Diversity Initiatives of Woolworths: A Critique and Recommendations

This presentation provides a critique of the diversity initiatives implemented by Woolworths, an Australian supermarket chain. It discusses the company's diversity policy, employment parity initiative, and gender transition recommendations. The presentation also highlights the importance of diversity in the retail industry.

Introduction

Company Overview
Woolworths Supermarket is an Australian based
supermarket/grocery store chain owned by Woolworths
Limited (Woolworths Group, 2018) .
Founded in the year 1924, the company deals in selling
groceries i.e. vegetables, fruits, meat, and packaged foods. It
also specialises in other items, i.e. pet and baby supplies,
magazines and variety of goods.

Diversity Initiatives of firmWoolworths Group has been engaged in
recognising and celebrating the
multicultural diversity.
The company has established their
diversity policy, which includes vision,
objectives, principles, and
accountabilities.
A diversity and inclusion strategy and
remuneration has been developed by
Woolworths (Ferguson, 2016).

Source of Information
For the completion of the assignment on the brand
retailer, ‘Woolworths’ I have obtained information
from the secondary source.
Secondary source includes the analysis, synthesis,
interpretation and evaluation of the data from the
primary source (Klettner, Clarke and Boersma, 2016).

A critique of diversity initiatives
Woolworths has adopted the diversity and inclusion strategy,
which embraces the element of cultural diversity within
organisation.
In the FY16, it has been found that the company, more than
39% of the positions has been hold by the women (Groeger,
Moroko and Hollebeek, 2016).
Employment parity initiative stated the successful initiative of
the retailer to ensure employment to a large number of people.

Recommendations
Gender transition, is one major aspect of recommendation for
the company in retail industry.
Woolworths aim to create an inclusive and lively workplace
which ensures workplace diversity.
Recommendations related to the initiatives related to diversity
within firm, is obtained using the recent literature and market
survey in context to supermarket (Shimeld, Williams and
Shimeld, 2017).

Additional sources
To state the importance of the recommendations
mentioned in the preceding slides, it can be stated that
organisations attain high performance practising
diversity.
On the aspect or factor of growing trend
of retail sector or industry (Mongkolhutthi,
2018).

References
Ferguson, P. (2016) Productivity growth as a barrier to a sustainability transition. Environmental Innovation and
Societal Transitions, 20, pp.86-88.
Groeger, L., Moroko, L. and Hollebeek, L.D. (2016) Capturing value from non-paying consumers’ engagement
behaviours: field evidence and development of a theoretical model. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 24(3-4),
pp.190-209.
Klettner, A., Clarke, T. and Boersma, M. (2016) Strategic and regulatory approaches to increasing women in
leadership: Multilevel targets and mandatory quotas as levers for cultural change. Journal of Business
Ethics, 133(3), pp. 395-419.
Mongkolhutthi, P. (2018) October. Understanding what binds teachers together: workplace culture amongst EFL
teachers in Thailand. In The Educational Forum (Vol. 82, No. 4, pp. 406-424). United Kingdom: Routledge.
Sewell, W., Mason, R.B. and Venter, P. (2017) Socio-economic developmental strategies as retail performance
indicators: A balanced scorecard approach. Development Southern Africa, 34(3), pp.365-382.
Shimeld, S., Williams, B. and Shimeld, J. (2017) Diversity ASX corporate governance recommendations: a step
towards change?. Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, 8(3), pp.335-357.
Woolworths Group. (2018) An Inclusive place to work. [online] Available from:
https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/page/community-and-responsibility/group-responsibility/our-people/an-
inclusive-place-to-work [Accessed 19/05/19].
Woolworths Group. (2018) Woolworths Supermarket. [online] Available from:
https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/page/about-us/our-brands/supermarkets/Woolworths [Accessed 19/05/19].