Organization Behavior Structure Processes Issues 2022

Gender Gap
Organization: Behavior,
Structure, Processes

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Gender Gap
Diversity Management: Gender Gap
There are several issues that are confronting the modern day business. Diversity management
is one of the most critical aspects of them. In this regards it is essential that firms notice the
challenges they are facing in the diversity management and hence optimising their processes
s as to overcome those issues. In the modern day business units there are people from
different parts of the world working together from both the genders (Antonczyk, Fitzenberger
& Sommerfeld, 2010). There had been significant debates about the gender equality but it has
not been managed in an appropriate manner. In spite of the policies, regulations and rules
made by the organisations it has become difficult for the management to make sure that they
are able to deal with the gender equality appropriately. This essay is going to discuss the
diversity management in terms of gender gap in the Australia.
Gender gap arises in various areas of HRM. This includes giving priority in the promotions.
Glass ceiling is one of the most significant challenges that firms are facing. This is not only
practiced at executive levels as the data suggests that in Australia the numbers of women that
are placed at the executive levels are lesser than that of the men. There are still 13 companies
on the ASX 200 with no women on their boards and there is significant drop in the female
appointments means the AICD’s target of achieving 30% female representation by the end of
2018 (Ethicalboardroom, 2019). This is the case even when the women comprises of 47%
among all the employees within Australia. Other important issue in such diversity gap is that
that women are not paid as much as men. There is an increment in the gap between the pay of
men and women. Approximately women are paid 15% lesser than when compared to men.
However the gender pay gap had been reduced to 14.5% from 17.2% (Australian Human
rights commission, 2018). In 2017, Australia was ranked at 35th position on global index for
measuring gender equality (Kennedy, Rae, Sheridan & Valadkhani, 2017). The situation is
worse for the women that comes from other ethnic backgrounds or are from the minority
sections.
Smith, Caputi & Crittenden, (2012) believes that it is not that management not wants people
to go at the top but it is also seen that men employees also do not want women to be a boss.
Hence in order to manage the better team environment within organisation, management is
also not promoting women after certain levels. At the lower levels this diversity gaps is not so
much reflective. There are different points of views towards it. For instance another

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Gender Gap
researcher Berry & Franks, (2010), the gender gap is also seen in the areas like rewards
where it is also seen that women have to do much more in order to get recognised when
compared with their colleagues who are men. In the case of promotions, salary increase,
reward distributions etc. are also some of the areas where there is discrimination at certain
levels. There has been a perception made that women employees are better handlers of
customers hence their roles are also defined according to it only where positions such as
customer support, front desk, HRM etc. are given to the women employees and men are
posted in the core jobs. This automatically makes the average pay of the women employee to
be on the lower side.
The first and the most important reasons of not placing the women at the top of the
management or at the CEO position is that there is rhetoric in the society of Australia where
it is said that women are not able to handle the pressure and are weaker in making strategy
decisions. It is also believed that women have greater responsibilities at home hence they are
not able to fully dedicate their time to their professional life (Soleymanpour Omran, Alizadeh
& Esmaeeli, 2015). This is also reflected in terms of the fact that Australian society is highly
segregated in terms of genders where female employees seems to more in the industries such
as child care, health and community services, aged care.
It has also been seen that the political endowment of women have also decreased in Australia.
This has reduced their say in the government policies hence getting reflected in other aspects
of the society such as business houses. Another major reason behind it is fact that there is a
quite larger numbers of people that have experienced sexual harassment or any kinds of
physical and sexual violence in their lifetime (Adapa, Rindfleish & Sheridan, 2016). It is also
seen that there are quite larger numbers of women who leave jobs after their marriage and
hence companies also restricts themselves from investing into the women employees. Cases
such as paid maternity leaves also play a negative role in their progress within the workplace.
It is also believed that it is difficult for the women employees to work for additional hours
and even management cannot force them to do so hence they are understood as lesser
committed participants in the organisational development.
Mayes & Pini, (2014) it is also a fact that the pipelining of women have not been done
appropriately. This can be illustrated by the fact that Women that come within the
organisation are negotiating with the HR on the lower salaries when compared to men. This is
because their previous owners have paid her lesser. They are not in the position to negotiate