Glass Ceiling: Female Participation and Strategies to Overcome it

This essay discusses the issue of glass ceiling in the professional environment and provides strategies to overcome it. It also highlights the increasing female participation in the workplace and the need for diversity.

Running Head: Organizational Behavior
Organizational Behavior

Organizational Behavior 1
Organizational Behavior
The purpose of this essay is to provide a brief introduction of the prevailing activities of glass
ceiling present in the professional environment. Although in the current scenario, females are
moving with a faster speed and earning a reputed position in the professional world but despite
of all these success, some orthodox thinking and activities detract them from their growth
process. The below mentioned essay provides information about the female participation in
organizational activities, issue of glass ceiling and possible strategies and measures to resolve it.
Further, more details about the essay are discussed below:
Diversity in organization is one of the major beneficial factors that help a business in growing.
This aspect helps the organization in employee people with different minds and capabilities that
help them in exceling the external environment. So, concerning this aspect the female
participation in the professional world has increased as women are trying to become independent
and the companies are also welcoming more women employment than men. The gender gap in
the external environment has started depleting as women stand shoulder to shoulder to men while
working at workplace. It should be noted that by the 2000s the gap between women and men was
narrowed to 7.0 percent that is a good remark to note as by the time of 1950s, men were the
higher section of the society who owned the professional market as their contribution was two-
third at the workplace.
The new and upcoming generation is more confident and wants to become independent by
working with men present in the society (Dagher, Chen, & Thomas, 2015). Apart from the will
of the female to work in the society, the companies and the human resource management teams
present in environment provides better working place and opportunities to women to come and
work under favorable working conditions. Further, it should be noted that the organizations have
started understanding the need of diversity at workplace as it helps them in initiating sustainable
competitive advantage in the target market. Resulting to which they are focusing more on female
employment in their organization (Hellerstein, Kutzbach, & Neumark, 2015.
Also, the governments of different communities are bring forward the issue of female rights in
the society due to which they are encouraging the women present in the society to work in
business environment and gain output from their caliber. It should be noted that women are more

Organizational Behavior 2
focused as compared to men at workplace and they are loyal for their organization as well, this
aspect gives advantage to the organization to hire more women at workplace and gain
satisfaction in the market. From the last decade, the trend has appeared that the organization
where there is unequal ratio of men and women at workplace, then that organization is regarded
as inefficient organization(Sahoo, & Lenka, 2016). The reputation of the company decrease in
the market if there is less women employees employed at workplace. So, the human resource
management of the company focused on promoting women employment at workplace. Also, it
should be noted that large number of women are coming forward to perform tough jobs in the
environment.
There is no industry left where there are fewer women employees and it is also projected that the
gender inequality gap will decrease more efficiently by the year 2024 (that is upto 5.6 percent)
(Toossi, & Morisi, 2017). Concerning to this effect the governments of various countries are
developing laws to support the employment of women at workplace. The quiet revolution was a
major change in the 19th century when most of the women started working in organizations. At
that time, most of the women entered in the professional world because of necessity. But then it
became a trend that gave birth to the era of independent female worker. Thus, in this way the
number of female workers were subsequently increased from past two decades (Jeong, &
Harrison, 2017).
Source: (Toossi, & Morisi, 2017)

Organizational Behavior 3
Apart from having such unstoppable success in the environment, women in the society are still
facing such issues in the professional world. The biggest problem under this case is the problem
of glass ceiling. It refers to an invisible barrier that prevents women from attaining promotion to
high positions in an organization. Although employment of women is promoted but sadly they
are not being promoted in the organizations despite of working efficiently in the society. Even
after living in the 21st century women are suffering from this problem that they are not being
promoted in a corporation (Glass, & Cook, 2016). If a man and woman stand on the same
position and the company is going to promote an employee, then they will promote the male staff
of their company leaving the female staff on the same designation. This activity creates
disappointment among women due to which they decrease their working capacity and
subsequently leave their jobs as well. On finding that there is no scope of growth for them in the
organization, they are left with no other option than permanently leaving the job. Women in the
society are considered as less competent to handle stress as compared to men due to which they
are not given the chance to reach on the higher level and are left with on the same designation.
The glass ceiling impacts badly on women as it makes them les motivate to work effectively and
also reduces their towards work(Ezzedeen, Budworth, & Baker, 2015). A person is fully
motivated to work only when they are continuously provided monetary or non-monetary
incentives and promotions are the biggest motivation factor among employees in the
organization. So, if the women are not being promoted to the higher level even after working
hard then they loses the willingness to work.
Further, it should be noted that it is not a justification that a female is not promoted because she
is a female or she has other responsibilities to fulfill apart from working. The human resource
team in the corporate world has attained this thinking that female staff present in the
environment has to take care of their family along with their job, so they won’t be able to
successfully fulfill their responsibilities if they are being promoted to higher level. On the other
hand, they believe that men have only one obligation in the society that is to earn money so they
will totally focus on their job only. This mentality of people stagnate the growth of women in the
society (Davis, & Maldonado, 2015).
Furthermore, glass ceiling is an unethical activity that should be prohibited by organizations in
the corporate world. The companies should collectively follow strategies and measures to

Organizational Behavior 4
improve the proper flow of work in an organization. The companies should promote and recruit
the talented human resource, irrespective of their gender, caste, creed, sex, ratio etc. (Goldin,
2014). This will help them to enhance their activities in the market as well. The companies
should promote people in the environment according to their skills and talent, they should
promote the person who works better and has the ability to handle the organization in crucial
times. This will increase the satisfaction level of the employees as they will see that the
organization is giving the chance to the person who is working will in the company (Cook, &
Glass, 2014). Also, the HR team of the company should provide feedback to all the employees so
that the female staff does not feel that they are not promoted because of their gender. Further, the
companies should reassess the job requirements for the senior leadership team. Glass ceiling
occur when the company are not hiring women for higher positions, so the company should levy
some of their policies so that women can also apply for high designation is the environment.
Like experience requirement of 10 years is not mandatory is 5-7 years’ experience is also fit for
the job. In this way the women will become eligible to apply and get recruited on higher position
in an organization (Hekman, Johnson, Foo, & Yang, 2017). The company should also expand
their applicant pool so as to create a diversified workplace environment and grow effectively.
The management should also try to contact the employees (specifically women) who left the job
because of biased environmental conditions and ask them to return if they provide them dignified
position. Also, all the employees should be given equal level of opportunities so that they can
work effectively in similar working conditions and outshine their performance. The employees
present at same posts should be given equal opportunities in the corporate environment to grow.
The companies should also minimize the gender pay gap so as to retain the female employees in
the environment (Mihaila, 2016). The employees should also have the right to audit their payroll;
this will provide the advantage to the female staff to look for the pay that the company is giving
to the male staff at same position. These will keep the female staff focused and provide them
opportunities to grow in better working conditions.
Thus, in the limelight of above mentioned events, it should be noted that gender equality at
workplace is an important aspects that the companies should adhere. This process will provide
benefits to them along with the female staff in the society. Although the ratio of female
employment is growing but the effect is glass ceiling is hampering their growth. So, the

Organizational Behavior 5
corporate world should apply the above mentioned strategies for advancement of females in
organization.
References
Cook, A., & Glass, C. (2014). Above the glass ceiling: When are women and racial/ethnic
minorities promoted to CEO?. Strategic Management Journal, 35(7), 1080-1089.
Dagher, R. K., Chen, J., & Thomas, S. B. (2015). Gender differences in mental health outcomes
before, during, and after the Great Recession. PloS one, 10(5), e0124103.
Davis, D. R., & Maldonado, C. (2015). Shattering the glass ceiling: The leadership development
of African American women in higher education. Advancing Women in Leadership, 35,
48.
Ezzedeen, S. R., Budworth, M. H., & Baker, S. D. (2015). The glass ceiling and executive
careers: Still an issue for pre-career women. Journal of Career Development, 42(5), 355-
369.
Glass, C., & Cook, A. (2016). Leading at the top: Understanding women's challenges above the
glass ceiling. The Leadership Quarterly, 27(1), 51-63.
Goldin, C. (2014). A pollution theory of discrimination: male and female differences in
occupations and earnings. In Human capital in history: The American record (pp. 313-
348). University of Chicago Press.
Hekman, D. R., Johnson, S. K., Foo, M. D., & Yang, W. (2017). Does diversity-valuing behavior
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Management Journal, 60(2), 771-797.
Hellerstein, J. K., Kutzbach, M. J., & Neumark, D. (2015). Labor market networks and recovery
from mass layoffs before, during, and after the great recession.
Jeong, S. H., & Harrison, D. A. (2017). Glass Breaking, Strategy Making, and Value Creating:
Meta-Analytic Outcomes of Women as CEOs and TMT members. Academy of
Management Journal, 60(4), 1219-1252.

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Mihaila, R. (2016). Female labor force participation and gender wage discrimination. Journal of
Research in Gender Studies, 6(1), 262.
Sahoo, D. K., & Lenka, U. (2016). Breaking the glass ceiling: opportunity for the
organization. Industrial and Commercial Training, 48(6), 311-319.
Toossi, M., & Morisi, T. L. (2017). BLS Spotlight on Statistics: Women in the Workforce
Before, During, and after the Great Recession.