Gender Inequality Within A Workplace: Issues And Recommendations

Gender Inequality in Bendigo Bank

Is HR doing enough to address gender inequality?

Gender inequality within a workplace is referred to the discrimination of an employee basing their gender on one or several grounds. This can be payment or rewards, position in the organization or anything that differentiate a woman basing on their gender (Yang & Aldrich, 2014). Australian government had passed Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Amendment Act in 2012. The expected results of the act were to abolish the gender biasness that exists in the organizations within Australia. However, the impact of imposition such law is far from expectation. The current discrimination rate in the workplace depending on the gender recorded by Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) reflects a figure of 15.3% in the pay gap around the nation. This report studies the gender inequality present in Bendigo bank that reflects a gap of 33% in the salary of men and women (Browne, 2018). Despite of the fact that the organizations are taking actions for minimizing this gap, the effort are insufficient for increasing the pace of change. This report focuses on the identification of the issues reducing the pace of change supplemented with the related theories and recommends actions necessary for bringing change.

There is a clear negligence of the human resource development within the organizations of Australia in mitigating the gender inequality related to the payment offered to its employees. The statement can be supported with the figures identified in the annual report of WGEA that represents a gap of 15.3%. It means that the women within the organizations on an average are paid 15.3% lesser than the male coworkers for performing similar task. The Bendigo bank is currently practicing salary pay discrimination between male and female workers. Report of Australian Bureau Statistics reflects a gap of 33% in the pay scale of the selected bank (Browne, 2018). This issue of inequality can be an attribution of the failure of human resource management in managing diversity, learning and development of the stakeholders and management of employee relationship within the organizations.

The operation of the Bendigo bank is under public questions due to their unfair biasness towards the men employees of the organization in relation to the basic payment. The Institutional Theory of Diversity Management communicates that it is necessary for an organization to see through their policies and regulation for attributing the diverse workforce and maintaining equality in dealing with individual employees (Sidani & Thornberry, 2013). Any other variable should not be taken into account for dealing with the employees other than the organizational requirement. According to Saka?Helmhout, Deeg and Greenwood (2016), this helps the organization in exploring diversified opportunity that diverse workforce can provide. Hence, considering the authenticity of the institutional theory of diversity management, the gender biasness in Bendigo bank regarding the basic payment of the female and male employees can be considered diversity management failure (Martín Alcázar et al, 2013). Moreover, the external law, which is proposed by the Australian government through the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Amendment Act in 2012 for the abolishment of gender discrimination, is violated due to the absence of equality in the organizational policy. Failure of diversity management in Bendigo bank further leads to the concept of employment relationship held between the employer and female employee within the organization.

Implications of Institutional Theory of Diversity Management

The issue of gender inequality from the case in Bendigo bank could be related to the employee relationship challenge the human resource management is facing. This is a clear case of the failure of employee relationship management Bendigo bank are facing. Implication of the theory of Subtle Discrimination further extends in employment relationship management. The unconscious discriminating act of the employers based on gender as stated by Hong et al (2016) has impact on the employee relations and considerably alters the relation between the employee and the employer. As according to the theories of employment relationship management, employee satisfaction is determined by the relationship. Mayo, Herzberg, Maslow and McGregor defined the Human Relation Theory, which is the promoter of unitarist perspective focuses on the employee social and psychological needs (Ackers, 2014). The gender discrimination practiced by the Bendigo bank hence supplements in creating gap between the male and female employees, and between the female employees and the management within the organization. This is due to the failure of human resource management of the organization in fulfilling needs of the employees in respect to social acknowledgement and economic benefits being provided to the female employees (Kramar & Parry, 2014). This in turn reduced the satisfaction level of the female employee within the organization, which ultimately facilitating in degrading the organizational productivity and performance. This further directs the issue towards the lack of training provided to the employees regarding the concern. This issue can further be attributed to the learning and development of the employee regardless of the position held within the organization.

The issue of gender inequality within the Bendigo bank can be attributed to the learning and developmental drawback of the HR management. The HR management of the organizations is failing in developing their knowledge to support the change recommended by the government through the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Amendment Act in 2012. The discrimination in current scenario can be considered as Subtle Discrimination. The theory of Subtle Discrimination as considered by Jones et al (2017), is the discrimination made by the employer from a natural instinct that has developed within the individual. This is completely automatic process and employer fails to identify the act as discriminating. Dalton et al (2014) argued that the subtle or automatic discrimination needs attention and can be revised through the implementation of learning and development program within the organization. Alston (2014) on the other hand related the issue of gender equality to the lack of awareness. Even thought the government policy states the required modification in the organizations regarding the issue, the management of the organizations however, fails to identify the intensity of the issue, which makes them neglect the adverse effect of the action.

Employee Relationship Management Challenge in Bendigo Bank

The issues identified in the Bendigo bank that supplements limits potential of abolishing gender biasness. These issues can be considered as interrelated and negligence in addressing one particular issue will make the change process ineffective. Hence, it is necessary for the organization to simultaneously address the issues in hand. Implementation of the following recommendations is likely to help them in bringing equality in workplace of Bendigo bank.

As mentioned in the Institutional theory of diversity management, it is necessary for the organization to have a transparent policy addressing the workplace diversity issue (Ozturk & Tatli, 2016). This is to eliminate discriminative actions conducted by the employees and the employers within ht organization. It is recommended for the Australian originations to formulate and communicate organizational policies for addressing the gender discrimination issue regarding the unequal payment. The policy should communicate the restriction of gender inequality and have a transparent salary structure for both men and women in the organization. It should set equal basic pay structure for the male and female employee holding similar position and responsibilities with similar qualification and experience. The policy should not only consider the equal pay of the female employees but also address other possible aspects related to gender equality within the organization. Moreover, formulation of the policies will only be the first step of many recommendation made in the report as the policies requires to be communicated throughout the organization.

Moreover, gender discrimination facilitates in creating gap between the male and the female employee and with the employer, which considerably reduces the organizational performance. The unitary perspective of Human Relation Theory communicates the need of harmonious system within the organization that helps in building stronger and transparent relationship between the employees and employers (Bidwell et al, 2013). Hence, it can be recommended for the originations of Australia over the industries to implement equity based payment system that will structure equal payment system. This will supplement the equality policy recommended for the company. According to Cyrenne, (2018), it will help the organization to bring parity between the male and female employees that will again help developing healthy relations between them. This in turn will help the organization in attaining greater performance.

Another recommendation that can possibly be made on the respected organizational scenario of Australia is the change in leadership practice. There is definitely a need of transformational leadership practice for reducing the gap between the employer and the female employees. The characteristics of transformational leadership as communicated by Saleh et al (2014) helps in building greater and effective employment relationship. The characters of transformational leaders are self-management, ability to make right decision, make difficult decisions, share collective organizational consciousness, inspirational, entertain new ideas, adaptability to change, proactive and lead with vision. These effective characteristics of a transformational leader will not only help in reducing employment gap between the employees and the employer, but also enable the organizations in adopting the recommended changes (Avolio & Yammarino, 2013). This is considered as the necessary for changing the stagnant workplace culture in the Bendigo bank related to the gender biasness.

Recommendations

The next recommendation that can be proposed is the implementation of learning and development program. As identified through the subtle discrimination theory, the discrimination can sometimes be done by the employer unconsciously. This is attributed to the existing organizational culture the employer that he or she had been working over years. Moreover, lack of awareness also leads to the subtle discrimination, which requires to be changed for bringing change in organizational culture (Krings et al, 2014). This can only be transformed using learning and development course. Hence, it is recommended for the organization to implement training program for the developing awareness among employees related to the gender biasness (Sung & Choi, 2014). The employers of the organizations are also recommended to attend the awareness programs for improving their attitude towards gender discrimination. This course will further communicate the policies to the employers and employees that has been taken by the organizations for eradicating gender inequality within Australia. The implication of transformational leadership as recommended will extend its benefits in this case for bringing the change in the organization, as it is hard to modify the existing trend in the organizational culture (Ashikali & Groeneveld, 2015). Hence, implementation of transformational leadership as recommended would supplement will help in implementing other modifications necessary. This not only will help in reducing the gap between the female employees and the employers, but also facilitate in implementation of training programs and formulation of policies for defending the female right to equality.

Conclusion

It is possible to draw conclusion form the discussion that gender discrimination is a serious issue within the organizations of Australia. This can be considered as a pressing issue of the organization that exists despite of the existence of anti gender discriminating law of the government. Various issue related to the topic that have been identified are poor diversity management skill of both the manager and the HR department, inefficient employee relationship management and the absence of learning and development programs within the organizations. However, the prescribed modifications can potentially improve the management and help them in addressing the gender discrimination issue with Australia. There is an absolute need of transformational leadership for developing greater relationship with the female employees for treating them equally and motivating them for obtaining greater performance. Implementation of transformational leadership will further help in developing other recommendations recommended in the report. Moreover, requirement of training program for spreading awareness of gender equality is also stated. The other recommendation made is the implementation of equality policy that will support the cause and help in modifying the current scenario. Finally, the primary motivational factor that will play for the female employees is the equity in the pay structure offered by the organization.

Reference Style

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