Transcript EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES AND DIVERSITY

Human Resources Management
T.10. EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES
AND DIVERSITY
D. Borisova
The Business Case
A wide range of groups within the
workplace face discrimination and
harassment
 Increasing concern about ethics and
ethical behavior in the workplace
 A key issue is providing equal
opportunities
 A focus on managing diversity

Government interventions to
secure minimal standards for:

Just pay: through national minimal wage

Working time: maximum of 48-hour
working week
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The right to employee participation: the
entitlement of workers to participate in the
running of their company (statutory trade
union recognition)
Equal opportunities for all employees
Equal Opportunities

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“.. a moral or ethical project that focuses on the
processes giving rise to inequalities and seeks to
address these …” (Goss, D. 1994 Principles of
HRM London, Routledge, p.157)
“The situation in which there is no unfair
discrimination against either of the sexes or any
ethnic or legally constituted social group in
relation to access to jobs, terms and conditions of
employment, promotion, training, remuneration
or termination of employment” (Bennet, 1992)
Definitions of Diversity


The diversity consists of visible and non-visible
differences which include factors, such as sex,
age, background, race, disability, personality and
work style (Kandola and Fullerton, 1998)
“Diversity Management is the systematic and
planned commitment on the part of organisations
to recruit and retain employees from diverse
demographic backgrounds” (Redman, T. &
Wilkinson, A. 2006 Contemporary Human
Resource Management London FT/Prentice Hall
p. 306)
Need for Diversity Management
1.
Sex – increasing numbers of women
entering the labour market
2.
Ethnic minorities – they will be forming
an increasing part of the workforce
3.
Age – the ageing of the working
population
Fattism…..
Overweight job hunters
'lose out'
Overweight workers find it
harder to get jobs than their
slim counterparts, an online
survey suggests.
The magazine survey of 2,000
personnel officers found most
preferred to offer jobs to
workers of a "normal weight".

BBC News website, 25.10.2005
“Lookism”
Ageism
EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES
UK LEGAL FRAMEWORK

Equal Pay Act
1970

Rehabilitation of Offenders Act
1974

Sex discrimination Act (EOC)
1975

Race Relations Act
1976

Disability Discrimination Act (DRC)
1995

Human Rights Act
1998
(CRE)
Key Legal Terms

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Discrimination
Unlawful discrimination – direct
Unlawful discrimination – indirect
Victimisation
Harassment

GOQs (genuine occupational qualifications)
Positive Action Training programmes

*Positive Discrimination
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Unlawful discrimination


Direct: when a person is treated less
favourably than another on any ground
covered by the legislation.
Indirect: when an apparently neutral
criterion is applied which
disproportionately affects one of the
protected groups and is not objectively
justifiable
Legal terminology cont.


Victimisation: when a person is treated
less favourably as the result of asserting
their statutory right under the legislation
Harassment: behaviour which has the
effect of creating an intimidating, hostile,
offensive or disturbing environment on
grounds related to the legislation
Legal terminology cont.

GOQs: lawful discrimination – usually on
grounds of:
– authenticity
– decency
– effective provision of services to a
minority group

Positive Action
– Specifically designated training
– Where the minority group can be
shown to be under-represented
Disability Discrimination Act

Definition: A physical or mental
impairment, which has a substantial
and long-term adverse effect on a
person’s ability to carry out normal dayto-day activities
Employers should make “reasonable
adjustments” to the workplace
 Police, Armed Forces, Prison Service
and Fire Service partially excluded from
the provisions

Benefits of Equality
Best use of all employees’ skills and
potential
 Flexible workforce to aid restructuring
 Workforce representative of the local
community
 Improved corporate image with potential
employees and customers
 Attracting ethical investors
 Managers can integrate equality into
corporate objectives
 New business ideas from a diverse
workforce

Differences between EO and DM
EO:
Diversity:
- Externally initiated;
- Internally initiated;
- Legally driven;
- Business-needs driven;
- Focuses on numbers
- Focuses on qualitative
and problems;
and opportunity
outcomes;
- Reactive;
- Proactive;
- Focuses on particular
set of differences: race, - Focuses on all
gender and disability
differences
- THE “MORAL CASE”
- THE “BUSINESS CASE”
Key characteristics of diversityoriented organization (Kandola and Fullerton, 1998)
Mission and values
 Objective and fair processes
 Skilled workforce: aware and fair
 Active flexibility
 Individual focus
 Culture that empowers

The focus is on cultural change and
learning in entire organization, rather than
promoting fairness and avoiding
discrimination.
Diversity Management
Businesses as wealth creators
 SHV (Shareholder Value Theory)
 The “business case”
 Focus on individual contributions
 Voluntarism

Ways in which diversity drives
business growth

Improves marketplace understanding

Enhances creativity and innovation
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Produces higher quality of team problemsolving
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Enhances leadership effectiveness
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Builds effective global relationships
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Provides better utilization of talent
Diversity – beyond the law?
Disillusion with the effectiveness of EO by
law
 The “language of victimhood”
 The problem of compulsion

The business case
 The “costs” of inequality
 Focus on the individual
 What people CAN do, not what they can’t
do

Equal Opportunities or Diversity
Inclusion?
Diversity Efficiency Indicators
Diversity and stakeholders
Diversity Initiatives

Multicultural workshops 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
networks for women and cultural minorities

Advisory councils reporting to top management
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Rewarding managers on the basis of their record
on developing members of targeted groups
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Fast-track development programmes and special
training opportunities for targeted groups
Advantages of Diversity
Management
A solid reputation as one of the best
places to work
 Empowered managers and leaders who
empower others
 Greater innovation and full usage of
employees’ skills
 Higher employee productivity
 Effective global competition

Strategic DM implementation
model (Kandola and Fullerton, 1998)
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Focuses on 8 processes:
Clarity of organizational vision
Extent of top management vision
Auditing and assessing of needs
Setting of clear objectives
Degree of accountability
Degree of communication within the
organization
Extent of co-ordination
Degree to which the strategy and actions are
evaluated
The Costs of Inequality

Inefficiency in use of human resources
(high staff turnover, low productivity,
restricted pool of talent)

Inflexible workforce limiting organizational
change

Poor corporate image with prospective
employees and customers

Management time spent on grievances

Losing an industrial tribunal case
HRM Tools for Changing Attitudes
and Behaviours
Recruitment and selection processes
 Working practices and patterns
 Health and safety – risk assessment
 Training and development
 Performance management and reward
 Discipline, dismissal and grievance
 Sickness absence policy (DDA)
 Overall EO monitoring for compliance
 Employment tribunal hearing for breaches

Tribunals 2005-6 (ETS 2006)
Type of Case
Cases registered
Successful at ET
Unfair dismissal
35,415
3,425
Protection of Wages/ Redundancy
35,916
9,721
Breach of Contract
21,444
3,559
Sex discrimination
24,217
4,068
Race discrimination
3,430
119
Equal Pay
11,323
3,722
Disability Discrimination
4,072
173
Religious Belief Discrimination
340
9
Sexual Orientation Discrimination
321
14
NMW
378
47
Working Time
9388
1,374
Other jurisdiction areas
14313
2,847
Total
160,557 (including multiple claims)
Settled
58,493
36%
Withdrawn
55,078
34%
ET cases
21,256
30% (avg. award £8,679)
Organisational EO Agendas
(Goss, D. 1994 Principles of HRM London, Routledge; p157)
COMMITMENT
SHALLOW
DEEP
BROAD
F
O
NARROW
C
U
S
Token agenda
Long agenda
Aspects beyond
those covered by
law, but superficial
Beyond legal minima and
wider range of aspects
Short agenda
Focused agenda
minimal compliance
with the law
long term change but
limited to legal
requirements
Six Challenges that Must be Managed
(Joplin and Daus, 1997)
Changed power dynamics
 Diversity of opinions
 Perceived lack of empathy
 Tokenism, real and perceived
 Participation
 Overcoming inertia

Existence of HR programs for work with
special groups of employees
(% of organizations in Bulgaria, 2003, Cranet)
Yes
75.8
80
72.6
No
70
64.3
63.1
60
50
40
26.1
30
23.5
15.1
20
11.2
10
3.8
0
Ethnical
minorities
Ageing
employees
Disabled
employees
Women
Other
Merry Christmas!