will help organizations and people to manage their gender-related problems, and lay more focus upon achievement of organizational goals. The study prioritized upon poster as one of the most important and widely used tools to promote awareness for managing gender inequality in the workplace. Posters have been designed in a manner that had the ability to attract large group of customers and are made available in online websites and blogs to aware people and organizations on a global scale. Furthermore, posters are made on a display across the streets that will facilitate towards raising awareness regarding the subject on a high scale. Moreover, the awareness campaign also highlighted the need to prioritize the factors that are considered important in relation to management of workplace diversity (Holmes & Flood, 2013). The campaign will be successfully carried out with the help of poster, for raising awareness and lead to the development of positive outcomes. Validity and success of the campaign has been also ensured through the justification that many of the organizations are able to transform themselves and their policies towards the development of women. Some of the organizations are identified to be focusing upon eliminating gender-related issues with the help of providing training to the employees and indulging themselves in providing anger management classes. The awareness campaign mostly concentrated on anger management in the workplace, since anger management is considered as one of the major tools to eliminate situations of stress and workplace diversity. In addition, the campaign will focus upon raising awareness on mentoring the employees. The campaign will be able to gain popularity, as application of mentoring technique in organizations enabled them to reduce gender discrimination and inequality, consequently leading to managing workplace diversity (UNDP, 2010). The campaign will be able to raise awareness regarding the importance of popularising leadership amongst its employees in an organization, which is considered as a potential tool for growth. Furthermore, enhancing leadership qualities within the employees and transfer of equal responsibility and accountability to the female workers enable the organizations to deliver optimum performance and maintain gender differences within the organizational boundaries. In addition, the posters designed as part of the awareness campaign also facilitates in demonstrating the importance of an equal pay mechanism for women, which would allow women employees to earn and gain similar respect to that of men employees. Furthermore, the poster stresses upon changing perception of people underlying differences between men and women and emphasized upon the need to think and provide equality in the workplace (Williams & Dellinger, 2010). In addition, the awareness campaign aims at increasing transparency in the workplace, a demonstration of which has been displayed in the poster. Moreover, apart from the aforementioned thoughts, the poster also aims at bringing fairness in the organizations through development of women working in those organizations. In addition, the record aims at the development of a grievance redressal mechanism that supported the development of female as well as male employees through listening to their issues and concerns. In addition, the poster focuses upon the importance of equality and the benefits that can be derived by organizations if it is able to manage and bring equality in the workplace. Moreover, the poster has been successfully able to lift awareness, as it focused upon the fact that gender inequality is not a problem that has been associated with women; rather it is a problem for all. Hence, organizations need to prioritize upon the development of gender equality to manage gender diversity in workplace. Respectively, the effectiveness of the performances of the campaign can be witnessed from the promotion as well as awareness generated in terms of positive aspects associated with gender equality and workplace diversity in the workplace. Workplace diversity is determined to be an important consideration with the assistance of which employees are able to perform their activities as a team (Williams & Dellinger, 2010). References AHRI, 2012. Re-imagining our Workplaces. UN Women Australia and Principal Partner, pp. 1-11. Commonwealth Government of Australia, 2014. Developing a Workplace Gender Equality Policy. Workplace Gender Equality Agency, pp. 1-4. European Union, 2008. The “For Diversity. Against Discrimination.” Information Campaign. 5 Years of Raising Awareness in the European Union, pp. 1-72. Holmes, S. & Flood, M., 2013. Genders at Work: Exploring the role of workplace equality in preventing men’s violence against women. White Ribbon, pp. 1-34. Karsten, M. F., 2006. Gender, Race, and Ethnicity in the Workplace: Management, gender, and ethnicity in the United States. Greenwood Publishing Group. Konrad, A. M. & et. al.,2006. Handbook of Workplace Diversity. SAGE. Olgiati, E. & Shapiro, E., 2002. Promoting Gender Equality in the Workplace. European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, pp. 1-129. Paludi, M. A., 2012. Managing Diversity in Todays Workplace: Strategies for Employees and Employers. ABC-CLIO. Powell, G. N., 1994. Gender and Diversity in the Workplace: Learning Activities and Exercises. SAGE Publications. UNDP, 2010. How to make progress with a Certification Programme for Gender Equality Management Systems. Gender Equality in the Workplace, pp. 1-150. Williams, C. L. & Dellinger, K., 2010. Gender and Sexuality in the Workplace. Emerald Group Publishing. Read More