Equal Opportunities Approach to Diversity Management

Running head: DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT
Diversity Management
Name of the student
Name of the University
Author note

1DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT
The concept of diversity is deeply associated with the concept of acceptance and respect.
Considering the fact that diversity is inevitable, it is really crucial to understand that each
individual is unique in their own way. Workplace diversity acknowledges that employees in an
organization have several differences with respect to gender, age, color, social status, religion,
ethnicity, culture, disability and marital status. According to researchers, the predominance of
diversity issues is different in different countries across the world (Krislov 2012). In modern
society, the concept of diversity has changed from traditional view to a contemporary view since
it covers a much wider frame that involves legal requirements. In this era of globalization,
organization requires to incorporate employees from different back grounds to enhance the
creativity and cope up with the highly competitive market. Therefore, capitalizing and
maximizing the workplace diversity has become a crucial issue for the managers of an
organization. The managers of organizations approach issues related to diversity in workplace by
implementing several equality policies. In this essay, the extent to which the Equal Opportunities
approach to diversity management is able to diminish workplace discrimination has been
discussed. The Equal Opportunity management involves four approaches, namely, dissolving
differences, utilization of differences, accommodation of differences and finally valuing
differences. While dissolving differences involves providing equal opportunities to all
employees, utilization of differences involves educating and providing training to all employees
in an organization in order to help them understanding the process of organization and thereby,
boost their confidence. This essay contains brief discussion about the theory of patriarchy and
how the evil practice of patriarchy in the workplace can be eradicated by implementing various
rules and regulations associated with the gender inequality act (2012).

2DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT
According to the theory of Equal Opportunity, each and every individual should be
treated in a similar manner without being hampered by prejudices, preferences and artificial
barriers. The only exception to this situation is when behaving with an individual distinctly can
be justified properly (Liff 1995). The chief aim of equal opportunity approach is to ensure that
the workplace is free from any type of harassment related to discrimination. Another objective of
thee mentioned approach is to ensure that the procedures, policies, services and structure created
by the organization or the government do not provide disadvantage to any individual based on
his socio-economic background, disability, language, location, gender, ethnic and cultural
background, marital status, political conviction, religious beliefs and gender (LaMontagne et al.
2014).
According to Chrobot-Mason and Aramovich (2013), the equal opportunity approach
provides justice to all the employees in an organization by providing the same number of choices
to all employees. Under equal opportunity, everyone regardless of their age, gender, or ethnic
origin should be treated equally. In UK, a legal framework underpins the effectiveness of equal
opportunities approach associated with gender equality. This approach chiefly deals with gender
discrimination in the workplace. According to this approach, in spite of existing difference
between two individuals, differences should not be acknowledge and instead should be ignored.
While women should be allowed to take maternity leaves for nine months, this approach also
allows men to take long leave in cases of severe illness and thus establish equality in workplace.
Apart from this discriminations against ethnic minorities are also dealt with the help of this
approach. Here the feminism theory that includes women are not inferior to men and eradication
of horizontal and vertical segregation can be used.

3DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT
However, according to Barak (2016), equal opportunity approach also has several
limitations. It has been found that while focusing more on differences related to gender and
ethnic minorities, equal opportunity approach pays minimal attention to discrimination due to
age, religious belief and disability. These factors of discrimination require legal framework and
special attention to protect them from being discriminated. Considering the fact that one of the
most crucial discrimination faced by employees in the workplace is sexual discrimination, the
equal opportunity approach has several legislations to ensure prevention of discrimination in the
workplace. According to the gender equality duty law, every public organization must show that
they equally encourage men and women in the workplace in order to abolish sexual
discrimination.
Women have been oppressed both in the society an in workplace from time immemorial.
The patriarchy theory refers to the theory and practices where women are dominated, exploited
and oppressed by the men in the society (Pateman 2014). Even in this era of modernization,
women are oppressed by their superiors and colleagues and are treated differently. Women who
take initiative to fight for equal rights and opportunities for both men and women are often
discouraged and shut down by the management of the workplace. Several examples are their
where women are paid much lesser than men in spite of investing the same effort and providing
the service as men. In 2015, Ellen Pao, a female employee of the venture-capital firm Kleiner
Perkins Caufield & Byers, filed case against the company for paying a much lesser amount f
money to her compared to her male colleagues (Harvey and Allard 2015).
Fortunately, various organizations across the world have implemented several laws and
regulation to eradicate this evil practice of gender inequality. In order to address the theory of
patriarchy in practice, the household labor of women can be considered as a form of production