Diversity in the workplace

Diversity in the workplace has become a hot topic in today's businesses. As more firms, governments, and individuals debate feminism and gender identity, it is moving to the forefront of business publications. According to the study, the more varied the workplace, the greater the company's success. Because of the benefits, organizations are figuring out how to increase diversity and manage it.

Workers from various backgrounds, for example, bring a variety of skills and talents to the firm, which improves performance. Employees that grasp at least one foreign language benefit a multinational firm. Such employees are capable of carrying out expatriate assignments correctly. Consequently, they will help the company to increase the customer base due to their enhanced level of interactions. Notably, diversified organizations outperform their rivals and win in innovations. For instance, diverse groups are better at solving issues and are more creative. The company’s productivity can be strengthened by the employees who have different cultural settings. Through proper management of diversity, it is possible to leverage on the weaknesses and strengths of the workers. Additionally, diversity can strengthen relations with clients by enhancing communication and making it more effective and efficient. Moreover, the company’s competitiveness and success mostly depend on its capacity to execute diversity and actualize its significance.

Most organizations currently recognize the contribution of the female employees unlike in the past where the females were seen as inferior creatures who could not handle demanding tasks. Today, women are holding higher positions in organizations, managing to clinch the top careers, and in some countries women even hold the president’s position. Great examples of women leaders are Liberia’s president Ellen Johnson, Angela Markel, the chancellor of Germany, and not forgetting Hillary Clinton who contested in the recently held America’s election. The highest achievements of these women leaders can clearly prove that women are equal to men even in fields which are considered to be difficult and should be given a chance to work. Deloitte and Johnson & Johnson are among the few modern organizations that have recognized the potentiality of women. Therefore, the paper will evaluate the significance of treating female workers well and why other institutions should follow the footsteps of Deloitte and Johnson & Johnson to empower the women.

How Deloitte Treat Female Employees Well

Deloitte struggles to deliver a positive working atmosphere to its workers of all genders and provide the equality between men and women. The company has been providing a full-time environment for telecommuting over the last decades. Also, approximate duration of seven hours of the PTO is assembled every payable period. Employees do not exhaust the time in one year. Recently, Deloitte has implemented more off work hours to permit professionals to spend time with their families. In overall, Deloitte Company is continuously exploiting ways in which it can provide its workers with much flexibility that will lead to the personal development and growth.

Deloitte started the fight against female discrimination in the 20th century and ever since the company has managed to create a transformational adjustment. Together with more than 1000 female principals, directors, and partners, the company has so far received several recognition awards from corporations such as Fortune which recognized Deloitte as the most outstanding organization to work for, and Working Mother which honored the company since it is flexible, innovative, and friendly to families. Currently, the team has three initiatives of promoting the female workers’ welfare (Sinclair 237). The primary objective of Women Initiative program is to develop, advance, and retain women employees with several career growth prospects. The program targets all female skills across the company from the entry level to the senior positions. It also hosts annual events such as coaching, networking, courses, projects, and workshops to empower female employees. For example, Leading Edge is the course that takes five days training employees on leadership, negotiation, and development skills and preparing the employees for senior positions. Recently, Deloitte introduced a career sponsorship program for female employees. The program trains workers on coaching and mentoring skills.

The company also introduced Vigorous Measurement (VM) program. The program ensures that leaders in every organization function and service are held accountable for the progress on their career sponsorship, customer allocation, and management succession. The program measures actions and objectives through specific metrics such as the rate of customers retained (Umans, Collin, and Tagesson 243).

Another program introduced by Deloitte to cater for the women employees is Mass Career Customization (MCC). This program intends to match the professional and personal needs of the employee with the goals of an organization. Deloitte has organized the program into four sections namely role, workload, schedule and location, and place. The company focuses on these elements when designing career paths. The program creates a win-win scenario from the perspective that the employee enjoys the work while the company merits from the services offered by the employee. The company plans to open own high learning institution to promote career growth. Generally speaking, the program enables a typical process to individualize several direction paths of careers for an employee to consolidate work into life as the standard priority adjustment over time. The other one is the voluntary program which grants the employees a leave of six months to take part in volunteer work including personal matters.

What influenced Deloitte to develop an interest in females’ employees is the gender gap. The company found out that the number of women who climb the career ladder are less compared to the male counterparts. Less than half of the women hold managerial positions, are part of the governing board or apply for chief executive officer positions. Statistically, twenty-four percent of the women are in governing boards while six percent fill the posts of general directors. These statistics do not imply that women are weak. The reason for this is the thirty-seven percent of companies are owned by the women. With regards to small businesses, two-thirds of them are held by women. Besides women can work under pressure, resist stress, are team players, and organized. It is observable that women do well in small organizations unlike in big ones, a reflection that they can do well in a flat organization structure (Deloitte 10). The question is what prevents these women from moving up the career ladder? Some of the probable answers are stereotyping, women are shy and overwhelmed by guilt when they stagnate over a position, and do not advance their careers (Deloitte 12). The manufacturing sector tends to favor men over females. For those who work in such areas, there are delegated support function roles (Saurav 30). The laws aimed at ensuring that women are also offered managerial positions should be developed. Additionally, the women should stand up and advocate for their rights. Alternatively, organizations should even consider women. Organizations that utilize the skills of women have recorded better financial performance. Considerably, the managers should understand the management style suitable for females. Female employees do not prefer strict supervision; they desire some creativity, and some leeway in undertaking their tasks. Therefore, managers should maintain high morale even during the economic downtown. Precisely, organization leaders need to find the suitable management style for female employees, treatment and the motivation to enhance productivity.

Johnson & Johnson is among the top most companies that embrace diversity. Founded more than a century ago, the company began its business with fourteen workers. Eight of the workers were females while the rest were male. As the market grew, it elevated few women to serve in managerial positions. In the past women were discriminated by manufacturing, yet besides giving women specific jobs, the company’s first scientist was a female and had to travel a long distance to work for the company. Johnson & Johnson also values health and fitness, a wellness center has been installed an instructor to oversee the health classes has been hired. The company believes that the program raises the energy level and unlocks employees’ potential. Johnson & Johnson made a good initiative by introducing a wellness center. Excessive work without pauses lowers the person’s productivity, and sitting all day long without moving influences health negatively. Hence, the center makes the employees feel more rejuvenated and can improve employee performance. The company also introduced a club exclusively for female employees. The organization helped the women to nurture their leadership skills. Moreover, it is from the club that women learned the importance of exercise at the workplace and volunteer work, an aspect that is now common among corporate social responsibility. Furthermore, Johnson & Johnson indicates that women are innovative (Gurowitz 1). The female workers were among the pioneers of the surgical instruments, the aero-kits, and a set of first aid items that were used by pilots in case of an accident. The company later came up with kits for motor vehicle operators and snake bites. Diversity management creates a feeling of being supported and valued, which can make the employees innovative (Machado and Paulo 5).

Because of Johnson & Johnson’s good work, company was given a citizenship award American Commerce Chambers Association for its recycling program. It was also awarded the leadership Award by the Environment Protection Agency for leading in the enhancement of green business. Other awards for the Cannes Lion for being creative in communicating their brand to the public, Renewable Energy Award for investing in clean energy, being the best organization for mothers, scoring full marks inequality index, and being friendly to the disabled (Johnson & Johnson 1).

An organization is said to have won a talent competition, if it can attract, retain, and promote the employees from various cultural backgrounds. The future of the organization depends on hired talent quality. If a team maximizes the skills, abilities, and knowledge of its human capital, it gains a competitive advantage. An organization is determined to be effective by looking at its ability to achieve and sustain the power. Hence, teams must attempt to identify, retain, and develop talents as an advantage over the competitors; this is because employees are lured to organizations that honor their capabilities (Machado and Paulo 3). The employee is ready to see the company realize their goals if they perceive that the treatment is fair and that there is the opportunity for career growth. Diversity is also related to people management. When the diversity skills are developed, it leads to excellent managerial skills. If the manager can control several employees, it leads to people administrative skills improvement (Machado and Davim 5).

The Benefits of Treating Female Employees Well

It is indeed astonishing to see how many modern corporations are still male-oriented; they prefer male employees over female just because they claim more flexibility, qualification, and aptitude from men (Sinclair 239). Institutions even uphold men as the able personnel when it comes to senior positions in the company and is more inclined to offer them higher compensations, affluent titles, better perks and benefits, more responsibilities and royalties as compared to the female counterparts. The women, on the other hand, face lesser pays, responsibilities, and are almost always second in position and not first.

Treating employees well is critical for the health of the organization as competition for star talents become stiffer (Mavin and Girling 423). While most institutions brag about fairness in their workplaces, this may not be true. The rising cases of inequitable compensation, inflexible planning, and discouragement are a challenge, especially in small organizations. Female workers must be offered the same treatment that is bestowed on men. Hsu and Lawler (181) claim that the pros of maintaining female employees and treating them well surpass the cons.

Female workers should be offered compensation that is the same as that of males serving under the same job group. Organizations must also be flexible in their work schedules. There must be maternity leaves; a place beside a break to breastfeed the children, day care centers, among other amenities that are essential for female employees. When female employees feel that the organization values their services, it will influence them to become more committed, loyal, and satisfied. Hence, it will, in turn, increase productivity and performance; reduce the labor turnover rate, absenteeism, minimize work stress, and minimize lawsuits as a result of female worker discrimination. Walmart has suffered massive losses regarding fines and penalties in the past as a result of discriminating the females about promotions, dress code, and unequal pay (Ferrell, Fraedrich, and Ferrell 216). Walmart should serve as an example to other companies about the importance of respecting female employee rights. The employees are assets, and without them, the organization cannot run. High labor turnover is a setback back the company has to take part in recruitment and selection which is a harmful activity.

As Hsu and Lawler (182) state, reinforcing a female-friendly environment is very crucial as it coaxes more input from women at the workplace and makes them feel as important as their male counterparts. It also urges them to work harder and succeed at their roles. Their reputation is revamped, and so is their career progression. Sinclair (241) says that the environment also encourages other women to desire to achieve more since they get challenged by other successful women in their organizations.

For this reason, the agile employer will contemplate integrating mentorship courses to better equip their female employees with the right skills and capabilities to accomplish projects and roles. They will also coach them on how to aim higher and overcome that mentality that women are not capable of retaining senior management roles (Marvin and Girling 425). Professional growth, development, and career reinforcement for women will undoubtedly complement their career trajectory.

Importance of Managing Gender Diversity in Organizations

Proper management of the diversity in the company leads to enhanced performance (Hsu and Lawler 185). Performance reflects the core principles and values of the corporation. In other words, the company’s investment and attitudes are affected by the team’s performance. Additionally, the aspect of inclusivity and equality are the primary drivers of the organization’s performance. All workers regardless of gender must be treated equally since balance gives them the morale for working hard.

The employees become increasingly creative when there is diversity. A team of employees consisting of both males and females has diverse skills and can contribute ideas. A company that is considering to lay-off some workforce to cut back the expenses can handle a different team with alternative approaches to the problem. Some alternatives are eliminating vacations pay and retiring early in the lay-off. In the long-run, the employees’ work morale is improved. Diverse employees are also good at solving problems and making decisions since two heads are better than one. Employees view issues from broad dimensions, focused on their experiences (Machado and Paulo 5). The company further enjoys the skills set and broad information scope which may be utilized in various situations (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin, and Cardy 123). Diverse employees make the organization more flexible because they offer varied opinions on resolving various problems. A diverse workplace comprises of individuals with diversified skills, experience, creativity, personalities, and a range of concepts. Companies should utilize various teams. Such teams permit collaborative interaction and functional specialization. The company should use such organizations when the work function involves multi-products, multi-functioning, and several locations (Saurav 31). Diverse and cross-function teams also enhance quick response times and agility.

In summary, gender diversity will still be a challenge. There are no agreed upon solutions on how gender diversity should be dealt with in organizations. Nevertheless, an in-depth analysis of gender results in well-crafted initiatives that focus on promoting, retaining, and developing the workers. Sensitive factors and strategy comprise of the training in diversity, development of leadership, mentoring, sponsoring, training, recruiting, and forming women networks, high impact, stretching of the assignments, role model promotions, tracking of the progress via metrics, and diversity of the leaders’ targets with ultimate flexibility. To finalize, to come up with a conducive environment to adjust and develop change with the remarkable results, it is vital to create workplace and personal awareness on the issues of gender. In my opinion, to identify the issue gender diversity organizations need to establish an effective and efficient planning of the career and make it a culture in the institution as well as incorporating it into the daily activities of the company.

Other companies can emulate Deloitte and Johnson & Johnson to reap the benefits of diversity management. The concept reduces high labor turnover, absenteeism; work and stress diversity management further fosters creativity, innovation, decision making, problem-solving, and people management skills. Moreover, it improves performance and productivity thus providing direct profit to the company.

Works Cited

Deloitte. Women and Power in Business: Does Gender Matter When Building Your Position and Influence in an Organization? 2012. Web. Accessed 5 December 2017.

Ferrell, O. C., John Fraedrich, and Linda Ferrell. Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making & Cases. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning, 2016. Print.

Gomez-Mejia, Luis, David Balkin, and Robert Cardy. Managing Human Resources. New York, NY: Pearson Education, 2016. Print.

Gurowitz, Margaret. Working Girls: How Johnson & Johnson Has Been Empowering Women Since 1886. 2015. Web.

< https://www.jnj.com/our-heritage/know-your-value-and-our-heritage-of-empowering-women> Accessed 5 December 2017.

Hsu, I-Chieh, and John Lawler. “Toward a Model of Gender Diversity in the Workplace in East Asia: Preliminary Evidence from Manufacturing Industries in Taiwan.” The Global Diffusion of Human Resource Practices: Institutional and Cultural Limits. Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2014, pp. 171-90.

Johnson & Johnson. Our Company: Awards & Recognition. 2016. Web. Accessed 5 December 2017.

Machado, Carolina, and Davim Paulo. Managing Organizational Diversity: Trends and Challenges in Management and Engineering. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2017. Print.

Mavin, Sharon, and Gill Girling. “What is Managing Diversity and Why Does It Matter?” Human Resource Development International, vol. 3, no. 4, 2010, pp. 419-33.

Saurav, Ray. “Unity in diversity-Managing diverse teams.” Human Capital, vol. 19, no. 6, 2015, pp. 30-32.

Sinclair, Amanda. “Women Within Diversity: Risks and Possibilities.” Women in Management Review, vol. 15, no. 5/6, 2010, pp. 237-46.

Umans, Timurs, Sven‐Olof Collin, and Torbjörn Tagesson. “Ethnic and Gender Diversity, Process and Performance in Groups of Business Students in Sweden.” Intercultural education, vol. 19, no. 3, 2014, pp. 243-54.