Introduction to Management

This essay discusses the importance of diversity in the workplace and how to manage gender inequality. It explores the case of Australian company AGL and its approach to workplace diversity.

Introduction to Management 0
Title: Introduction to Management
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Introduction to Management 1
Contents
Introduction........................................................................................................................2
Diversity in the Workplace.................................................................................................2
Conclusion.........................................................................................................................7
References.........................................................................................................................8

Introduction to Management 2
Introduction
The organizations that have a diverse workforce are more likely to succeed than
the ones where diversity is absent. The main benefit of having diversity in the workplace
is that it provides different perspectives and opinions to deal with challenges. A diverse
workforce is more skilled, experienced and focused towards innovative and creative
approaches. Although it provides more opinions at the same time, it also creates chaos.
People belonging to different communities have different attitudes and sometimes it
gets difficult to coordinate and adjust with one another. However, a good management
system can maximize the pros and minimize the cons of a diversified workforce. The
purpose of this essay is to address the diversity issues at the workplace with special
regard to gender diversity issues. Some approaches to managing gender inequality in
the workplace are also discussed. Further, this essay also offers an insight into the
various diversity issues prevailing and also informs about the Australian Company AGL
and the way it manages the workplace diversity.
Diversity in the Workplace
Workplace diversity issues are not uncommon. The organizations have to battle
with such problems every day. The diversity at workplace promotes acceptance, respect
towards one another, values culture, age, sex, ethnicity, and more. The main diversity
issues that exist in the workplace, even today, are acceptance and respect, belief
accommodation, ethnic and cultural differences, gender inequality, disabilities, age gap,
language, and communication (Bond and Haynes, 2014). The diversity issues which still
affects the working of an organization include the ethnocentrism. Through this
approach, an individual attains the habit of judging everything according to the values
and knowledge of their own culture. Also, due to this approach individual tend to adapt
to prejudice approaches. This affects the beliefs between employees and thus, the
issue of acceptance also emerges. The issue of ethnic and cultural difference is the
main problem which many workplaces face, this is due to the past experiences, the
distinctive traits of few cultures like clothing, social approaches, and many more (Martin,
2014). The biggest issue which surrounds workplace diversity is discrimination,
harassment, and unethical behavior towards people with physical or mental disabilities.

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Nepotism is a common practice which promotes discrimination and in many
organization, people tend to discriminate with individual’s having disabilities. Just a
baseless opinion that the disabled person will not be able to perform more, creates
further issues of workplace diversity. This also highlights the stereotypical behavior of
people to judge people on the basis of their personality, background, and religion. All
these different issues affect the functioning of an organization, but one issue which
affects the workplace diversity the most is gender inequality.
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It is a known fact that women have made great strides in different fields but the
issue of inequality still persists. According to many studies, this has been found that
women are paid only eighty percent of what men are paid, for equal work (Ozgen,
Nijkamp and Poot, 2015). The issue of gender equality in the workplace persists

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because of many different reasons like gender role, persisting gender biases, cultural
views, and many other reasons. The gender role issues arise as in a workplace the
employees are asked to invest long hours, along with being able to go on any instant
traveling trips, also they should adjust with unwanted transfers. Now, all these different
roles are considered to be tough for men and for women people have this opinion that it
is impossible for them, therefore, this arises gender inequality (Gupta, 2017). The other
factors that contribute to gender biases are cultural beliefs, job profile, organization
structure, and the communication pattern practiced in the organization. For instance,
construction jobs are looked at as labor-intensive work, thus, this perception that
women are unfit for such work, therefore many of the construction organization hesitate
to hire women workers. In some of the culture, women are looked at as weaker sex and
thus, this creates inequality which is, therefore, practices at the workplaces too
(Henderson, Simon and Henicheck, 2018).
Some of the other aspects which are fueling gender inequality at the workplace
include sexual harassment, racism, and unequal promotions. The issue of sexual
harassment is conducted with women at the workplace too, and the majority of them
gets unreported and unnoticed. Due to this, the gender inequality at the workplace
increase. The aspect that an incident of sexual harassment gets unnoticed provides
power to the offender to take mileage of such situation and continue their heinous acts.
This affects the environment in the workplace. According to reports, around 81% of
sexual harassment cases with women are not registered. Another factor that increases
gender inequality is payment to women. Earlier, it was mentioned that women are paid
less in comparison to men. But, a more shocking fact is that there is a discrimination
which exists between women as they are paid on the basis of their race and ethnicity.
This discrimination on the basis of race is a major gender inequality issue surrounding
many organizations. Apart from this, other issues surrounding gender inequality is the
different promotion patterns followed in the organization. According to reports the
chance of promoting a men employee are higher in comparison to a women employee
who has been working in an organization for the same amount of time. Gender
inequality does not only happens with women, but it also happens with people who are

Introduction to Management 5
homosexuals and transgender. In many of the organization, transgender people are not
even selected for the recruitment process.
It is crucial that these issues of workplace diversity and gender inequality should
be addressed with various managerial approaches. In an organization, it is crucial to
prioritize communication as it helps in transforming the prejudice opinion of people,
which is the main cause of issues of workplace diversity (Warwas, 2016). The
communication also means that an organization should clearly inform the employees
about the organization’s policies, procedures, rules, and regulations. This approach of
facilitating clear communication in the organization will help in ending the cultural
differences, prejudices, and also problems which arise due to the language barrier
(Springer, 2016). The other aspect which needs to be managed is increasing the level
of coordination between employees and getting used to working in diverse groups. The
organizations should develop diverse groups or teams and force these groups to work
in collaboration on a project. The organization should also conduct a diverse training
session, this will help in building trust between employees and the employees will also
learn to appreciate each other strengths and will learn from each other. Through this
approach, the issues of ethnocentrism, gender inequality, and many others can be
controlled (Verniers and Vala, 2018).
The issue of gender inequality requires special attention, thus in an organization,
all the harassment issues and racism issues should be addressed and reported to the
head. For an organization to end gender inequality, it is crucial that all such incidents
should be reported in the organization, along with punishing the offenders (Bukowska,
2016). This will create awareness against unethical behavior against women and will
also help in reducing gender inequality in the organization. In addition to this, it is crucial
for the organization to appoint a strong leadership role to women. This will help in
transforming the environment of the organization and the men employees will learn to
work with female heads, which will end the traditional working environment of
organizations (Stamarski and Son Hing, 2015). This will help in developing an
empowering atmosphere in the organization. The other change which should be
implemented in the organization is that employees or potential employees should not be

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judged for their preference of sexuality. Therefore, the organization should openly
welcome all the employees, they can be both homosexuals and transgender. By openly
welcoming new employees in the organization, issues like bullying and discrimination
can be controlled, which will also help in maintaining and managing the workplace
diversity effectively (Mizera‐Pęczek, 2016).
In the Australian organization AGL, workplace diversity is given humongous
importance. The organization believes in gender equality and thus, treats all the
employees equally. The organization believes in evaluating employees on the basis of
their skills and talents, as this helps in retaining talented employees in the organization,
which is beneficial for the company (Magalhães, 2015). The organization values the
diverse environment at AGL, be it the customers, employees or the stakeholders and
the organization’s approach of inclusive workplace culture helps in encouraging and
supporting the diverse working environment. The organization AGL believes in treating
all the employees with equal respect and fairness, thus, they have strict rules for
discrimination, sexual harassment, bullying, and other unlawful and unethical behavior.
This is the core key to developing an effective and diverse workplace environment. The
organization AGL is also searching for different ways to support, manage, and maintain
their diverse working environment. The organization also reflect these diverse
approaches in their annual strategic plans, initiative, policies, and procedures (Carter,
2017).
The AGL is a large public enterprise that has set an example for all other
organizations. It has 30 percent of females as board members. In the year 2019, the
company has 40 percent of women in major roles in the company. In addition, it wants
to increase this percent even more. The head of AGL's energy supply and origination is
Phaedra Deckart, she is an example of the company’s gender equality. Along with this,
the organization’s inclusion strategy is a broad aspect which helps in managing the
various issues of workplace diversity. Through their inclusion strategy, the organization
is able to create a safe workplace environment for all employee and also they have built
an environment which openly welcomes homosexuals, bisexual, intersex, and

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transgender. Also, with people with disabilities and old age, are also give equal
opportunities to excel and perform in the organization (Maheshwari, 2019).
Conclusion
Thus, according to the complete analysis, this can be formulated that to develop
an effective diverse workplace environment, it is crucial that the top management of the
organization clearly communicate their policies and procedures and also should not
ignore any unethical and unlawful behavior in the organization. The gender equality
environment can be conducted if the organization provides equal development and
performance opportunities to all the employees. Along with this, the organization should
encourage diverse group working environment. All these different aspects will help the
organization in increasing their productivity, also the organization will develop a strong
image in the market. Like the organization AGL, which has developed a powerful brand
image and have attained massive success due to their strong approaches towards
gender equality or any unethical behavior in the organization.

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References
Bond, M. and Haynes, M. (2014). Workplace Diversity: A Social-Ecological Framework and
Policy Implications. Social Issues and Policy Review, 8(1), pp.167-201.
Bukowska, U. (2016). Social Engagement of Employees. Kwartalnik Ekonomistów i
Menedżerów, 39(1), pp.41-54.
Carter, E. (2017). Workforce Diversity -- A Journey Through Inclusion and Diversity in the
Workplace. Journal - American Water Works Association, 109, pp.14-16.
Gupta, N. (2017). Gender inequality in the work environment: a study of private research
organizations in India. Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion: An International Journal, 36(3),
pp.255-276.
Henderson, M., Simon, K. and Henicheck, J. (2018). The relationship between sexuality–
professional identity integration and leadership in the workplace. Psychology of Sexual
Orientation and Gender Diversity, 5(3), pp.338-351.
Magalhães, C. (2015). Review of Sexual Orientation at Work: Contemporary Issues and
Perspectives. Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, 2(2), pp.205-206.
Maheshwari, N. (2019). Beyond relational diversity: managing workplace diversity and team
composition with Indian psycho-philosophy. International Journal of Management Concepts and
Philosophy, 12(1), p.41.
Martin, G. (2014). The Effects Of Cultural Diversity In The Workplace. Journal of Diversity
Management (JDM), 9(2), p.89.
Mizera‐Pęczek, P. (2016). Antynomies of Creative Attitudes of Employees. Kwartalnik
Ekonomistów i Menedżerów, 42(4), pp.0-0.
Ozgen, C., Nijkamp, P. and Poot, J. (2015). The elusive effects of workplace diversity on
innovation. Papers in Regional Science, 96, pp.S29-S49.
Springer, A. (2016). Attitudes in Workplace – Diversity, and Interdependence of
Concepts. Kwartalnik Ekonomistów I Menedżerów, 39(1), 11-28.

Introduction to Management 9
Stamarski, C. and Son Hing, L. (2015). Gender inequalities in the workplace: the effects of
organizational structures, processes, practices, and decision makers’ sexism. Frontiers in
Psychology, 6(1), pp.2-8.
Warwas, I. (2016). Attitudes Towards Older Workers Economic Activity– Employers’
Perspective. Kwartalnik Ekonomistów i Menedżerów, 39(1), pp.107-122.
Verniers, C. and Vala, J. (2018). Justifying gender discrimination in the workplace: The
mediating role of motherhood myths. PLOS ONE, 13(1), pp.3-7.
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(2019). Retrieved from
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