CAREER AND HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT

CAREER AND HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT (DCE3117) Associate Prof. Dr. Roziah Mohd Rasdi Dept. of Professional Development & Continuing Education Faculty of Educational Studies Universiti Putra Malaysia roziah_m@upm.edu.my

Topic 8 Managing Career Diversities

Diversity • Within the work, organization and career context, diversity relates to the existence of a variety of sub-groups in the workforce. • Harrison, Price and Bell (1998) refers to ‘surface’ versus ‘deep’ level diversity. • Surface diversity refers to demographic, mostly visible background characteristics of people • Deep level diversity refers to attitude or approach of people. • The effect of time will neutralize the effect of ‘surface’ diversity and will enhance the effects ‘deep-level’ diversity Age Minority religion Women Nationality Sexual Orientation Ethnic minority Disability Race

Discrimination Discrimination means treating certain people unfavorable because they belong to a certain sub-group. Example If a white male wishes to work as a midwife in a hospital that serves mostly black people, and a black woman with lower qualifications is appointed to the job, he will rightfully feel discriminated against.

Indirect discrimination also can occurs when one condition or requirement for a job or a position implies that the person belongs to a certain group which is then discriminated against. Example: If one is required to be at least taller than the average of a specific measure, this may lead to indirect discrimination: people of Asian origin are often shorter than those Anglo-Saxon origin, thus a requirement for a policeman to be above a certain height causes most applicants of Chinese origin to be turned down.

Management of Diversity Management of diversity means working systematically toward a workplace where the composition of the employees diversity will reflect that of the general society. This involve taking proactive steps to promote a culture and atmosphere of equality and to ensure that there is no unjustified discrimination in the selection of people – both into the organization and in promotion decisions.

Cox and Blake (1991) presented six managerial arguments to support of diversity in organizations: • Cost: the organization needs to be able to manage the full spectrum of the workforce, including segments that in the past were marginal but now becoming more dominant. • Resource acquisition: organization with a favorable reputation for positive management of diversity will attract the most talented members of diverse group • Marketing: organization serve and produce for multicultural and diverse societies. A diverse workforce will have better insights and sensitivities to the needs of a diverse customer base. • Creativity: a diverse workforce should enhance the level of creativity and innovation. • Problem solving: a diverse workforce should produce high-quality decisions and solutions. • System flexibility: the better management diversity means more flexibility and faster and more efficient responsiveness to environmental changes.

The important stage in managing diversities is recruiting a diverse workforce. • Organization should have system that ensure their selection practices are non-discriminatory and continue their goals of increasing diversity. • To ensure potential candidate were not unnecessarily and unjustifiably excluded, validating test and job analyses must be done. Other than that interviewers also should be diverse. • McMahan et. Al (1998) argue that valuing diversity is crucial. • Valuing diversity refers to the desire to include and utilize the assets of workers from various groups as potential employees, rather than exclude any potential employees because of any factor related to diversity

Organizational Initiatives for Managing Diversity Strategic approaches to tackle and manage diversities by Thomas (1996): • Include/Exclude: Following affirmative action programmes, organizations may try to increase or decrease the numbers of diverse employees at all levels. • Deny: Ignoring any possible impact of demography. The search is for the best person for the job, thus the colour and gender is not important. • Assimilate: the basic assumption is that all members of the apparently disadvantaged groups will learn to fit in and become like the dominant group. • Suppress: Squash and discourage differences, maintaining the status quo.

Organizational Initiatives for Managing Diversity Strategic approaches to tackle and manage diversities by Thomas (1996): • Isolate: maintain the current way of doing things by pushing diverse people onto the sideline. • Tolerate: Acknowledge the differences, but do not really value them. People diverse backgrounds are allowed in, but not really accepted. • Build relationships: assume that improved relationships will results in differences being overcome, thus working on shaping relationships amongst the various group. • Foster mutual adaptation: people both recognize and accept differences, and agree that everyone is free to change, thus allowing the greatest accommodation of diversity.

Organizational Initiatives for Managing Diversity Arnold (1997) added further possible organizational initiative: • Multicultural workshop designed to improve understanding and communication between cultural groups. • Multicultural ‘core groups’ which meet regularly to confront stereotypes and personal biases. • Support groups, mentoring and relationships and network for woman and cultural minorities. • Advisory councils reporting to top management • Rewarding executives on the basis of their record in developing members of targeted groups. • Fast-track development and special training opportunities for members of targeted groups.

Procedural Justice and Distributive Justice • Procedural justice refers to the process by which norms are implemented and also can be viewed as the degree to which the rules and procedures specified by policies are properly followed in all cases under which they are applied. • Justice is important and organizational career system should ensure that the procedure is transparent. • Procedural justice as reflected in HRM-repeated decision making has strong effect on employees attitude and behavior. • People need to know that a fair rule exists, and that is applied to all. • Distributive justice refers to the actual outcomes of such procedures.

The virtuous versus the vicious cycle of diversity • Virtuous cycle • Organizational positive outcomes • Improved organizational effectiveness • Better organizational reputation • Avoiding legal lawsuits • Innovation, creativity • Wide labor market to draw upon • Antecedents – Organization: • Culture • Policy • Antecedents – Individual: • Awareness (+) • Openness (+) • Stereotypes (-) • Diversity management • Gender • Ethnic/race • Age • Religion • Disability • Sexual orientation • National origin • Hybrid (+) Wide-ranging diversity in the workplace • Individual positive outcomes • Values fit • Satisfaction • Coherence (as opposed to psychological distancing) • Job performance • Career opportunities Vicious cycle

Specific Groups and Relevant Issues

Gender Variety • Woman face three principal factors that impose a greater challenge on their career rather than man: • Women’s participation in the workforce increased rapidly in the second half of the twentieth century. • Based on the Breaking the Glass Ceiling book by Morrison et. al (1987), only 1,7 per cent of corporate officers of 500 Fortune companies were woman, and only one woman was a CEO. • By 2001 women comprised 11.2 per cent of corporate officers of 500 Fortune companies, and 3.8 per cent of the CEO’s. Job itself Being a pioneer The family

Gender Variety • Glass ceiling is an unacknowledged discriminatory barrier that prevents minority (women) from rising to position of power or responsibility within an organization. • The negative aspects of this trend is that in terms of the pay gap between males and females and promotion to top positions, the movement towards equality is much slower. • In UK the gap is around 80 per cent and in the USA is 77 per cent. • Sex Discrimination Act (1975) helped to prevent gender-based discrimination. • Equal Pay Act (1970) was enacted to ensure equal pay for similar work. • When it came into force, many organization ‘beat the system’ by offering woman only lower level jobs.

Gender Variety • Fairness in the promotion of women into managerial ranks was found to be associated with higher organizational effectiveness. • Davidson and Burke (2002) summarize other prominent research finding about women in management: • There has been progress in the number of woman entering management., but the pace is slow, and attention to this still needed • Managerial job segregation by gender persists. • Hybrid diversity is even harder to overcome. • Affirmative action is important for making progress towards closing the gap although it might create problem such as tokenism and backlash.

Gender Variety • Flexible and alternative work arrangement might be superficial mechanism that in fact limit woman’s career prospects’. • Women still carry higher responsibility than men in their ‘second shift’ work. • Organizational culture is mostly male culture, and this works against women. • The best argument for women in management should be the business care of utilization of resources. • A new trend towards lean and mean business management may contrast with the qualities women bring to the workplace. Being mostly in mid-level management, they will be more dispensable than men.

Ethnicity • Race and ethnicity produce a much richer variety, and in many countries the minorities comprise a combination of many different minorities. • In many cases, people may put greater trust in people of the same origin, when they encounter them in business situation, e.g. representing companies in sales, negotiations and deal making.

Age • The two possible forms or age-related discrimination are the against young people and the against older people. • Development in the age profile workers have profound implications for the management of career. • Most older staff are not employed in manual labor, thus expected reduction in physical ability is irrelevant for them. • In managerial jobs, older personnel are likely to possess wide knowledge and experience, and may prove to be more loyal and committed than younger personnel.

Age • Discrimination against young people is problematic at the society level, as it might create a generation of people who will never enter the labour market. • Age-diverse workforce bring reduced staff turnover and absenteeism, and improve motivation and commitment. • National issue – how to retain within the labor market the huge number of peopled forced to take early retirement due to downsizing, preventing them from becoming unproductive, declining and frustrated group

Disability • By the end of the 20th century there were 54 million disabled people in the US labour market, 50 per cent of whom were unemployed. • Due to past moral pressure, there are both legislative and government obligations on employers to recruit disabled people. • Disabled people prove to be highly loyal members of the workforce, with much lower turnover rates than others.

Physical Disability • Managing physical disability should be simpler than managing other diversities. • It is easy to identify whether the physical problem would prevent, hinder or interfere with the performance of the job. • If the answer is not, people should not be discriminated against on the grounds of that disability. • Issue: whether future roles along the expected career path of the individual concerned would suffer from the specific disability. • The higher the level of managerial responsibility, the less the physical dimension matters.

Mental Disability • People with mental disability were usually extremely well motivated, loyal and appreciate of their employers. • Challenge for an organization employing people with any disabilities or difficulty is to facilitate their induction so that their colleagues and manager do not feel uneasy, and will accept them despite any possible difficulties. • Other learning difficulties may not prevent people from taking on managerial roles (e.g. dyslexia, a problem of reading/writing that is not concerned with intelligence or ability to communicate.

Sexual Orientation • Problems may arise for an organization that employs and promotes lesbians and homosexual without knowing of their sexual orientation, but when it is revealed, it stops promoting these people. • Employees job satisfaction and commitment will deteriorate when they are forced to keep their true identity secret. • Companies may make changes to their policies so that benefits can be made available also to same-sex partners. • Religion can be vary highly emotionally charged issue. • However, there are very few jobs or careers that require membership of a particular religion, and these are not found in business firm. Religion

Deep-level Diversity • Mainly comprises attitudes and personalities. • When the various attitudes that exist in the community are reflected in the variety in an organization, the match between people and the organization and between organization and the environment, is greater. • People have different personality and traits and factors. However, the best negotiation team may be one that comprises people who can lead tough discussion, but also can understand the other side’s point of view. • The X and Y generation have different views about employment.

Dual-career Couples • Dual-career family defined as a family structure in which the husband and wife simultaneously pursue active careers and family lives (Rapoport & Rapoport, 1976). • According to a survey conducted by Alcorn (2011, online) 43% of working parents struggle with depression, whereas 80% catch up on work nights and weekends, and 88% have stated that they suffer from at least one stress-related health problem since becoming a working parent. • Employee relocations are usually very stressful issue for dual-career couples, because accepting the relocation by one of the partners usually causes the partners living apart from each-other, or career disruptions for the other partner.

Dual-Career Couples and Parent Employee in Large Organizations • “Flexible working schedules are the most frequent organizational accommodation to these couples. Other arrangements include leave policies under which either parent may stay home with a newborn, policies that allow work to be performed at home, day care on an organization's premises and job sharing” (Bohlander and Snell, 2009, p.232).

Dual-Career Couples and Parent Employee in Large Organizations • Commuter marriage support offered by companies to their dual-career employees in occasions where it is impossible for them to be relocated together. Companies will organize family visits for their employees on weekends or other notable days and reimburse all or part of travel expenses. • Companies like Men’s Wearhouse, SAS Institute, Aflac, Bright Horizons, Alston & Bird, and others offer their employees the facilities of onsite child-care centre which is a clear example of an effective care for the personal and family issues of the specific workforce segment (Onsite child care, 2011, online).

Dual-Career Couples and Parent Employee in Small Companies • While large organizations are dealing with this issue through introducing a wide range of relevant policies and initiatives, organizations of smaller sizes are finding this issue challenging to deal with due to their limited resources. • Telecommuting - involves great level of flexibility in terms of choosing the location and working hours in order to accomplish job responsibilities (Torrington et al, 2008). • Career and life counseling - Small companies can provide assistance to their dual-career couples and parent employees through providing counseling with minimum use of financial resources.

Dual-Career Couples and Parent Employee in Small Companies • Job sharing - two employees commit on performing the responsibilities of one full-time position on a part-time or reduced-time basis (Wood, 2009). • Offering flexible time off - Dual-career couples and parent employees would be able to use their flexible time off to correspond with the notable dates in their families such as wedding anniversaries, birthdays and other occasions. • Employing both partner – however the implementation of this specific recommendation requires further analyses taking into account a range of factors including the nature of the business, the team dynamics and the overall environment within the small company etc.

Single Parents (mostly single mothers) • For these families, support mechanisms such as childcare facilities are essential. • Employment rates are higher for woman without children. For those with children, employment rates are much lower for lone mothers than for mothers who are married or cohabiting. • However, in 2002, employment of lone mother has been increasing. • Conversely, the employment rate for men is higher for those with children than for those without.

Birth-order Diversity • Some organizations compared and contrast people according to their birth order and take such personality into account. • First-born people were found to be more conscientious, conventional, defensive, responsible, but sometimes also more aggressive, whereas the last-born tend to be more dependent, lazy and spoilt. • Middle-born people were identified as neglected, non-conforming, open minded, rebellious and deep thinking. • This consideration will be not relevant in China, where almost all the population will soon compromise people who are only children.

Hybrid Diversity • Woman may be discriminated against; black people may be discriminated against, so what happen to black women? • The glass ceiling will becomes a concrete ceiling. • Hybrid diversity can happen through any combination of the diversity factors listed, however legislation usually refers to a single factor but not more than one diversity. • The hurdles doubled for people in a hybrid-diversity.

Organizational Policies and Their Importance in Managing Diversity • When devising diversity policies organizations must incorporate both legal issues of Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and the business interest which means getting the best out of the best people. • Nelson and Quick (2003) list five main benefits organizations can reap from diversity: • The ability to attract and retain the best available human talent • Enhancing marketing efforts • Promoting creativity and innovation • Improved problem solving • Enhance organizational flexibility

They also present five main challenges associated with diversity, factors which arises mostly because people attracted to and feel comfortable with others like themselves: • Resistance to change • Lack of cohesiveness • Communication problems • Conflicts • Decision making

Career Advice for Members of Disadvantages Groups by Morrison

CAREER AND HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT