Equality and Diversity in the Workplace

Equality and Diversity in the
workplace

TABLE OF CONTENT
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
P1 Literature review and research question ................................................................................1
P2 Research methods for primary and secondary research ........................................................4
M1 Justification for the selected research method ......................................................................5
P3 Primary and secondary research using Saunder's research onion...........................................6
P4 Data analysis ..........................................................................................................................7
P5 Research outcomes ..............................................................................................................14
P6 Reflection .............................................................................................................................15
P7 Alternative research methodologies ....................................................................................15
REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................17
APPENDIX....................................................................................................................................19

INTRODUCTION
Work place equality and diversity is defined as the term which promotes equal
opportunities and treatments without any discrimination or prejudice for individuals by
respecting their diversity (Sharma, 2016). It promotes fair chance to every individual to grow and
demonstrate their skill and potential by defending their human rights, equality and diversity. For
improved employee retention, organizational performance, work culture and legislation it is
important for the business to integrate work place diversity and equality policy.
The report will produce a research work for analysing the equality and diversity issues
and policies of Marks & Spencer (M&S). The organizational is successful and leading
multinational retailer which has been gaining huge success across the world through its effective
diversity management and quality services. As a assistant of human resource management I will
conduct a research on significance of diversity and equality within M&S and the ways through
which organization addresses related issues.
P1 Literature review and research question
The aim of the research is to evaluate the importance and role of equality and
diversity on organizational and employee performance and to analyses the approaches to
manage diversity at workplace through a case study of M&S.
Research question
The research questions for the study are as follows:
 What is equality and diversity at workplace?
 How workplace diversity affects the performance of employees and organisation? How organisation can manage various workplace and diversity related issues?
Literature review:
According to Sarvaiya and Eweje, (2016) successful workplaces must integrate the
diverse work force so that they can understand the different needs of customers. Its necessity
becomes more critical for the multinational organisation as they operates in diverse business
environments. The equality at work place ensures that all people are provided same treatment
without any discrimination on the basis of race, disability, gender, culture, religious beliefs or
marital status. It is quite common practice at work place to have prejudices for the discrimination
and thus to restrict an individual from getting equal opportunities in growth or treatment. In the
same context Hawkins, (2017) stated that for enhancing the productivity and work environment
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businesses must promote practices which restricts any kind of discrimination. This unethical
behaviour on diversity basis can be in the form of bullying, victimisation, pay gap differences,
unequal treatment or opportunities and harassments. The organisations which fails to manage the
discrimination are not able to achieve success for long term as it affects employee productivity
and creativity in negative manner.
Ozturk and Tatli, (2016)elucidated that in this era of globalisation most of the service
providers are trading globally. Thus it is quite common and obvious part for them to witness and
work with diversity. The divers work force assist in developing better understanding of
customers and other potential stakeholders of the business. It also eliminates the language
barriers and issues related to employee dissatisfaction. However for achieving these benefits
there must be a strong framework for promotion and management of equality and diversity.
As per Bendl and et.al., (2015) the implement ion of strict legal and organisational
policies is one of the best and fundamental practice to avoid work place discrimination. There
must be an effective communication between the management and employees so that each
individual gets a fair chance to put forward their perspective. The organisation and team
members must respect the differences so that discriminatory practices can be completely avoided
at work place. Riach and Brewis, (2019) stated that organisation can have several measures or
policy changes to encourage equality. For instance there must be equal pay for the same work
and it must not depend upon gender. There are organisations which have different pay scale and
growth opportunities for female and male workers. Such types of organisation also have
discriminatory policies on the basis of age and disability. The diversity based differences can be
eliminated by joint efforts of employers as well as employees. To establish the diversity and
equality companies must have strict monitoring framework so that such practices can be
identified and necessary legal actions can be taken against the individuals disrespecting diversity.
It has been also observed that when organisational policies does not empower equality
and diversity then employees are discouraged and they does not deliver their full output
(Guillaume and et.al., 2017) . On the other hand when individuals are empowered that they have
access to same promotion and growth opportunities without any fear or matter of concern on
behalf of their role, gender, age, race and disability then they appreciate their employment, job
duties and work culture and thus overall business growth is achieved.
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P2 Research methods for primary and secondary research
There are variety of research methods which can be used for conducting this research.
The most appropriate choices which can be used for this research are Saunders research onion
and 5 step approach:
Saunders research onion:
In this model the outermost layer is called research philosophy which describes the
research process and method chosen for research approach in second stage. The third layer is
research strategy which explain that how work is intended to be carried out. It may include ways
such as experimental study, action or case study research, literature review, survey and
interview. The fourth layer of this research model is time horizon which states the estimation of
time for completing project (Bohari and et.al., 2019). Thus it classify studies as longitudinal and
cross sectional. The last and the fifth layer represents data collection stage which can be primary
and secondary. The primary data is collected via interviews or survey while the secondary data is
collected via literature review. The research strategy and approach are chosen on the basis of
type and method of data to be collected.
Advantages and disadvantages:
The prime benefit of this research method is that it consist of several stages through
which primary and secondary data collection methods can be understood and classified. Thus it
is very easy to describe methodological study in convenient and easy manner (Mayer, 2015).
However it has one drawback that it is very time consuming and quite complex to understand
due to multiple layers.
5 step approach:
In this research methodology in the first step a research problem is defined. The next
stages emphasis on finding methodologies which can solve the formulated research problem.
Thus in the second stage data collection, primary and secondary research conducting tools are
planned and analysed. The third stage is called data collection in which primary and secondary
data is collected by various approaches (Saunders and et.al., 2015). The fourth stage of this
model is known as interpretation stage which examines the collected data to draw relevant
conclusions. The last stage consist of reporting of research findings and to make the relevant
decisions on the basis of research outcomes.
Pros and cons:
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As compare to Saunder's research onion 5 step approach of research is very simpler and
less time consuming. Since it formulate research methods with aim to strictly focus on the
solution of research problem, it is highly specific and less time consuming (Carins Rundle-Thiele
and Fidock, 2016) . One of the limitation of this method is that it does not involve in depth
planning of the research aspects such as time horizon, distinguishing blue print for both primary
and secondary research.
For this study Saunder's research onion methodology is chosen as the suitable approach
as it is not only limited to solutions of research questions but also helps to explore wide range of
concepts related to research topic. Though time being one of the drawback of this method but it
can be trade off with the efficient methodologies for delivering suitable research outcomes.
M1 Justification for the selected research method
The research questions chosen for the study not only describes the concept of work place
equality and diversity but it also explore its various dimensions. The chosen research questions
analyses the significance and various policy framework used by the organisation to manage work
place diversity. The research method chosen for this study is Saunder's onion model. One of the
reason for choosing this method is that in this model various layers are used to identify and
understand the different elements of research in detail. Thus for both primary and secondary
research highly specific research techniques can be adopted. As compare to 5 stage research
method, onion model involves higher degree of precise and accurate method. Further there are
certain elements such as time frame of the study, nature of data collection methods within
primary and secondary research, philosophies and approaches are also not included in the five
stage method. Another important consideration which makes onion method highly suitable is that
it also consider ethical consideration into account so that research reliability, validity and
efficiency can be increased.
P3 Primary and secondary research using Saunder's research onion
For this research following research methods and elements of Saunder's onion are chosen
for executing this study.
Research type:
The research study can be of qualitative or quantitative. The quantitative studies uses
statistical data while qualitative studies uses only descriptive or non-statistical data. This
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